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Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com. This summer I am joined by Keir Wilmut and Omar Soliman.
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Where the Conservative leadership race is headed
Given the embarassment suffered by those who tried to predict ahead of time the outcome of this week's Iowa caucuses, I'm hesitant to make political predictions on anything. So I won't. I will instead assess where the leaderhip is at, with all candidates now officially declared, and where it might be going in the next 8 weeks.
Right now, this race is Stephen Harper's to lose. He's been organizing and planning for weeks, he has support in every region of the country (except maybe Quebec) and he is well-funded. He is also the person who really pushed this merger through, and deserves a lot of credit for that.
So, what to make of Clement and Stronach? They are both very far behind. Stronach appears to be spending a lot of money, buying up most of the country's top political consultants and organizers. Clement has a lot less money, but solid grassroots support in Ontario. The question is: can these two sell enough membership in the next 40-odd days to catch up to Harper?
Yes, but it's going to be rather difficult. The way the leadership voting system works is that party members will vote only once, ranking their choice of candidates preferentially, from 1 to 3. If any candidate gets more than 50% of first choice picks, they become the new leader right there. But if not, second picks are taken into account. So the trick is keeping Stephen Harper under 50, thus forcing the second choice votes to be used.
I think that if Stephen gets anything over 40% on first choice picks, he'll win. As we saw with Ernie Eves in the Ontario Tory leadership vote of 2001, more than 40% on a first ballot virtually ensures victory on a second ballot simply due to momentum and inertia. (ie. at least 10% of other candidates' supporters will go to the frontrunner on a second ballot if they have more than 40%). Therefore, Clement and Stronach essentially have to split at least 50%, but more likely 60%, of the first choice votes between them.
That will be very, very difficult. But if they ever did do that, there's a strong chance Harper could lose, because, presumably, the second choice of Clement supporters would be overwhelmingly Stronach, and vice versa. Seeing who finishes second will be quite interesting.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:06 PM
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