Colford's flight of fancy
Tory wunderkid and reader of this site Jonathan Colford is planning to carry his party's banner in the urban riding of Toronto Danforth in the upcoming election. The seat is currently held by Liberal MP Dennis Mills, and will soon be held by NDP Leader Jack Layton.
According to Colford, he's poised to "get at least 35 per cent and win with the left wing split."
Jonathan, your innocence and optimism are laudable, but at the same time, laughable.
In the 2000 election, the Alliance and Tory totals combined for about 15% of the vote in the riding, and that was without a party leader running for the NDP.
As Colford will (or at least, should) know, Canadian voters have a remarkable propensity to defer to party leaders in elections. For instance, despite the Liberals being out of favour in most of the West, then-Liberal leader John Turner won Vancouver Quadra in 1984. In the 2000 election, Joe Clark won Calgary Centre in the middle of the Canadian Alliance heartland. It was his party's only seat west of Manitoba.
There will be no left wing vote split in this race -- it will be a Layton romp. If I were putting money on it, I would guess Layton will rake in around 60%, Mills 30-35 and the Tories (presumably Colford, if he wins the nomination on Monday) 5-10.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:32 AM
