Add yesterday's by-election results to my long list of failed predictions. While I never wrote it here, I had been telling people privately that last week's poll showing the Liberals trailing in Outremont by six points would give the Liberal base the jolt they needed, thus propelling them to victory.
Wrong.
The NDP's Thomas Mulcair, who favours unilateral surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan and a withdrawal of Canadian forces yesterday, garnered almost half the votes cast in a crushing victory in the leftist riding.
The Tories won handily in Roberval, further solidifying the party as the non-separatist alteranative outside the 514 area code. The NDP and Tories are the winners (although the Conservatives were privately saying they thought they had a good chance in St. Hyacinthe) and Duceppe is the loser. Dion is not just a loser here, he's seriously wounded.
Not since -- actually, never, I think, although I stand to be corrected -- has the Quebec electorate refused to embrace a native-son leader. Until now. Stephane Dion, the very francophone, pure laine leader of the Liberal Party is getting his butt kicked in his own province by anglophone Calgarian Stephen Harper.
Things in politics can always change -- often overnight. But at the moment, the outlook has never been so bad (in Quebec, at least) for Stephane Dion.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 5:53 PM
