Thursday, August 28, 2008

The local federal election scene

So it looks like the federal election will come. I have my own strong opinions on the issue.

I am annoyed the fed election will fall right into the middle of the local elections all over BC. Here in Victoria it is going to make the local election races even more disconnected from the public.

Here is a quick run down of the local federal ridings

VICTORIA
Denise Savoie is the incumbent. A New Democrat that finally picked up this riding for the party. I suspect that she will win again because I can not see a situation in which anyone else will be able to win.

Jack McCintock is running for the Conservative party. I like Jack and know he would make a very good MP. He is personable and would bring a good shot of experience as a cop to the governing caucus. He is also a conservationist.

Anne Shannon is the Liberal candidate. I do not know much about her, but demographically she is good fit with Victoria. She has been a senior civil servant and done related work in that sort of line since then.

Esquimalt Juan de Fuca
Keith Martin is coming back for a sixth term and a third time as a Liberal. I always wondered what he was doing in the Reform Party and not surprised that he changed to the Liberals, though I think he did not handle changing parties well. His last two elections were by much, much narrower margins than before.

Troy DeSouza is running again for the Conservatives. Troy is a very nice guy that will be a good retail MP for the riding. I think he has some chance of getting elected, but it is going to be a close race.

Jennifer Burgis is running for the NDP. This woman should be an MLA and would a be much better MLA than most of the New Democrats currently elected in the area. Frankly she would be a much better leader of the NDP than Carole James. The NDP is not doing well federally in BC and do not give her much hope of winning.

Saanich and the Gulf Islands
Gary Lunn is running again for the Conservatives. I can not see a situation in which he will lose. No one other candidate can appeal to enough people to get much over 30%.

Briony Penn is running for the Liberals and is considered a bit of a star for the party. She seems have locked up second place in the race, but I do not see her being able to pull off a win.

Julian West is the NDP candidate. I have known Julian for about 11 years now through our time working on electoral refrom issues. Julian is very smart but he is not a people person. I see the NDP's vote dropping to under 20% and possibly below the greens.

Andrew Lewis running for the Greens again. His vote went down last time, but with the Greens running at twice their support levels than in the 2006 election and the good media coverage of Elizabeth May, I suspect he will get a lot of media coverage and will break 20% of the vote.

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