Wednesday, October 14, 2015

What went wrong for the NDP (or what went right for the Liberals)

I have a theory.

I first noticed the uptick in the polls for the Liberals the day after Trudeau said he'd be willing to run a deficit. This continued, with more and more polls showing an uptick. Even I was impressed on a personal level as it was quite a gutsy move.

For years now, right-wingers, both in Canada and in the US, have tried to make us believe that deficits are things people on the left-wing do. The evidence does not back this up, but yet those in the Republican Party and the Conservative Party continue to push this idea.

As such, Trudeau saying "I will run a deficit" was interpreted as "I am left-wing". It seems this sparked many people to begin to look at Trudeau, the Liberal Party, and their policies and platform. This is what helped bring the Liberals into a neck and neck (and neck) 3 way race for first.

It was only after the Niqabs that the NDP started to fall away, fueled by racism concerns over immigration in Quebec. Since the NDP and Liberals share an anti-incumbent voter base this election, it was no surprise that this lead to the Liberals rising.

Now that we are years away, we can look back at 2011, and see how the NDP did so well. The french debate. That one NDP ad in Quebec.

When we look back at 2015, beyond just Niqabs, we will - if I am correct - also see Trudeau's deficit pronouncement as key.

And despite that, I actually don't expect Trudeau to run many deficits, if any.

If not for these two things, we could be looking at this as our final result.

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