{"id":4303,"date":"2012-11-16T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2012-11-16T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=4303"},"modified":"2012-11-20T16:24:23","modified_gmt":"2012-11-20T21:24:23","slug":"liberal-heartland-calgary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=4303","title":{"rendered":"Liberal Heartland Calgary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Like most Liberal campaigns launched in Calgary, Martha Hall Findlay’s leadership bid is a longshot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wednesday was not a typical day for Calgary Grits.<\/p>\n

While leadership candidates must all fly into town, knowing the party’s weighted-by-riding leadership system makes a vote there far more valuable than a vote in Toronto, I have never seen a serious candidate launch <\/em>their leadership campaign from the heart of Conservative country. But there was Martha Hall Findlay<\/a> at the Stampede grounds, declaring her intentions<\/a> to run for Liberal leader.<\/p>\n

It’s tempting to write off the Calgary launch as a meaningless prop, but politics is all about symbolism and Hall Findlay may very well be the closest thing to a “Calgary candidate” to ever run for Liberal leader. She’s an executive fellow at the University of Calgary, once lived in the city for a few years, has family in the area, and employs a Calgary-centric campaign team. Yes, she might very well get steamrolled by Justin Trudeau, but what says you’re the Liberal Party’s “Calgary candidate” more <\/em>than crushing defeat? Or having your hopes dashed by a Trudeau, for that matter?<\/p>\n

Even more surprising on Wednesday, was a poll<\/a> showing Liberals on the cusp of history in the Calgary Centre by-election:<\/p>\n

Joan Crockatt (CPC) 32%
\nHarvey Locke (Lib) 30%
\nChris Turner (Green) 23%
\nDan Meades (NDP) 12%<\/p>\n

Now before we all get visions of Calgary’s first Liberal seat since Trudeaumania (the first <\/em>Trudeaumania, that is), it’s worth considering Forum’s shaky reputation and the small sample size (n = 376). I don’t think anyone <\/em>believes this poll is accurate, but the question is how <\/em>inaccurate it actually is.<\/p>\n

After all, parts of this riding are red provincially (or green <\/em>now, thanks to the ALP’s rebranding<\/a>), and Naheed Nenshi won over 50% of the votes in the riding during the last municipal election. It’s a downtown riding, and although they’d never admit it, downtown Calgarians have a lot more in common with downtown Torontonians than with Nanton ranchers.<\/p>\n

So even though the Tories got 57% the last election, by-elections are strange animals and Crockatt is a divisive figure – I would not be surprised to see her at 40-45% on by-election night. And that puts us squarely in Linda Duncan territory, where a coalition of progressives could <\/em>actually win.<\/p>\n

Of course, Alberta progressives have a habit of tripping over their feet anytime they get remotely close to power. So we’ve got the Greens attacking<\/a> the Liberal candidate for “just visiting”, and the Liberal candidate calling the Green candidate “a twerp”. While there are coalitions<\/a> calling for strategic voting, this poll paints a picture of the Greens pulling away enough vote to let Crockatt hold on – even though the Liberal candidate is an environmentalist who founded the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.<\/p>\n

So, in all likelihood, it will still be a few years before the Liberals actually win a seat in Calgary. Or until we get a real <\/em>Calgary leadership candidate. But Calgary Liberals were closer to both those accomplishments Wednesday than they’ve been in a long time. It was a good day to be a Calgary Grit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday was not a typical day for Calgary Grits. While leadership candidates must all fly into town, knowing the party’s weighted-by-riding leadership system makes a vote there far more valuable than a vote in Toronto, I have never seen a serious candidate launch their leadership campaign from the heart of Conservative country. But there was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1102,202,4,983],"tags":[1296,1158,1298,1299,1297,1295,1000,1003,1016],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4303"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4331,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303\/revisions\/4331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}