Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau wants your vote. If you think of yourself as a Liberal, he hopes he already has your vote. And if you are what is called a progressive or Red Tory, he will go out of his way to win your vote. It is likely that as much as a third of the Conservative Party’s base vote is made up of these socially conscious voters and they are really the ones being fought over in the upcoming October election.
A shift of as little as five per cent of voters moving from the Conservative to the Liberals can make the difference between a Conservative or Liberal government. And at the same time, both the parties have to stem any losses to the New Democrats.
Luckily for Trudeau’s Liberals, the Quebec battle is head to head confrontation between the Liberals and the New Democrats. The Conservatives have mostly deserted that field and the Bloc is already vanquished. All the Liberals need is the same turnout this year as there was for Philippe Coulliard’s provincial blue Liberals last year.
Badly weakened New Democrats in Ontario change the dynamics there. Yet it is the right wing Liberals at Queen’s Park that Trudeau needs to copy. He will get lots of support from that bunch. He needs to mine the affluent suburbs of Ontario to win over that soft red Tory potential. Women voters will tip the balance in many of those ridings and you can see why Trudeau was ruthless with potential candidates who were anti-abortion.
While British Columbia can no longer offer a balance for Alberta and Saskatchewan, the province is still a strong ally in fighting Harper’s energy policies. Mind you this is one province where it will be a three-way fight between the parties.
But Trudeau’s latest problems are the sops he needs to handle the growing concerns of the left-wing Liberals. His middle class drive remains purposely undefined and his return to the classless baby bonus approach says that he can share left-wing solutions.
Trudeau has to remember how former Prime Minister Paul Martin gave the back of his hand to the party’s left-wing when he was Finance Minister under Jean Chrètien. He might have won the convention for the party leadership after that but he never won back the Liberal Party.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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