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19/02/01 |
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Email: |
| Steve Orcherton could hold on to this riding, but it'll be a fight. |
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20/02/01 |
Bernard Schulmann |
Email: bernard.schulmann@lillonet.org |
| Civil servants under the NDP are wishing for the Socred era. Victoria is a government town and they want the NDP out. Steve Orcherton had a chance to like Rick Kasper and show himself to be indepdent minded and make an impression as an MLA. Victoria will now switch back to being Liberal turf as it is federally. The Liberals have also gone a long way to meeting the interests of the professional civil servants, the merit commissioner is very popular in Victoria. |
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22/02/01 |
AL |
Email:alehrer@sprint.ca |
| Civil servants like having a job. I don't see why they would be pining for a return to the Socred era (in the form of Campbell's Liberals) if that means probably cuts to public spending and the civil service. |
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05/03/01 |
Tiny Tim |
Email: |
| Steve Orcherton is a terrible MLA. Combine that with the fact that in a government which has let everyone try their hand at being a cab-min Orcherton has never even been considered. Victoria voters are too saavy to allow such a terrible MLA serve any longer than this. Orr on the other hand appears to have a strong campaign team, and Victoria voters may vote out Orcherton just to get him out of that seat so they can elect a strong NDPer next time. Remember that many people said that the Oak Bay - Gordon Head riding was unwinnable last time because the NDP always did well there and were running their Finance Minister. I fully expect this one to turn Liberal on election day. Additionally, note the strong Alliance and Liberal votes in these polls federally where the NDP had campaigned HARD, and ran a former mayor. |
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06/03/01 |
love elections |
Email:d_parker71@hotmail.com |
| Unfortunately this will be NDP on election night, not because of the lacklustre candidate, but inspite of him. |
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07/03/01 |
Just a Hunch |
Email: |
| This will be a battle ground. Well organized and well funded labour organizations will give Orcherton the energy and support he needs to go over the top. This will be the only seat they hold on the Island. NDP HQ will pull everything they have out of all other campaigns on the south Island to hold the seat. Watch as workers from both Saanich seats, Esquimalt and Malahat are pulled in to get the job done. Steve will win whether he deserves it or not. Like wise Liberals will put their energy into Beacon Hill where they can pull off the win, narrowly. |
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12/03/01 |
DMB |
Email: dennisbaher@netscape.net |
| I tend to agree with "just a hunch" that this one will be held by the NDP - the fact that Steve didn't serve in cabinet will help him and if Moe chooses not to run it could very well be their only seat on the island although I am not sure that the Liberals will win in Nanaimo. |
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20/03/01 |
Hillside Green |
Email: |
| The Green Party is running a strong candidate in Hillside and is going to be a potent choice in this election. The NDP is a spent force, despised by almost everyone but their bedrock union workers. Their candidate is a rarity -- an NDP MLA who has never been selected for a cabinet post. generally, people do not want a Liberal sweep inthis election. They want an opposition, and it isn't going to be the NDP, leaving the Green party as the natural choice. BTW, the Reform Party is not running in this election, but the Greens will probably runa full slate. Could your site be changed to recognise this fact, or do you wish to continue to marginalise the Green Party? Remember what happened with Gordon Wilson in the 1991 election! |
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20/03/01 |
KH |
Email: |
| The NDP thing they have this one in the bag, but boy are they wrong. Do they think, just be Orcherton stands up against them once and awhile, that he is not tainted? He is a GLen Clark guy through and through and no one will forget it. The Liberals received a large boost early on, when Christy Clark, BC liberal Public Service, spoke to a packed house about their plans for a publi service merit commissioner. Moral is at an all time low in the public service and many public servants will vote Liberal this time, knowing that at least the Liberals have a plan. The NDP are just pretending there is no problem, like they have done with the health care crisis and the economy. |
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22/03/01 |
Interested Voter |
Email: |
| The news just doesn't get any better for the NDP. Ipsos-Reid poll out today confirms that fully 1/3 of previous NDP voters will now vote Liberal. Add to that number those who will stay home or vote Green, and no riding is safe. Green candidate is credible and is attracting attention outside of the area. Look for him to take a lot more votes from the NDP this time. |
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22/03/01 |
Bernard Schulmann |
Email:bernard.schulmann@lillonet.org |
Ipsos Reid today: Liberals 63, NDP 20, Unity 7, Greens 7
The Liberals federally won this riding and the CA came second and NDP were far out of the running with a good candidate. There is no chance for the provincial NDP to dramatically change that from last year.
All career civil servants that are NDP members (ie the vast majority) hate the NDP government. That is why the Liberals have a civil servant running for them. |
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03/04/01 |
Highland Flood |
Email:jazzpolice_99@yahoo.ca |
| This was one of the four best ridings for the Greens in '96, and candidate Stuart Hertzog is smart and articulate, known for his involvement in opposition to a pipeline under Georgia Strait among other things. Orcherton hasn't been called to serve in cabinet in five years. I can't think of any other NDP MLAs who haven't been (except Kasper, who's now out of the party). No one questions his union credentials, so he'll hang onto a core of support. But the rest will evaporate, and it will not go to the Liberals. As in the neighbouring riding of Beacon Hill, you have a lot of university students (even in summer), many people who take the environment seriously as an issue that affects all other issues, and a lot of people who are below, at, or near the poverty line. These people are justifiably suspiscious of the Liberals, but they also no longer have any doubt that the NDP in government doesn't care about them. When the NDP makes a move to help out students, the environment, the poor, or seniors, it's right before an election and it's only cosmetic or short-term. The Greens have a more comprehensive platform than most people realize yet, but I believe their message will catch on with former supporters of ALL parties, NDP and PDA especially but even the Liberals. What used to be a huge NDP majority will disappear. It will be a three-way race between the Greens, Liberals, and NDP, and any momentum on the part of the Greens province-wide could see Hertzog become one of 2 to 6 Greens elected. |
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04/04/01 |
Bernard Schulmann |
Email:bernard.schulmann@lillonet.org |
1) I made an erro in my post above, that was supposed to read "all the civil servants that are not members of the NDP (which is the majority)"
2) The green prediction, the greens have been stuck at about 6-8% for about 4 years now. There has been no marked change in the last year. There is nothing to indicate that the Green vote will concentrate anywhere in BC to break 30%. I would be surprised if the Greens managed to break 10% in this riding. During the federal election they did not do very well here. There is a single riding in BC where the Greens are comparable to a serious political party, that is Nelson Creston. |
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09/04/01 |
Highland Flood |
Email:jazzpolice_99@yahoo.ca |
| I'm sticking with my prediction, even if it's more from the heart than from the head. Could the risk of an NDP wipeout frighten people in this riding into sticking with the NDP rather than taking a chance on the Greens? Maybe. In the federal election, people supported incumbent Liberal MP David Anderson who might otherwise have voted for the NDP or Greens, because they worried that the Alliance had a shot at forming the government (hah!), and because they thought Anderson had a decent environmental record. Orcherton won in '96, which was the closest provincial election in my memory, and maybe took a lot of potential PDA or Green votes from people scared of the Liberals - but both smaller parties still did quite well in this riding. Had the NDP been assured of a majority, the Greens might have done even better. All this goes to say that I'm not sure how the NDP's current dismal chances province-wide will affect voting patterns in this riding. If the Greens emerge as more of a viable opposition party than the NDP (and it's possible: they have a shot at winning Nelson-Creston, while the NDP may only win Jenny Kwan's seat or no seats at all), the NDP vote could slump even here, and the Green vote surge. |
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21/04/01 |
Bernard Schulmann |
Email:bernard,schulmann@lillonet.org |
| The Greens are not a factor in the riding. There is not enough of a Green presence in the riding to get the vote needed to be taken seriously. Anything less than 25% would be another fringe result. The Green Party will take somewhere between 5-7 percent - possibly less as theere seems to be little indication of them being able to run a full slate. In fact I think they will be running less candidates than in 1996. At 5-7%, the Victoria Hillside result will be around 12-16%. Keep in mind that the Greens have almost no one running with any goverance experience. They have very few people elected at the local level (the farm leagues of provincial politics). The campaign knowledge and experience of the party has fallen in the last year. The Liberals will win the riding that used to be their provincial stronghold. The NDP will come second and the Greens will be closer to the Marijuana Party than the NDP in votes. |
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27/04/01 |
Barney B. |
Email: |
| Highland Flood is smoking something from the Marijuana Party platform. The Greens will not win this blue-collar seat. In fact it will be one of their poorer showings in the Lower Island. I say Orcherton will get returned, but he'll have to fight for it. His riding has one of the larger NDP memberships and I expect he'll get preferential attention from the unions. Sheila Orr is hungry for the vanities of politics and she's running hard. In a relatively inexperienced pool of Lower Island Liberals, Sheila is a heavy weight. But if I were to bet on which Liberal might utter a blunder, it would be her. |
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02/05/01 |
Michael Ensley |
Email:mensley@yahoo.com |
| The campaign here was running strong with volunteers and a high NDP membership even before the debate. Look for Victoria Hillside and Victoria Beacon Hill to express their concern about the agenda of the Campbell liberals by voting for a strong opposition. |
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02/05/01 |
Mark R. |
Email:markusrobinson@hotmail.com |
| This riding will go Liberal, but it will be a close one. As for Bernard Schulmann suggesting that anything less than 25% is on the fringe is just silly rubbish. Look, the Green Party did better than the NDP in the North Delta by-election a couple years ago (NDP garnering something like 2-4%). Reform BC last election did worse than 25% provincially in the previous election (and even won 2 seats) yet can hardly be considered fringe either. Fringe is "less than 10%" of the vote, which is about where the Greens are sitting right now. They are on the cuspe, so to speak. Hell, the Unity Party (at an abysmal 2% according to Ipsos-Reid's last poll) is more fringe than the Green! What will happen in this riding is that the Greens will siphone 8-10% from the NDP, which will elect the Liberal candidate. That's all folks! |
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06/04/01 |
t. chamberlain |
Email: |
| Several factors will swing Victoria-Hillside over to the Liberals. 1. Steve Orcherton does not enjoy the confidence of his own party (has never held a cabinet position) 2. His main criticism of the Liberal candidate rests on the fact she does not, at present, own real estate in the Hillside riding 3. The Green Party will divide the NDP vote somewhat (but not as much as in the Beacon Hill riding) 4. A bankrupt building supported and promoted by Orcherton (2750 Quadra St.) stands as a mute testament to NDP economic incompetence. (To add insult to injury, Liberal candidate Sheila Orr rents space for her campaign office in this very same buildling!) 5. Current revelations re. Doman deal will further add to NDP malaise. |
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13/05/01 |
DMB |
Email:politics101@telus.net |
| I am sticking with my early post and giving this one to the NDP - while the latest poll #'s for the capitol region showing both the NDP and Greens up somewhat and with the risk of a vote split still looming large there is another trend that is starting to emerge as we get closer to E day. If you look at the likely survivors in McPhail, Kwan, Farnsworth, Smallwood, Ocherton, and Stevenson - all but Tim Stevenson have strong labour roots and it appears that the BC Fed etc are putting their resources into the few ridings where there is a strong labour incubment - such is the case with Steve Ocherton. Having said all this if the Greens reach 20% in the area then all bets are off. NDP hold. |
