19 01 06	Bug Eyed Pete
I have to respond to the last posting from "Burford Liberal". Come on! There aren't any Liberals in Burford! I know, I was born there. It really is Reform country were Liberals aren't welcome. Same with Paris where even a very popular provincial Liberal like David Levac takes a beating. St.Amand won't win a single poll in Burford or Paris and with it looking more and more like a Conservative government, he won't win many polls in Brantford.
	18 01 06	Burford Liberal
First and foremost, rural does not, repeat does not, equate conservative. Historically, Southwestern Ontario votes Liberal, not Conservative. Southwestern Ontario is; surprise, surprise; largely rural and always has been. Secondly, while gratuitous conservative predictions might make lovely self-congratulatory aids, they often totally ignore the most basic of facts about the ridings, as is the case in Brant. Take for example the suggestion that "Brant is made up of three communities. Burford and Paris which are rural and very redneck, and Brantford which is traditionally centre-left. St.Amand will be crushed in Burford and Paris by such a large margain that he won't be able to make it up in Brantford". To begin with, Brant also has the communities of St. George and the Six Nations reserve. Good to see the Tories taking in all the facts and caring about the Natives, as usual. Furthermore, Paris is a Liberal stronghold. They don't vote tory there. Look at the polls in the past. As for Burford, it's fickle, not conservative. The people of Burford could go either way. St. George and the Six Nations are Liberal friendly themselves thanks to Tories attacking natives non-stop and St. George being the home of Mayor Ron Eddy (former Liberal MPP) and the Stewart/Nixon dynasty. McColeman has no ties to the County though and his party's attack on supply management is frightening to dairy farmers in the area. To that end, no one should lay too many chips on Brant County voting Conservative. In the event that they do though, "Whose Socks", who has clearly never seen Brant County on a map, let alone set foot in it, would be well advised to consider the fact that the County doesn't have even half the number of votes that Liberal-friendly Brantford does. Finally, to debunk the final statement of "Frog Mouth"'s that has not yet been exposed as baseless conjecture by other posters, let me just say that he ought not count his chickens before they hatch in Haldimand-Norfolk. Diane Finley is not doing as well as one might think, even with sagging Liberal fortunes. It seems that after the major candidates debate in which her head was handed to her repeatedly, she may be the only Tory incumbent running for re-election in all of Canada not going back to Ottawa, despite high conservative fortunes. All that said, Lloyd is going to be in for a night of nail-biting on the 23rd, but his chances of going back to Ottawa as the MP for Brant are still very much alive.
	18 01 06	Chicken Wing Charlie
Dave Levac won Brant in 1999 against a Mike Harris majority because he's one of the few candidates who can win a riding on his own. Levac will still be an MPP years from now. St.Amand is nowhere near the level of Levac. He doesn't have the profile, the money or the team that Levac has. For that reason St.Amand is just one of those politicians who comes and goes depending on what happens at the central level. The last nail in the coffin here is that McColeman is well liked in Brant and put together the best campaign the Conservatives have run in this riding in decades. I've also seen a return of the base NDP vote in Brant as St.Amand's weakness has allowed the New Democrats who traditionally had a base in this riding return to probably get 15 per cent of the vote. McColeman can starting looking for a place close to Parliament Hill because he's going to win this one easy.
	17 01 06	KRS
Brantford's population generally seems to be a creature of habit. It only changes its mind when absolute change forces its hand. For years it stuck with the NDP for everything until unfortunate circumstance of a recession destroyed them provincially. Now they generally vote Liberal mainly due to having two very well known locals running in recent times; current MPP Dave Levac and former MP Jane Stewart. Levac's popularity and affiliation to the Liberals may be enough to get St.Amand elected and it also helps that St.Amand is the incumbent. Recognition goes a long way in Brant.
	17 01 06	neo
Brantford does not have a history of voting with the winning party. Recent history shows the exact opposite. Brantford elected NDP Derek Blackburn as MP for over 20 years despite Liberal and Conservative governments in Ottawa. Provincially, MPP Dave Levac won his first term despite a Conservative win.
	17 01 06	DTC
Considering that Six Nations is located in this riding and the Conservatives are talking about ripping up a tentative agreement with the aboriginal Canadian people, I can't see a Conservative winning here. That said, it appears that the Liberals may go the way of the dodo. With strategic voting, that makes me think NDP. There is a large rural portion to this riding, that could be assumed to vote Conservative, but a good slice of that is the Six Nations Reserve. Brantford itself is unique and definitely not Conservative. Ipperwash is still in the news here and the Harris/Harper connection is not lost on this riding.
	16 01 06	Who's Socks?
Like most of South Western Ontario, this riding is going to the Tories. Here's why. Brant is made up of three communities. Burford and Paris which are rural and very redneck, and Brantford which is traditionally centre-left. St.Amand will be crushed in Burford and Paris by such a large margain that he won't be able to make it up in Brantford. McColeman won't win many polls in Brantford but he won't lose them by much. That means McColeman wins Brant.
	13 01 06	Frog Mouth
Lloyd St. Amand didn't set the world on fire in the last election campaign and was lucky the Conservatives in the area were all in Haldimand-Norfolk trying to help Diane Finlay knock off Bob Speller. This time Diane is running away with her riding so local Conservatives are now working to take Brant. Phil McColeman is a much better candidate than the weak Greg Martin who ran for them this time. Brant is a riding that goes with the winners and this time it looks like a Conservative minority at least. St. Amand doesn't have the profile or team to hang on. I'll say McColeman wins by 1200 votes.
	08 01 06
I think this riding is going to stay Liberal for the following reasons: 1. On the door canvas no one is yelling at me - not like 17 months ago when the provincial Liberals introduced the health tax. 2. On the door canvas a very large number of people are extremely polite and seem to know who the local Liberal candidate is this year - which is very reassuring and makes me believe St. Amand has made an impact locally. 3. The Tory candidate's brochure is a mess. Its way too glossy and he looks like a televanglist with the perfect white middle class family or a car salesman. Its way to "swarmy". 4. The Tory candidate's brochure has no real "theme" to its message. Its more like a "vote for me because I am the Tory" rather than message about local issues or one main message. (Sorry backroom guys - "leadership" is not a meaningfuly message nor is "he is working for you".) 5. Finally we lost a alderman who resigned from city counsel. The right wingers on counsel suggested Elaine Sokoloski a two time losing conservative candidate for PCs in Ontario be "appointed" to the ward. Sokoloski is also one of the federal candidates "brain trust" advisors. This could hurt McColeman locally as it demonstrates Tory disdain of the electoral process at the local level. P.S. for the political science geeks out there - watch for a spike in the riding's native vote which will be noticed and reported after the election. Someone three months from now will have a great newspaper article about increased political activism among this important segment of our population. Note to Bear and Ape - drive through either of the two reserves sometime for a real feel of this rural riding. Its not like other soutwest rural ridings. And neither are the issues. This riding will not change on Jan 23.
	04 01 06	Alsadius
This one will be close, and it could swing back to St. Amand if the Tories melt down again like they did last year, but assuming they can avoid doing anything boneheaded on the national scale, this one will flip just given Tory poll numbers of late. McColeman isn't as well-known of a candidate as Martin was, but he's a bit more likeable, which is probably a wash. This one will swing based on provincial/national numbers, and all signs are pointing to a big swing for the Conservatives, so this one will move with it.
	02 01 06	Neo
I have lived in Brantford all my life. This is not a socially conservative riding. Federally, 13 years as a Liberal riding and the 20 years before that Brant went to the Dippers. Provincially, very strong local Liberal MPP who demolished Conservative candidate in the last Provincial election. Conservative Candidate was a member of the Liberal Party last year. So much for strong conservative roots in the community.
	02 01 06	Jay McDonald
Lynn Bowering is back, and this is great news for the NDP. Lynn pulled 4 percent more than the average Ontario NDP candidate did in 2004 with little or no help from the federal party. As for the riding, well we know it was NDP for 22 years and that Lloyd St. Amand is the second to last Liberal backbencher in party whose fortunes are sinking quick. McColeman is the corporate candidate of choice for Brant, which as a riding has traditionally been on the left to far left of the spectrum. In short, this is a legitimate three-way race. I wouldn't expect that lightning bolt to come down until election night.
	26 12 05	Bear and Ape
Prediction change from Liberal to TCTC. The CPC has gained alot of ground in SW Ontario, and St.Amand has not been around long enough to have voter loyalty ala Roger Gallaway. Plus as we said earlier (despite the protestation of some) this riding has a significant rural portion which is akin to other nearby rural ridings (read: conservative). If we are talking about more urban ridings falling to the Conservatives in places like Kitchener and London, then we should see Brant fall first. Wait and watch...
	20 12 05	Rebel
Brant will be on the first ridings to fall to the Conservatives, given any kind of Tory swing...I would describe it as an example of the socially conservative ridings with a strong working class component. It was close in 2004...Any decline in the Liberal vote (most polls are showing them running a little behind their numbers last time), combined with a robust NDP campaign, and the Conservative will win...like in neighbouring Cambridge.
	30 11 05	James Grant
This riding is exactly like Sarnia-Lambton (519 area code!) in the fact that its a riding dominated by an urban center (also less that 100,000!). The last time through a significant rural figure ran there and was defeated soundly by the urban incumbent. This one stays Liberal I believe for the same reasons Sarnia will.
	24 11 05	Brant Liberal
Yes, yes, yes big open spaces but nobody lives in these big open spaces. This riding is urban and will vote with 905, not 519.
	15 11 05	Bear and Ape
The 10 minute drive to Ancaster is through a lot of farm fields and might as well be a million miles apart. (Ape drove through this riding this past weekend and took note). It is not an urban riding as Brant Liberal claims, but to be fair it is not really a rural riding either. It would best be compared to Sarnia-Lambton, where there is a large town dominating the riding and fair chunk or rural added on. The impression we got from the people in Brantford is that they are somewhere between the Liberal-for-now voters of most of urban southwestern Ontario (like those in places like London or Kitchener-Waterloo) and fairly conservative voters or the smaller towns in the area, yet to the hard core conservatives you find out in the sticks of these parts. The result would be a Liberal win by a margin they'd hope was larger but not going to happen. A kinder, gentler Conservative party could easily take it but not this time. Brant will fall to the Conservatives before the true urban SW Ontario ridings fall, but not this time.
	17 09 05	M. Lunn
When I earlier said this riding was a rural one, I meant it had no city over 100,000 in it, which is generally at what point an area switches from Conservative to liberal. I don't think the Jane Stewart HRDC scandal while have much impact since Lloyd St. Amand had nothing to do with it. Also this time around the liberals have the incumbent advantage, which they didn't last time. The only real trouble they face is the Tories will likely focus more on winnable ridings as opposed to non-winnable and this will definitely be one of their targets.
	26 05 05	A.S.
The first post-Jane Stewart election in Brant presented a murky scenario. With a relative unknown in St-Amand, the Liberals held on, but w/only 2/3 of the 2000 share, just 5 points ahead of the Tories (who tied in the advance polls). Also, while still well behind its daunting Derek Blackburn-era heights, Brant's once-regnant NDP machine--given up for dead in the 90s--recovered a surprising lot of its old energy under Lynn Bowering, suggesting perhaps that the party was barking up the wrong tree by emphasizing Laytonian lefties over its more traditional meat-and-potatoes demo. Yet the prevailing anti-Grit pattern, as across most of SW Ontario, favours the Tories. But the murkiness is such that each of the three major party's shares has a whiff of the "only" about it: "only" 38% for Grit, "only" 33% for CPC, "only" 22% for NDP. Of course, among a Gomery-i-fied electorate, one big strike that can be held against Brant's Liberals is Jane Stewart's chequered legacy as a Chretien favourite...
	16 05 05	Brant Liberal
Brant a rural riding? I do not think so. It takes 10 minutes to get to the outskirts of the City of Hamilton (i.e. rich Ancaster) via the 403. Home building new starts in Brantford and Paris plus the traditional decline of rural Canada make this riding a decidely urban riding. As Mr. McColeman noted the night of his nomination, this riding has not voted Conservative federally since the Diefenbaker landslide in the late fifties. The Liberals will probably hold this riding provided Ontario stays red.
	13 05 05	Don S
Phil McColeman, a small business owner, was nominated last night for the CPC. The previous nominee for the CPC lost to the new Liberal candidate Lloyd St. Amand by less than 10% last election, so the big question becomes can a new CPC candidate defeat an incumbent Liberal. Lynn Bowering is running again for the NDP. Brant was once a solid NDP town, but the labour vote has disappeared along with Brant's manufacturing jobs.
	09 05 05	M. Lunn
Traditionally this was a left-leaning riding, but as the focus has shifted from economic to social issues we are seeing many traditional urban Tory ridings go liberal while traditional rural liberal ridings go Conservative. The Conservatives had a strong showing here and were able to win in liberal strongholds such as Essex, Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry, and Renfrew-Nippissing-Pembroke. If the liberals can maintain a 10 point lead in Ontario, they will probably hold this, but this will be a close one and is definitely a prime target for the Conservatives.