Is the “Liberal Express” Playing Offence or Defence?
[Welcome National Newswatch readers!]
During the last election as part of my stint with the Canwest Bureau in Ottawa, we worked on a story about the first week of the Leaders’ Tours, looking at what ridings they went to, and whether this meant they were playing offence or defence. David Akin wrote the story, which is still online here. Actually the analysis stands up pretty well, in retrospect, given what we now know to have been the campaign’s outcome. If the Leader was travelling to a riding held by one of his or her opponents, we called it “playing offence”, whereas if they travelled to a riding they already held, we called it “playing defence”, with some reasonable exceptions.
In the story, Liberal strategic pundit Warren Kinsella confirmed the importance of the tour in determining a party’s strategy, and said that examining where one’s opponents go is the best way to gauge how they think they’re doing, part of the daily assessment in every election warroom.
As observers we can use that same methodology to discern how the Liberals think they’re doing now. One cool new thing we can do, as well, is consult the Google Maps for every riding and see who won the polls Mr. Ignatieff is actually visiting.
For example, Ignatieff’s first stop today after Ottawa was in St. Albert, ON, which is in the Conservative-held riding of Glengarry – Prescott – Russell, ON. Offence, right? But the two St. Albert polls both voted Liberal in 2008, if you consult the Google Map. So, tour organizers clearly found a friendly spot in the riding to drop in on, which honestly, is only the smart thing to do. Casselman, where everyone stopped for doughnuts first if you’re following all the breaking news on Twitter, also voted Liberal (all 5 polls in fact), as did virtually all of Hawkesbury, including Poll 102 which contains the Maison de l’Isle.
So, here’s the published list of dates and locations for the first leg of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s summer bus tour, dubbed “the Liberal Express”, followed by a grid showing the ridings they visited.
- Orleans: BBQ with Michael Ignatieff (Tonight!)
- Parliament Hill Launch Rally (July 13)
- St-Albert: Visit to Cheese Co-operative (July 13)
- Hawkesbury: Whistle Stop (July 13)
- Cornwall: BBQ with Michael Ignatieff (July 13)
- Brockville: Whistle stop at Tait’s Bakery (July 14)
- Kingston: Lunch and town hall with Michael Ignatieff (July 14 – participate online!)
- Napanee: Whistle stop at Tim Horton’s (July 14)
- Peterborough: BBQ with Michael Ignatieff (July 14)
- Cobourg: Habitat for Humanity home build (July 15)
- Ajax-Pickering: Town hall with Michael Ignatieff (July 16 – participate online!) *** I’m assuming the July 16 here is a typo, since the event page says July 15
- Durham: Local Heroes Tribute and BBQ (July 15)
- Markham: Farmer’s Market Visit (July 15)
- Orillia: Whistle stop at Webers (July 16)
- Barrie: Farmer’s Market visit (July 17)
- Barrie: Garden Party (July 17)
- Caledon: Strawberry Social Whistle Stop (July 17)
- Brampton: BBQ with Michael Ignatieff (July 17)
| Stop(s) | Riding | Last Cont. |
Last Mrg% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday, July 12 | |||
| Orléans | Ottawa – Orléans (location) Ottawa – Vanier (named) |
Cons–Lib Lib–Cons |
6% 19% |
| Tuesday, July 13 | |||
| Parl. Hill | Ottawa Centre | NDP–Lib | 14% |
| St. Albert Hawkesb’y |
Glengarry – Prescott – Russell | Cons–Lib | 10% |
| Cornwall | Stormont – Dundas – South Glengarry | Cons–Lib | 38% |
| Wednesday, July 14 | |||
| Brockville | Leeds – Grenville | Cons–Lib | 41% |
| Kingston | Kingston and the Islands | Lib–Cons | 7% |
| Napanee | Lanark – Frontenac – Lennox and Addington | Cons–Lib | 34% |
| Peterboro’ | Peterborough | Cons–Lib | 16% |
| Thursday, July 15 | |||
| Cobourg | Northumberland – Quinte West | Cons–Lib | 20% |
| Ajax-Pick | Ajax – Pickering | Lib–Cons | 7% |
| Durham | Durham | Cons–Lib | 31% |
| Markham | Oak Ridges – Markham | Cons–Lib | 1% |
| Friday, July 16 | |||
| Orillia | Simcoe North | Cons–Lib | 22% |
| Saturday, July 17 | |||
| Barrie (x2) | Barrie | Cons–Lib | 28% |
| Caledon | Dufferin – Caledon | Cons–Lib | 34% |
| Brampton | Brampton – Springdale (location) Bramalea – Gore – Malton (MP named) Brampton West (included) |
Lib–Cons Lib–Cons Lib–Cons |
2% 8% 0.4% |
Is every single seat being visited a “target seat” for the Liberals? Of course not: the bus needs to stop and fill up the tank sometimes, TV reporters need filing time, and the party wants to fit in stand-up interviews with news shows like the CBC’s Power and Politics. So, if you’re driving through a town at the right time, it might make sense to stop anyway, even if it’s a seat the party has not won in the last 50 years.
Some other criticism has come on Twitter, claiming that the tour is not visiting certain parts of Ontario. But they’ve just published a week’s worth of itinerary so far, so I would not draw any hard conclusions about that as yet.
Still, I think we can conclude from the first week’s itinerary that the Liberals:
- are trying to regain Ottawa – Orléans and Glengarry – Prescott – Russell with their new candidates
- are obviously very keen to hold Kingston and the Islands, in the wake of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken’s recently announced retirement as the Liberal M.P. in this riding
- are paying attention to the traditional bellwether seat of Peterborough
- are taking the threat of Conservative candidate (and former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan) Chris Alexander seriously in Ajax – Pickering, where he’s running against two-term Liberal M.P. Mark Holland
- would love to retake Oak Ridges – Markham where former Lui Temelkovski is running for reelection against first-time Conservative M.P. Paul Calandra
- are trying to reassert their presence in the fastest growing part of Ontario (the Barrie area)
- are concerned about the strong Conservatives showing in the Brampton area last election. Gurbax Malhi is the M.P. specifically named in the event description (although his family name is incorrectly spelled as Mahli), however the event is actually located in neighbouring Ruby Dhalla’s riding, and “Brampton MPs” are the special guests. (It might also be written that way because Mr. Malhi represents neighbouring Bramalea – Gore – Malton, thus “Gurbax Mahli and the Brampton MPs” might be more correct. It’s usually considered significant by the parties themselves which MPs and candidates are named in an event notice, however.)
In not every case is Mr. Ignatieff stopping in polling divisions won by Liberals either once I checked them all. But in some cases, the choices of where *not* to go are as interesting as the listed events. For example, why travel all the way up to Simcoe Country to Simcoe North, and not drop in on Simcoe – Grey where incumbent M.P. Helena Guergis is now running as an independent? Also (and this might be a function of starting off in Ottawa and working east), so far the tour has only visited ridings held by Liberals or Conservatives, not by the NDP (with the exception of the kick-off on Parliament Hill).
A couple ridings along the route don’t have candidates yet: for example, the outcome of the contested nomination in Ottawa West – Nepean is not yet determined, which would explain the Ottawa barbecue’s east end location. Also Ken Cole recent stepped down to attend to family concerns in Prince Edward – Hastings which might explain why Napanee in neighbouring Lanark – Frontenac – Lennox and Addington was chosen over Belleville. I thought Durham didn’t have a candidate yet, but was wrong because Bryan Ransom appears to have received the nod (I’m still hunting down the dates, and details in order to add him to the database). It also appears that 2008 candidate Steve Clarke has also been renominated in Simcoe North, although the tour is not stopping in his Orillia restaurant, Brewery Bay, but at roadside burger joint Webers instead. I’ll get these folks added in as soon as I can.
So, are the Liberals playing offence or defence? What do you think? Let us know in the comments section.
Meanwhile, I’ll get to work on updating the Liberal nomination news tonight.
Tags: Liberals, Target Seats
i wouldn’t make alot out of some of the stops on this tour , as you say the bus has to fill in time and Ignatieff might feel obligated to support some candidates with a visit even though his strategists know the riding is unwinnable anyways . they may also just be testing the waters in some ridings to see what kind of response and press they get . and then try and determine if its worth pursuing or not . and don’t forget the tory’s have treated there ridings very well with funding and such so they will be extremely hard to move and likely stay blue anyways after so much work has gone into securing them the last 4 years in some cases . a visit by iggy isn’t going to undue 4 years of hard work by these mp’s .
Thanks for the analysis. It’s an interesting metaphor. It looks to me like training camp or outward bound. The bus is Liberal Express not leader’s bus tour or Team Ignatieff. Not only is Ignatieff getting schooled in main street politics, (he likes to call it retail politics) other MPs and candidates are watching, learning and adapting to real Canadians and grassroots communication. If Harper doesn’t call an election, the Liberal party will go through an exercise in real vulnerability and bonding as a team. Of course, the reality is that the team will probably go through the phases of highs and lows like all those reality tv shows we love to hate. Hopefully, Michael Ignatieff will have a summer he wants to remember.
Just to note, I know for certain the Liberal Express will be stopping in Halton region, specifically Oakville and Halton ridings. It isn’t on the itinerary yet, but these are confirmed events.
As for the lack of NDP ridings – really, what NDP ridings are out there in Eastern Ontario except Ottawa Centre? Most are Liberal-Conservative battlegrounds, except for Oshawa.
When Iggy moves into Southwestern Ontario, I guarantee he’ll be hitting Hamilton ridings, as well as London-Fanshawe and Windsor-Tecumseh, both ridings with popular councillors running as candidates.
It looks like Liberals are continuing with a defense strategy hoping to bring out some friendly faces.
In this heat without a free cold beer how many of us are going to drop by during the middle of the week to meet any politician?
Thank you for another great post and insight.
Nice analysis. One thing I noticed in your breakdown is that only two Tory ridings (ORM and O-O) are within 10% of going Liberal; there are five Liberal-held ridings that the tour is stopping in this week, including two very close ones in Brampton. Even if you consider Brampton as a general area, it tells me that the Liberals are definately trying to defend their turf, even as they sniff around a few target seats that they see as low hanging fruit in the event the government makes a big gaffe before the next general election.
Cheers!
The trip into Dufferin Caledon is literally just a few hundred yards into the south edge of the riding – just outside Brampton. It’s one of the bluest seats in the province and the event is located to attract more folks from the north end of Bramalea than it is to attract from Dufferin Caledon.
Was it offence or defence to have the bus break down and get on the national news? :)
Seems like a fairly even mix of offense/defense, although they are being careful to play on friendly ground while doing both.
I wonder if we’re collectively reading too much into this whole trip? I suppose there’s a giant void of political news right now and Ignatieff is seeking to fill it. One feels like this is their last shot and Donolo is calling in his last favours to get this thing covered.
Witness that odd CPC memo last week questioning the EKOS 10 point lead. They felt the poll was an outlier and didn’t want an Ignatieff surge narrative when new, non outlier, results showed a closer race.
Witness the outrage over Ignatieff’s Hugo Chavez impression and childish attempt to blame the rain on Harper. “Conservative weather” he called it (do we really have to politicize the very heavens?).
Regrettable and ill mannered gaffes sure but really not such a big deal to warrant so much attention. It even caused leftist political commentator Aaron Wherry over at Macleans to go on the defensive for Ignatieff. Sometimes saying nothing is a better approach.
Then there’s those “Just Visiting Tour” T-Shirts and a van that showed up in Ottawa mocking the exercise!
And finally witness the bus breaking down.
Oh the metaphors! He’s doing the reporter’s work for them. It garnered this story:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/ignatieffs-bus-breaks-down/article1638845/
I’m going to see how this thing unfolds over the next few weeks before I form any opinions about this endeavor. It might be something or it might be nothing.
So what you are saying is that this is not a “getting-to-know-you” tour for Ignatieff … it’s essentially a pre-election campaign tour.. in anticipation of a Fall election..!!!
Why is Ignatieff electioneering … while PM Harper is working on government business through the summer???
Is that the Liberal scheming in action???
A lot of interesting comments tonight.
RCO: “Testing the waters” is a good metaphor for a variety of things they’re trying to do, I think.
Jennifer (nominated Liberal candidate in Calgary West): “Training camp” is another apt description, I agree.
Volkov: The wonderful BC news site “Public Eye Online” published a draft itinerary of the tour here. The Oakville date seems to be July 31.
CS: As I said, we’ll have to take another look as to the balance of offence-vs-defence across the whole schedule. You can take a look at what Sean Holman put up on Public Eye Online, and make a better overall assessment.
Matthew: Actually, I did an analysis before the last election of previous results and found that close margins in one election don’t necessarily predict the majority of the seats that change hands in the next election. It’s other factors as well, including incumbency, candidate search, local and national issues, etc., etc. Some seats in loyalist eastern Ontario only ever went Liberal in 1993 because of the divergence of the conservative parties, but historically are very very conservative normally. I’m not surprised not to see a lot of close races in this particular area, but if you’re starting out in Ottawa, there are only so many routes to make your way to Toronto.
Sam: Thanks for the background on the Caledon stop. I think that may have been the one stop I didn’t look up on the maps (I confess, I got worried the “bus would leave” on the timeliness of my post, if I didn’t stop and hit publish quickly!).
Julie: This is exactly why I prefer to liken politics to backgammon rather than chess. You have to position yourself to maximize the damage of good luck, and minimize the damage of bad. But luck is always a feature, isn’t it! Andrew Coyne was right tonight, to de-emphasize the ultimate importance of the bus incident, and I don’t know of one event planner who didn’t secretly feel terrible for them over that breakdown. Of course, Mr. Ignatieff will be measured by his reaction to it, and rightly so, but his reaction didn’t seem so bad to me. If they’re out there to learn, they got one really good lesson out of the way good and early, didn’t they!
Shadow: I’m inclined to agree that the Conservative reaction thus far has been very attentive. You fear it may have an unintended consequence, in creating a backlash of sympathy for Mr. Ignatieff. I suppose that’s always possible. There is really nothing like watching a media feeding frenzy in full flight, and it’s very hard to turn it off and distract attention somewhere else, but sure enough that’s how it always ends … with attention turning elsewhere. If one has strong fundamentals, the short-term vagueries can be weathered. It’s when the trivia is the only game in town that a political leader and party becomes vulnerable, in my view.
Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to leave such interesting comments.
OK, Observant, we usually try to keep our political analysis a little more dispassionate here.
You’re not telling us that the Prime Minister didn’t do some summer touring when he was in opposition are you? Because the history books documenting that time would indicate otherwise.
We like to take data points and discuss them here, or take the talking points and study what they can tell us about the various actors’ strategies. People who visit this blog are partisans and interested in politics, but they try not to be partisan in the comment boards.
But, perhaps you raise an interesting question: maybe we should also be asking whether Mr. Ignatieff’s tour is putting the governing party on the defensive. Because there is an awful lot of retweeting of certain photos going on right now, rather than discussion of these serious issues of governing you mentioned. So, how should the governing party be responding, in your view?
Alice I was thinking more about the issue of the media attention and gov’t response to this tour and I believe it is a strong indication that a fall election is likely.
This doesn’t feel like a normal tour. Ignatieff has gone on tours before. He did a campus tour some time ago.
There was no war room response at the time. He was largely ignored. This feels like overkill. The strategic objective seems to be to deny Ignatieff any semblance of momentum. Keep Liberal morale depressed and Ignatieff personally off balance.
Meanwhile the Liberals seem to be devoting a great deal of resources towards this tour. They have their war room working on the tour and providing support/coordination to MPs and candidates. At their very well designed website the tour is being given blog style coverage.
This seems like a dry run before a fall election. And the gov’t seems to be using this as an opportunity to test out some of their offensive messaging.
Senator Finley’s recent comments on a possible fall election were the first time in recent memory someone from the Harper team even mentioned the possibility of an election. This comes at a time when a segment of media pundits are convinced that a fall election is imminent. I’ll be watching for more signals in coming days.
The training camp notion is interesting. If the war room group is along then that sounds like the right label. Mind you, they have new people doing that, so theres a particular need to get them doing something concrete.
Its also true that at this point Donolo has been doing training for quite some time. But keeping at it and not panicking speaks of a steady hand.
I’m kind of wondering if they’ll keep entirely to the safe and tame ‘get acquainted’ theme on this tour. Or might at some point use all that talent and need for trying things out to initiate something more edgy.
Use that war room only to disable attacks, or use at it at least some to initiate themes.
Being adventurous hasnt worked for Iggnatieff. But part of what he has to break out of is that he’s a talking nobody in a nice suit.
honestly i think the media and everyone is making too much out of this tour . and its not the first time a liberal leader has gone on a quick tour of ridings not during an election , paul martin did it in 2004 . anyways the more i think about this tour i realise its more about saving igntaieff’s leadership than actually winning ridings . he wants to be seen by liberals as the strong leader who’s going into tory ridings . even though they know some of those seats are pretty blue and not likely to go liberal . there is also a bit of a strategic risk for the liberals here as there revealing what ridings there going after and they don’t exactly have much resources/money when compared to conservatives so they may also focus some extra attention on these ridings if the liberals are really going to target them .
I was at Iggy’s visit to Kingston and having done a lot of summer BBQ events, this was not one of them. This was an election rehearsal. I came away convinced we’re having a fall election, although he dodged that question.
Ian thanks for the first hand account. The stakes of this tour have quickly risen to “make or break”:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/michael-ignatieffs-make-or-break-summer-tour/article1639034/
Now there is word that Ignatieff might be leaving for academia. Normally i’d dismiss this as Tory mischief but Travers is NOT a sympathetic pundit to the Harper gov’t and wouldn’t do them any favours:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/835891–travers-u-of-t-offers-ignatieff-an-exit-plan?bn=1
In my opinion a fall election is now 100% likely. Perhaps on a cost cutting mini-budget.
On another note, even though Ignatieff has the 307th worst attendance rate in parliament, its not unreasonable for him to have no clue what people are talking about when they refer to bills by their house number. There are hundreds of the thing every year and when they are re-introduced their names change.
Still, it would HELP if he’d just come out and say that instead of pretending to know what people are talking about for fear of looking ill informed:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/kingston-voters-school-ignatieff-on-legislation-that-matters/article1640064/
Very interesting analysis.
I was at the event in Ajax this afternoon and Mr. Ignatieff was warm, reasonable and definitely PM material. Interesting though – I did not see a CTV, CBC or Global camera there – just local stations. Perhaps they are using a pool camera. I think that the Liberals are playing both offence and defence. They need to grow their support in the key battleground of Ontario.
PG, agreed it is too early label it with 100% certainity “saving the furniture” tour if I had any faith in the x-tour to devote resources in strongholds in NDP, CPC, Bloc held ridings. ( I don’t) This pattern is repeating itself from Dion with small turnouts of less than 200 people per stop in marginal ridings for recapturing from the CPC-NDP.
Is this the fourth or fifth x-tour to ignite Iggymania?
I would agree with Shadow this looks to be a pre campaign tour from the Liberals with the NDP-CPC war rooms engaged. Announcements from the Government targeting Toronto ridings of $ 2 million in Crime Prevention.
Momentum, and not having controversy stick. Telfon, Dad McGuinty label.
Some in the media are unhappy the PM are not getting blame for the G20 fallout.
Attracting star candidates or marquis names is difficult for a political party not expected to win.
Green recently lost their Quebec star to the Bloc, the Liberals not faring so well, and this inside baseball stuff from CPC camp.
Federal Tories courting Clarke, Kelly
http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1192211.html
Are these ridings in play?
The early part of the tour is not offense or defense. They are sticking close to the Hill so that the paid staffers can travel to the event to make the crowd look bigger and giving the tour a good start.
Is the long form census effectively voluntary already ? I’m interested to know how many “exemptions” are given out to people like Warren Kinsella who for privacy reasons refuse to fill out the form:
http://warrenkinsella.com/2010/07/its-the-long-form-census-election/
As for the Liberal leadership tour, i’ve been somewhat surprised by how brutal some of the press have been lately. Usually these things are ignored but we’ve seen utter fascination, stakes being raised to unreasonable levels, and then everything crashing down into Ignatieff bashing. Its prompted Alfred Apps to release this incredible memo:
http://www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/005146.html
Anyone think the Liberals adopting the old Stephen Harper attack the media approach under communications director Sandra Buckler is a good idea ?