OK. NOW are we ready to get rid of Carole?!

Maybe they should try polling people if they can figure the difference b/w NDP and BCL, or if the write-off Vancouver-Fairview's riding, Greg Robertson is an NDP or BCL.

Under Carole James' leadership, NDP has succefully made legislature a lot more peaceful than it used to be. According to this analysis, if NDP akes the legislature even more silent, then they should be looking at single digit seats in Victoria.

While I firmly believe Gordon Campbell will preside over Olympics, this number is looking too optimistic. I certainly can see how u can come up with number with adjusting % in each riding's 2005 result with current polling number. But if you think that NDP is going to give up every single seat in lower mainland east of Vancouver, I say that is not going to be realistc.

I've seen it all before, and I've seen it all from the same Mr Shulmann before.

His basic arithmetic is simple enough, a straight forward spreadsheet application, and in that context who can argue. His estimates of incumbency advantages are necessarilyh more subjective, however.

The basic problem here, as with all Canadian seat projection models, is that the polling data in Canada, unlike the US, is not screened for likely voters. Anyone who answers the phone is good enough to be included, whether or not they will ever actually vote. In the US, pollsters are aware that turnout has fallen to about the 50% mark and they therefore identify likely voters for inclusion in their estimates. In Canada no such screening is done.

A bit early to speculate. We're approaching the half way point between 2005 and 2009.

I wouldn't put Farnworth in "moderate" as he has a good voter base in his riding and will most certainly win the seat (despite objections from
Greg Moore's Merry Men).

Burnaby Edmonds isn't a write off NDP seat, since
it is held by an incumbent, and the last campaign for the BC Liberals did not show any net voter growth.

Burnaby North is ripe for the NDP, if they get a
strong NDP candidate over there. There is an incumbent, but he did not win by much.

But again, it is too early, since BC's political environment is notoriously unpredictable at best.

But having said that, it would be best for BC to have the NDP retain the seats they have or add just a few more to keep the BC Liberals on their toes afterwards.

Oherwise they will end up being complacent or worse more arrogant than they already are.

A new NDP leader would be a good place to start.

It is interesting that Vancouver-Fairview is considered a write off. That gives more credence to the Gregor Robertson for Mayor rumors.

By and large, I think these are correct. I think the NDP party numbers were abit inflated in Surrey last time around and would put a seat or two into the marginal territory. By the same token, I would raise Farnworth to safe. He's the third most visible NDPer in the press after James and Dix, and is the most moderate of the caucus. Appears very frequently in the press always slamming the Liberals from the right on crime and he's a good constituency MLA.

I think every Burnaby seat is gone for the NDP Party. It's changed too much and the Liberal MLAs there are doing a good job.

Diane Thorne could pull it off in Coquitlam, but doubtful. Would need major help from Farnworth.

Gregor knows he is toast and probably won't stick around.

Of course, riding redistribution could have an effect and it is two long years away.

From what's described above it looks like Mr Schulmann applied the province wide change in provincial popular vote, from EDay 2005 to the Ipsos Reid poll, to all ridings equally. But that is not what the Ipsos Reid poll indicates.

It shows a huge Liberal lead in Greater Vancouver of over 20 points, and a much smaller lead of 7 points in the rest of BC. Yet Schulmann does not seem to use this information in his model. I suspect the reason is that to do so would show a somewhat less dramatic set of losses for the NDP.

Of interest in the poll is the huge gender difference. The Liberals lead by 26 points among men, but by only 8 points among women. People who have been over-trained in stock, standard left-wing psuedo philosophy will immediately start trying to figure out why the Liberals are less popular among women. The real question is why the NDP is so unpopular among men.

I would submit that the party's anti-highways MLAs (Chudnovsky, Shane Simpson, etc.) are responsible for this gender gap.

Yes, all predictions based on polls are not a pure scientific process, but it is a useful exercise from time to time to show how extreme a result can happen within our electoral system.

A few points:

I applied the regional breakdowns of the poll - 6 of the safe seats are outside of the lower mainland and 6 of the 9 marginal ones are as well. In my work there was a range of results - at one extreme the NDP is knocked down to 8 seats.

Mike Farnworth is popular within the moderate wing of the NDP, but he is still not a household name. He is on a par with John Horgan for incumbency - over time I predict that John Horgan will gain more support in his riding because of the type of MLA he is. Mike Farnworth is a good and competent MLA, though I do not understand why he is given so much air time in the legislature by the party? Has been chosen as the next leader and we just missed the race?

The analysis is based on the one Ipsos poll. It is an attempt to show what an election result would likely look if these numbers were to happen on election day. A 17 percentage point gap between the government opposition is huge.

Now some of my own comments on the NDP:

The NDP needs to ask themselves why are they not doing well at this time. In the past when the Socreds were government, it was not uncommon for the NDP to be leading in the polls. Changing the leader is not my opinion the core issue.

The NDP needs to make itself a relevant opposition to the current government. It needs show what sort of a government they might be - and being blandly in favour of a 1970s/80s status quo is not the way to do it. They need to reinvent themselves as a modern political party and not look back to the battles that the baby boomers fought.

The NDP's reaction to any issue is predictable. In almost any situation most political observers in BC could write the NDP's press releases before an issue happens. Predictable down to the specific moral outrage on an issue.

The party is without a single visionary idea. The NDP is really, really boring and has a lot of unimaginative boring MLAs. The NDP will remain in opposition as long as they are blandly irrelevant unless the current government has some sort of internal meltdown and then the NDP might become the government by default for a term.

The NDP seems so hidebound and risk adverse at this time that they make GICs look risky in comparison.

As much as the Fast Ferries were a failure, I would not fault the NDP for taking the risk. That experiment showed me that government really needs to get out of direct project involvement.

I applied the regional breakdowns of the poll - 6 of the safe seats are outside of the lower mainland and 6 of the 9 marginal ones are as well. In my work there was a range of results - at one extreme the NDP is knocked down to 8 seats.

If the regional breakdowns were used, that's good. I was mistaken in thinking that they weren't.

There is still the problem with the poll itself, the stubborn unwillingness of Canadian pollsters, in sharp contrast to their American counterparts, to screen for likely voters. Consider that Ipsos-Reid found a mere 15% of their 800 respondents to be undecided. Yet in recent provincial general elections less than 60% of the eligible electorate have actually bothered to vote.

IOWs, Ipsos-Reid's figures are based on opinions from a sample representing 85% of the eligible electorate of whom at most 60% will actually vote. That 25 percentage point difference leaves a lot of room for opinions to be expressed to the pollster that will never see the inside of a ballot box under any circumstances.

I'm a cautious Carole supporter; She doesn't have much strength in her caucus, however and I wonder about those bodies sitting there, earning a salary and looking bored - who is electing these bozos?

I agree that the NDP appears very cautious and that it needs to develop some policies that will galvanize the public and get us excited.

I confess that I'm new to BC and the whole political scene is bewildering to me but what with the goings on south of the border, including the recent decision by the Supreme Court on the abortion issue and while I know that this is a Federal issue, Carole needs to start appealing to the many progressive voters in BC, including women. I can't get excited about the NDP here just because they have a female leader. I want to see her gender reflected in some policies please.

Here's another question about Mr Schulmann's seat projection model. If other polls come out, showing different provincial and regional party standings, can he re-run his spreadsheet and promptly produce a new estimate of seats based on a new estimate of popular vote? Or is this exercise somehow a one-off affair? Can he make his spreadsheet available to all interested analysts on some website where we can all download it and play with it's assumptions ourselves?

"Can he make his spreadsheet available to all interested analysts on some website where we can all download it and play with it's assumptions ourselves? "

Our even better, learn how to do it yourself.

This isn't rocket science or brain surgery, but
is a bit more advanced than knowing 2 + 3 = 5.

There's so many of these so-called "analysts" out there, that this sort of thing is best ignored
until one gets closer to an election, let's say
6 months or so, since we know when the next election will occur anyway.

The smarter analysts look at trends in polls (minimum of three the first a year out from the start of the election).