It's no great surprise that the federal parties are paying plenty of attention to ridings which were won by relatively small margins in 2006 (as reported by the Hill Times).
But it's worth noting that while such ridings may make for the most obvious battlegrounds, there's plenty of room for movement in ridings where there's far more ground to be made up as well. Indeed, if the parties had applied a 5% standard to the federal by-elections which have taken place since 2006, neither Outremont nor Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean - both of which actually did change hands - would have been seen as a priority riding.
Naturally, it makes sense to consider the 2006 results as a relevant factor in allocating resources. But any party which relies unduly on 2006 alone as its baseline figures to miss a significant portion of both the risks and the opportunities facing it next time out.
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