Post-mortem

IP has an interesting riding-by-riding take on last night's by-election results. But let's take a moment to note one important factor in the results before looking at my take for each party.

While IP's percentage-based graphs make all movement among parties appear to be based on a zero-sum game, the reality of the by-election may be somewhat different due to the lower turnout. In fact, for all the relatively sharp increases on a percentage basis, only two candidates topped their party's actual vote total from 2006 (those being Greens Dan Grice in Vancouver Quadra, and Chris Tindal in Toronto Centre).

In contrast, for example, the Cons' victory in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River and near-upset in Vancouver Quadra look to have been based primarily on a particularly sharp dropoff in Lib turnout in those ridings; likewise the Greens' passing the NDP for third in Willowdale. And nothing in the results seems to suggest that any party actually bled a substantial amount of support to anybody else, rather than simply having more difficulty motivating past supporters to go to the polls.

So what can each party take from last night's results?

For the Cons, it's hard to disagree with IP's take. But I do have to wonder whether the Cons' unimpressive Ontario results are less a matter of of a rural/urban split, and more a wider-ranging provincial response to the Cons' recent potshots at the province.

While the Libs will naturally be happy with the Ontario results, their biggest issue is again the dropoff in turnout in the Western ridings. While Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River might be explained as the revenge of David Orchard, there's far less apparent reason why two-thirds of the party's supporters would stay home in Vancouver Quadra - particularly when Dion's top organizer is the architect of the B.C. Lib government which included Joyce Murray.

Unfortunately, the NDP is probably the only party which won't find much upside in last night's results; at best, it can say that its losses were modest in ridings where it didn't manage to generate much buzz. As I mentioned yesterday, that outcome seems to reflect the NDP's need to keep its candidates in the headlines rather than relying solely on its ground game - though of course that's sometimes easier said than done.

Finally, the Greens will of course be perfectly content with the outcome in the three urban ridings. And indeed the most promising outcome may be in the lone riding which saw the Greens stay in fourth place, as any continuation of the Libs' drop in Vancouver Quadra could turn that riding into one of the Greens' best chances of sneaking to victory in a four-way split. But their foray into the expectations game looks to have been a disaster, as their now-disappeared internal polling supposedly showing them running second in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River has given way to an actual result that left them 14 points out of third place.

All of which is to say that like most other developments in Canadian politics since the 2006 election, yesterday's by-elections seem to speak more to inertia and apathy than any lasting change. Which leaves only the question of who's willing to go back to the drawing board to try to radically improve their position (even if that means taking some risks) - and who's convinced that the status quo is close enough to where they want to be to keep playing it safe.