On starting points

For all the talk about the upcoming federal byelections, I'm surprised that one piece of information from earlier reports hasn't received more attention as an indication of what the race in Westmount-Ville Marie will look like:

Although Westmount has been an unshakable Liberal bastion for decades, deputy NDP leader and Outremont victor Thomas Mulcair said his party's polling suggests that Garneau enjoys a meagre four-point lead over NDP candidate Anne Legace Dowson, a well-known CBC radio personality.

"Anne's numbers are the same as mine were" at the start of the Outremont campaign, Mulcair said in an interview. "We think it's takeable."

Let's leave aside the actual number for now. What seems most significant about the current state of Westmount-Ville Marie is that the NDP is already in what seems to be as strong a position as it was at the start of the Outremont campaign despite a couple of points of distinction which would seemingly give the Libs a far better starting point in Westmount-Ville Marie.

First off, Lib apologists looking to minimize the Outremont outcome have generally done so by suggesting that it was a one-time event based primarily on Thomas Mulcair's personal popularity and name recognition. If that were true, then one would expect the starting position of any non-Mulcair candidate in Westmount-Ville Marie to be far worse, rather than substantially the same.

Instead, all indications are that Lagacé-Dowson is doing at least as well as Mulcair out of the gate. And while that can be interpreted in a couple of ways (either that Lagacé-Dowson is no less strong than Mulcair as a candidate, or that the NDP has built up its standing such that she doesn't need to carry the party brand as far), it's hard to see how either can be reassuring for the Libs.

And the problems for the Libs are particularly obvious given the organizational differences between Outremont and Westmount-Ville Marie. Remember that another of the Libs' main excuses for their Outremont loss was that Dion appointed Jocelyn Coulon as the party's candidate relatively shortly before the by-election call, allowing Mulcair to build up his presence in the area and leaving the Libs to play catch-up.

In Westmount-Ville Marie, the dynamic is just the opposite. The Libs announced last fall that Marc Garneau would carry their banner, seemingly giving him plenty of time to get the jump on any of his competitors. Meanwhile, Lagacé-Dowson's candidacy was just announced earlier this month, which in principle would leave her with a significant deficit to make up.

Instead, Garneau doesn't appear to have been able to put any distance between himself and Lagacé-Dowson even with nearly a year's head start. And while it's arguable that some work during that time might still give Garneau some advantages at the ballot box which wouldn't show up in the polls (particularly if he's been able to spend more time on voter identification and organization-building), one still has to figure that if Garneau hasn't yet had any success in solidifying Westmount-Ville Marie for the Libs, he'll have an awfully tough time improving matters during the campaign.