Thursday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your afternoon reading.

- Alice examines how vote splits actually played out in the Greater Toronto Area and concludes that areas which wanted to elected NDP MPs generally managed the feat, while the Cons' wins are generally traceable to Lib-to-Con switches.

- Paul Wells' campaign story continues, featuring this from a Con staffer:

Hence the “somewhat imbecilic” Ignatieff’s-a-Liberal ad, this staffer said. “That summarizes our appeal. It is, ‘You may even consider yourself a Liberal, but if you vote Liberal you’re voting for that guy.’ And if Canadians are thinking that, that does more to move votes in our corner than any other question.”

Or barely out of context, "somewhat imbecilic...summarizes our appeal". From one of the Cons' own staffers. And for once, there's little reason not to trust their analysis.

- Brian Topp comments on what the NDP has to work with now, while also noting that it took some brave choices to move the party to the point of having new resources at its fingertips:

To their eternal credit, Mr. Lavigne and the NDP campaign team didn’t try to rerun an old playbook in this campaign. They wrote a new one – a brave thing to do in politics. There were voices in our tribe insisting that it is a fundamental mistake for a federal NDP leader to say he is running to be prime minister; or to say he would like to lead the federal government; or to argue he has the better plan for the economy as well as for social programs; or to take on the Bloc Québécois in Quebec; or to build a new fundraising system; or to build a new organizing network; or to reach out to some of the best communication and advertising professionals in both English and French; or to do many of the other things this campaign did.

But the 2011 election proved something that I think New Democrats will never forget: If you leave behind your old playbook and write a new one, you just might leave behind your old results and get new ones, too.

- Finally, Frances Russell expresses her own hope that a majority Con government will be somewhat less repressive than its minority counterpart - while noting why how Harper has operated so far has to change.