On silver linings

BCL picks up on what looks to be the most interesting question surrounding Jim Pankiw's entry into the next election in Saskatoon-Humboldt: namely, what are the chances that his candidacy will help shift the riding into the NDP column? But while BCL notes Pankiw's recent vote percentage alone, let's take a look in some more detail at how past Saskatchewan MPs/MLAs have fared in recent years when challenging party candidates as independents.

To start with, it's worth noting that while plenty of high-profile candidates have tried similar gambits to Pankiw's, none has yet managed to either win a seat in the past decade, or even have anything but the most tangential impact on the outcome in any riding. Instead, here's how they've fared:
- Former Con Premier Grant Devine posted the best share of a popular vote, taking 27% of the vote to finish second in Souris-Moose Mountain in 2004. Devine came within 10% of Con victor Ed Komarnicki's share of the vote in a riding where Con/Reform candidates otherwise haven't faced a race closer than 44 points since 1997. Note that this race didn't involve an incumbent candidate from any party.
- Pankiw himself has run twice as an independent in federal elections. His 2004 Saskatoon-Humboldt result was the closest any independent candidate has come to either winning or obviously flipping a Saskatchewan riding in recent decades: Con Brad Trost took just under 27% of the vote to narrowly beat out the NDP's Nettie Wiebe and the Libs' Patrick Wolfe (just under 26% apiece) and Pankiw at 20%. But he nonetheless came in fourth place and came closer to tipping the riding into NDP or Lib column than he did to retaining the seat himself.
- In 2006, Pankiw came in a distant third with 14% in Battlefords-Lloydminster - though there he apparently didn't have any impact on the relative strength of the other parties, as the Cons, NDP and Libs each seemed to lose 4%-5% of the vote to make up Pankiw's share.
- Having previously won Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River for both the NDP and the Libs, Rick Laliberté finished fourth with just under 10% of the vote in 2004 as the riding's incumbent. It's worth noting that Laliberte was the only candidate on this list to spoil the riding for his most recent ex-party on paper, as the Libs lost by a lower share of the vote than Laliberté took for himself.
- Finally, the ultimate in futile independent runs came in Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, where even with the advantage of incumbency Larry Spencer could only hold 5% of the vote in 2004 as Tom Lukiwski first won a seat in the House of Commons in a tight three-way race.

From that track record, there's little reason to think that Pankiw will have much chance of emerging victorious in the next election: even the track record of having won in the previous election wasn't enough to keep the seat in his hands back in 2004, and there's no indication that he'll be any more successful now. But there would seem to be a reasonable chance of his siphoning off enough of the Cons' vote to turn the seat into a winnable one for the NDP, which has emerged as the strongest challenger for the seat in 2006 and 2008 (in fact picking up its share of the vote while the Libs have dropped into the low double digits).

So in order to try to turn Pankiw's hate into something positive, now would seem to be a great time to show your support for Denise Kouri. And if the result is that Trost ends up as the next candidate to be reduced to running as an independent after the Cons decide to try to put an even more friendly face on their same old brand of bigotry, then so much the better.

Update: added links.

Update II: Welcome to those finding their way here from the Boycott Jim Pankiw, Boycott Racism Facebook group, which already boasts an impressive 2,000+ members just days after Pankiw announced his run.