08 10 04	Gone Fishing 74.14.80.222
Great points LKM voter but a 9000 vote deficit is still a lot given the consistency of polling that shows Liberals support in Ontario in general being more and more solid in Toronto and bleeding nearly everywhere else.When there is hardly another single rural riding in the province where these points are an issue, I just fail to see how they are a turning issue in LKM?? So I ask - How is LKM's farming any different than any other rural riding? Do they not have diesel and other costs that will go up with the carbon tax? Please don't shove the offsetting income tax reductions at me. I prepare farm tax returns and see a lot of losses and low incomes that go back years. When you make no money you don't have income tax breaks PERIOD. Taxing polluters means farmers are under attack. The 9000 votes that put Shipley over the top can be more accurately accounted for by combining PC and Alliance vote than any anger with the liberals. As I stressed, the margin of 9000 is a lot given that the previous liberal win was less then 2000 with almost no Conservative popularity. Don't neglect also that Rose Marie Ur was at odds with the Liberal party at times on the conservative-owned issues like gun control etc. Across the province there seems to be a consistent theme, if there are more BMWs parked on city streets the Liberals are still in the game. If the BMWs have to drive past a lot of homeless shelters the NDP is nipping at the liberals heels. Finally, if there are 10,000 livestock and 10 combines for every BMW you can paint it blue.
	08 10 02	LKMVoter 64.231.166.45
Gone Fishing, here are some reasons the farm vote might not turn out for the Conservatives: 1) Conservatives have refused to meet with the Grains and Oil Seeds time and time again 2) Bev Shipley took credit (at a debate) for the Tobacco Farmers getting some money, while Bev himself refused to meet with them. This was pointed out by Jeff Wesley, and the questioner agreed. 3) Some of those 9000 were Liberals who were mad at the Liberals and simply voted against the party. I would imagine some if not most have now come to see that the Conservatives are not right for this country. 4) As far as the Candidates goe, Jeff Wesley comes acrossed as being the the Candidate who could really accomplish something for this riding. 5) Liberals have comitted to fully fund their share of Ontario's Risk Management Program, where Bev Shipley has gone on the record to say he will not support it.
	08 09 22	Gone Fishing 74.14.80.222
Philip Shaw, I am sorry but I fail to see how you can justify a) a farm vote not turning out to support the conservatives because of harvest time AND a farm vote hinging it's vote on one program which by the way is optional. THe next thing that is hard to fathom is how ANYONE can make up a 9000 vote differential when you consider 1) 200 votes was all that allowed the Liberals to keep this one in 2004 2) about 300 separated the redistributed vote from 2000 election(combining the PC and Alliance vote) If the votes were going to drift to the liberals on a united right it would have happened in 2004 and 2006 not as the momentum is shifting the opposite way, toward MORE conservative ridings. 3) NDP and Greens could benefit from indifference to Liberals. Their's is the weekest support in pole after pole. Just my two cents worth. I just feel that the logic must flow and I can't see it in your post.
	08 09 08	Philip Shaw 209.216.157.19
So what's it going to be in 2008 for LKM? Last election farmers were rallying with a winter election. This time around we're headed into a busy harvest season, so farmers likely will not be as active. However, the farm vote here holds the key to victory. In the last election Stephen Harper said he'd ‘scrap the CAIS program’ at a campaign stop in LKM. Two and a half years later CAIS is still here in the form of Agristability, a burr in every farmers side. Also too, the Conservatives will not give federal funding for Ontario's Risk Management Program, which was put together by Ontario farmers. This is very unpopular in LKM farm country. The Liberals however have their own problems with proposed carbon taxes on diesel fuel offset by tax credits and carbon sequestering credits. It's complicated and not everyone understands it. However, the Liberals may be supporting full funding of the Risk Management Program which will win them votes on LKM's back concessions. The NDP and Greens have always struggled in LKM. We'll see what they've got this time.
	07 07 14	A.S. 74.99.222.209
On the surface, the neighbouring situation w/Lambton-Kent-Middlesex and Chatham-Kent-Essex is identical. Both had longtime Liberal incumbents who were scared into ultra-marginality in '04; both incumbents retired in '06, and the CPCers who had scared them earlier waltzed their way into a practically anointed victory. (Even the '04 NDPers in both seats ran again in '06 and improved their share--though ironically, the bizarre Wallaceburg advantage Kevin Blake enjoyed in '04 was blunted by '06's Liberal candidate being the ex-mayor/councillor of the 'burg.) Yet beneath the superficially similar stats, there's a difference of seat character: the rural/agricultural economy more genuinely predominates in LKM (the largest urban centres, Strathroy and Wallaceburg, are only 10-15 thousand), while CKE has a stronger 401/Windsor corridor urban-industrial undercurrent. The latter is more a ‘Reagan Democrat’ kind of Tory seat, akin to the Contract-With-America-era House constituencies the Democrats super-targeted for takeback in 2006. CKE voted Tory out of anger with the Liberals; LKM voted Tory more out of genuine conviction--and remember, too, that LKM's long been a heartland of CHP/FCP support. (True, LKM's variously-formed predecessor seats were swing ridings rather than uniformly Tory, but there was less distinction btw/the parties then--indeed, a lot of that True Gritness was of a conservative ‘Garnet Bloomfield’ sort that, like Bloomfield, might well have been tempted to swing Reform/Alliance by the late 90s.) Therefore, I'm tempted to call this for the Tories, while treating its neighbour as more of a marginal. It would only take an Ernie Eves-ian circumstance for the grip of Harper to loosen here.
	07 03 29	M. Lunn 74.99.130.109
This only went Liberal in 2004 because of Rose-Marie Ur who was a right wing Liberal since she opposed the gun registry, was pro-life, and against SSM. The Conservatives came within 200 votes in 2004 and if you add the Christian Heritage Party votes to them, they would have taken the riding. With Rose-Marie Ur not running anymore, the Tories should easily hold this one.