Desperation From 4th Place has Paid Off Before…

Lapierre (Lib) 35%

Leonard (BQ) 29%

Lauzon (NDP) 17%

Fournier (CPC) 13%

So the Conservative candidate kicked off his campaign in Outremont by taking the old attack on Paul Martin and replacing the name with Stephane Dion.

First it was the finance minister not knowing where money was spent…

Now another former minister from Quebec, this time the unity minister, who had no idea there was a unity fund run out of the PMO. This story is getting old. If the Tories are looking to pick up Liberal votes on the sponsorship scandal, the pickings will be slim this time around.

Jean Lapierre had Ginette Pellerin and a well-oiled machine working in Outremont, with 50 volunteers in the office at the time. Lapierre was Quebec Lieutenant, and was able to benefit from staff members taking leaves of absence to work for him. Lapierre also had the Jewish community (10% of the riding, but they only vote 33% of the time).

The NDP will have to make up a lot of ground to win. The Tories are another long shot. Coulon comes in with the advantage, but with vote splitting in Montreal being the way it is these days, anybody can win. The winner will pick up only about 30% of the vote.

The BQ candidate is a nobody and also has no organization. The BQ will be more worried about holding on to the other two ridings (ridings they have held since 1993)

Polls have shown that BQ votes tend to bleed to the NDP and the Tories in Quebec. While that may help those two parties, Coulon could be the big winner if that scenario unfolds.

We will see if the Liberals do bleed votes. They will not be able to get out the vote like they did. (extremely important in a by-election) I still expect Coulon to hold on…by a whisker. The media here is setting him up, calling him the HEAVY favorite. If it was a general election, I would agree, but it is a by-election so a low turnout means whoever gets their vote out will win.

If the NDP can get the students in Outremont for U de M and those in the McGill Ghetto they will win, but relying on the student vote is like relying on Bob Gainey to sign the big free agents…

The Tories can keep attacking on old news. Desperate attacks from 4th place have paid off for some people before, but unfortunately for Mr. Duguay, it’s a one-ballot vote…