London Debrief

So many others, including Elizabeth, Adriana, Camile, Jim, the other Jim, and more, have already said it. I'm not sure what to add.

Today, the Greens are the story. It was true that we had a shot, and the numbers don't even tell the full story of how close we came. Due to the overlapping municipal election, the federal campaign only started to build real momentum in the last week, and wasn't going full-tilt until this past weekend. I'm certain that with one or two more weeks, we would have taken the riding.

Sobara says this result should worry the Conservatives. He's 1/3 right. It should worry the Liberals and NDP too. Compared to the last election, we took six and nine percent from them, respectively, and another six percent from the Conservatives. As Elizabeth says, we're not vote splitters, we vote unifiers.

We beat the governing party, and the NDP, who started the campaign by saying "the Greens won't be a factor," came a distant fourth. Everyone who voted NDP because they thought that candidate had a better chance, or Liberal because they were afraid of the admittedly frightening Conservative should, in the words of the NDP attack piece, "think carefully." Same for everyone who didn't bother because they didn't think their vote would change anything. We'll always get distorted election results, and have a less healthy democracy than we should, until people feel like they can vote for the candidate they want.

Congratulations to everyone involved, this is great stuff to build on and we've definitely shaken things up. As usual, I can't wait for the next campaign.

ps. Anyone who wants to debrief in person, I'll be at the Toronto Centre Greens pub night tomorrow (Wednesday) at The Ben Wicks, from about 7:30pm on.