Mediaboss Marketing

Byelections are usually wonderful, consequence-free opportunities to stick it to the government of the day. And given the Liberal governments 33-seat lead over the second-place Conservatives in the House of Commons, voters in two Ontario ridings had the opportunity to do that last night. And they did.

Sort of. But not really.

Toronto Centre has been one of the safest Liberal seats in the country for decades. Its been solidly red for 27 straight years and for all but 15 of the last 58 years. So the fact that former broadcaster Marci Ien held it for the Liberals last night was no giant surprise.

However, Iens vote dropped 15 percentage points compared to what former finance minister Bill Morneau was able to win in the general election exactly a year ago. If the Liberals are capturing only 42 per cent of the votes in one of their safest seats, that ought to raise serious concerns for the party nationwide.

The reason the Grit vote was down so much can be attributed in part to the remarkably strong performance by the Green partys new leader, Annamie Paul. Paul ran in Toronto Centre during last years election and placed a weak fourth, with just 7 per cent of the vote. Of course, she wasnt the leader then and was a virtual unknown.

Get Current Affairs & Documentaries email updates in your inbox every morning.

But more voters have come to know her since her leadership victory, and she boosted her vote by 25 percentage points last night.

"This result stands as a clear statement of our intention to run competitively everywhere in the next general election,even in Liberal strongholds, Paul told me in an email this morning. It's a shot across the bow."

Pauls candidacy gave rise to one of the more unusual developments Ive ever seen in a byelection campaign. Three stalwarts from the three major parties the Liberals Greg Sorbara, the Conservatives Hugh Segal, and the NDPs Zanana Akande in a Toronto Star op-ed piece urged their supporters not to vote for their parties this time, but rather to vote for Paul, so impressed were they by her candidacy and the chance to make history by having the countrys first-ever Black leader take a seat in Parliament. It may have helped propel the Green party leaders vote to 33 per cent this time.

Were disappointedabout falling short, but its just her first crack at it, said a campaign source in an email. Pretty good after only 3.5 weeks I think! If we had only one more week famous last words I know.

While Pauls campaign took heart at their candidates much improved performance, there was also some disappointment that she didnt win. After all, this was a consequence-free chance to beat the Liberals, as the outcome wouldnt markedly change the standings in the House. Paul clearly loves Toronto Centre and would love to have won there, tapping into thousands of potential supporters among the student bodies at local post-secondary institutions (U of T, Ryerson, OCAD U, and George Brown College, for example).

She was also able to campaign in the media capital of the country, an opportunity that former leader Elizabeth May could never avail herself of, because she represented a riding in British Columbia. One of the leaders toughest calls going forward will involve deciding whether to contest Toronto Centre again or to seek another riding where the Greens may have a better shot at winning.

Meanwhile, in the northwest part of Ontarios capital city, York Centre was a roller-coaster ride all night long, with the lead flipping back and forth between the Liberal and Conservative candidates. At one point, with more than 80 per cent of the polls reporting, the difference between the two candidates was literally one vote.

York Centre has been Liberal for all but four of the past 58 years. And it stayed Liberal last night, but not without a heckuva lot of nail-biting. Liberal candidate Yaara Saks narrowly defeated Conservative candidate Julius Tiangson by fewer than 4 percentage points. In last years general election, the Liberals won the riding by 13 points. Particularly heart-breaking for the Conservatives was the fact that the leader of the Peoples Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, ran in this riding. Bernier showed poorly, coming fourth. But he took 3.6 per cent of the votes, presumably almost all of which would have gone to the Conservative candidate had Bernier not run. So you could say Bernier played spoiler and continues to enjoy his revenge against the party whose leadership he lost by only two points on the 13th ballot three years ago. He potentially deprived new Conservative leader Erin OToole of some spectacular bragging rights, which would have put real wind in the Tories sails. Instead, were reminded of the truest maxim there is in politics: A win is a win is a win. And the Liberals won.

Why did the Conservatives do so much better, albeit ultimately in a losing effort?

I would very much like to know whats driving CPC success here, tweeted Stephen Harpers former director of policy, Rachel Curran, last night. Alarm about the fiscal situation? Jewish voters upset about the National Security Council seat strategy? Tiangsons own network and campaign? All of the above?

Clearly and overall, the Liberal vote was down significantly in a part of the country that the party depends on to form government. If Liberals had been patting themselves on the back for the great job theyve done fighting the coronavirus pandemic, they might want to rethink their self-congratulatory tone.

Yes, both minority governments in New Brunswick and British Columbia just parlayed their COVID-19 stewardship into majority governments. And the conservative Saskatchewan Party renewed its majority government last night a fourth consecutive win. And the Ontario Tories are significantly higher in the polls today than they were a year ago.

But last nights byelections once again prove that no one can take anything for granted in Canadian politics. Even if youre a Liberal in two of your safest seats in the country.

See original here:
The Liberals just won two byelections but they should be nervous - TVO

The Manitoba Liberal Party has picked the pandemics largest spike in the province to die on a baffling mole hill.

Instead of granting leave on Monday to allow debate on Bill 44, which would make amendments to the Employment Standards Code and allow for protection of those seeking paid sick leave, party leader Dougald Lamont has decided to quibble over the province not funding further leave, saying the province is taking credit for the federal governments work while contributing nothing.

Had they been able to proceed on Monday with debate, the bill could have potentially been pushed all the way through and Manitobans could apply for the federal Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit without questioning whether or not they will have a job when they come back from leave.

Now they must wait until the debate on the throne speech is complete to proceed with debates on other bills.

On Tuesday, Lamont was unrelenting in his viewing, casting the bill as just a few adjustments on dismissals. If youre worried about your job, it is not near as simple.

There are an untold number of people who are sitting there having to weigh whether or not to go into work because they have the sniffles. Tell themselves its just a cold and to ignore symptoms or lose a paycheque. If theyre struggling to make ends meet, as more than 50% of Manitobans are, I can guarantee you those symptoms are being shrugged off way more than they should be. If theyre working minimum wage at a big box store, there is always a sense of replaceability.

While the province was unable to produce numbers through contact tracing to show how often COVID was being passed on at work or people were being exposed to it, both Premier Brian Pallister and Provincial Chief Public Health Officer Brent Roussin spoke to how big the issue has become on Monday.

Going to work sick is putting way too many people at risk of catching the virus. We are even seeing this in health care facilities where people are not disclosing symptoms to nurses and doctors. The province disclosed over the weekend how a surgical team has been sidelined for two weeks because of this behaviour while nurses and other staff are being put in unnecessarily at risk due to these decisions.

See the rest here:
ALDRICH: Learn to read the room, Dougald as Liberals make tone-deaf move - Winnipeg Sun

The Canberra Liberals often attacked by Labor as the "most conservative Liberal branch in the country" want you to believe that the appointment of Elizabeth Lee as leader is a change in direction for a party that has learned from a sixth straight election loss.

"This is a fresh new beginning," the party declared shortly after she was picked by her colleagues on Tuesday.

It's true there are some big changes afoot and her selection is a first on many fronts.

Lee and her new deputy Giulia Jones will be the first female pair to lead a party in ACT politics, and Lee is the first person of an Asian background to be at the helm of an ACT party.

Not since Kate Carnell was chief minister two decades ago has a woman led the Canberra Liberals.

In the 19 years since, six other men have led the party Gary Humphries, Brendan Smyth, Bill Stefaniak, Zed Seselja, Jeremy Hanson and now Alistair Coe. None have prevailed against Labor and the Greens.

Carnell, the only leader to ever win an election for the Liberals in the ACT, last year warned the party against pitching conservative policy to a progressive town, believing that a Liberal victory hinged on ideology.

So does the backing of Lee represent a genuine shift to the moderate wing of the party? Or is it a recognition by the conservatives of a need to recalibrate after consigning themselves to another four years in opposition?

Yesterday's leadership ballot was a moderate against a moderate and that in itself is an indication of the party's acknowledgement they need to change, or as one Liberal MLA put it: "drawing a line in the sand".

And a vote for former leader Jeremy Hanson, however popular he may be, would have signalled a retreat of sorts, so instead it was out with the old and in with the new. The numbers favoured Lee overwhelmingly.

Fronting the press for the first time as leader, Lee said that politics had been craving diversity, in both background and gender.

She admitted the party must change direction as it reviewed what went so wrong at the October 17 poll, when they suffered a 3 per cent swing away from the Liberals.

However, she wouldn't say exactly what needed to change and she made it clear that the Canberra Liberals proudly enjoyed a "broad church" of views.

It appears the 41-year-old is keen to give an impression of change and a fresh voice and, as a moderate, she'll be determined to shake the nagging perception that senior conservative figures continue to pull the strings behind the scenes.

As the party attempts to move forward Lee may have to make concessions in order to maintain her moderate agenda while also keeping the right of the party happy.

The course Lee chooses is important because the next Legislative Assembly will be as progressive as it has ever been, with a remarkable six Greens MLAs.

Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury suggests a group of moderate Liberals are seeking to wrest control of the party from key conservative forces who have controlled the party for several years.

"We'd love to have a more constructive, working relationship with the Liberal party," Rattenbury said.

"If they actually start to take up policy positions that we have more in common, we're always keen to work with them."

It's a sentiment shared by re-elected Chief Minister Andrew Barr.

"Under new leadership there may be more occasions where the Government and the Opposition can find common ground on policy matters," he said after Lee's appointment.

As Lee put it: "Canberra spoke very loudly and we must listen."

It's a basic but necessary point if the Liberals are ever to move out of the political wilderness.

See more here:
Six other Liberal leaders couldn't do it. Will Elizabeth Lee be the one to end Labor's reign in Canberra? - ABC News

The B.C. Liberals lost their share of the votein every region of the province in Saturday's election, but those losses hurt the party most in the Fraser Valley and suburban Vancouver, a CBC News analysis has found.

CBC used finalresults from 2017 and preliminaryresults from 2020 to calculate vote shift in each region and riding of the province. (This analysis excludes mail-in and absentee ballots, whichmay not be counted and reported until mid-November, according to Elections BC).

The Fraser Valley was where voters rejectedthe B.C. Liberals in favour of the NDP and Greens in the largest proportions.The orange wave swept over bothLangley and both Chilliwack ridings.North of the Fraser, the NDP also won both battleground Maple Ridge ridings.

Here's a look at where each party gained and lost ground on Saturday.

Outside the Fraser Valley, the NDP also made significant inroads in the Interior, which resulted in the riding of Boundary-Similkameen flipping from red to orange. They held on to key ridings in the Tri-Cities and won Coquitlam-Burke Mountain from the Liberals.

The NDP also pulled off historic wins in three Richmond ridings, but in two of them the margins are so close just 124 votes in Richmond South Centre that mail-in ballots could easily flip them back to the Liberals.

The riding that shifted the most in the whole province was Oak Bay-Gordon Head, which voted overwhelmingly for former B.C. Green leader Andrew Weaver in 2017. The NDP didn't win a single polling station there in 2017, but former MP Murray Rankin won the riding decisively for the party on Saturday.

There were places where the NDP lost vote share on Saturday. Three were northern ridings where the party was not competitive.

But one was David Eby's riding of Vancouver-Point Grey. The NDPstill easily carried the riding, but did so despite an eight-per-cent drop in vote share from 2017. These votes appearto have gone to the B.C. Greens, who showed an eight-per-cent increase there.

Saturday was a terrible night by any measure for the B.C. Liberals, who lost vote share in every region of the province compared with 2017.

The Liberals' most electorally significant losses were in the Fraser Valley.

But the riding where the Liberals lost the most vote share was a riding they won: Peace River South. This wasdue to a strong showing by B.C. Conservative candidate Kathleen Connolly,who placed second, and because former Liberal cabinet minister Mike Bernier won a landslidevictory there in 2017.

There were a few bright spots for the Liberals on Saturday. The party increased their vote share over 2017 in both South Surrey and South Delta. They also showed a 12-per-cent increase in the riding of Surrey-Green Timbers, but it wasn't enough to defeat the NDP.

It can unequivocally be said that the B.C.NDP had a good night on Saturday and the B.C. Liberals had a bad one.

But for the B.C. Greens, the results were more ambiguous.

The party held on with three seats in the legislature and can celebrate a breakthrough win on the Lower Mainland in the riding of West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.

Support for the party on the Sunshine Coast was also up 10 per cent over 2017.

But in Metro Vancouver, the results for the Greens were mixed. They made some gains in the City of Vancouver, most notably in Vancouver-Point Grey and Mount Pleasant, but lost vote share in the suburbs around Vancouver.

The riding where the Greens took the biggest hit was Oak Bay-Gordon Head, which they lost to the NDP.

Visit link:
B.C. Liberals lose vote share in every region of province - CBC.ca

Supporters and opponents of conservative pundit Anne Coulter clash at a demonstration in Berkeley in 2017. (AP photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez)

How can the partisan divide be bridged when conservatives and liberals consume the same political content, yet interpret it through their own biased lens?

Researchers from UC Berkeley, Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University scanned the brains of more than three dozen politically left- and right-leaning adults as they viewed short videos involving hot-button immigration policies, such as the building of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and the granting of protections for undocumented immigrants under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Their findings, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, show that liberals and conservatives respond differently to the same videos, especially when the content being viewed contains vocabulary that frequently pops up in political campaign messaging.

Our study suggests that there is a neural basis to partisan biases, and some language especially drives polarization, said study lead author Yuan Chang Leong, a postdoctoral scholar in cognitive neuroscience at UC Berkeley. In particular, the greatest differences in neural activity across ideology occurred when people heard messages that highlight threat, morality and emotions.

Overall, the results offer a never-before-seen glimpse into the partisan brain in the weeks leading up to what is arguably the most consequential U.S. presidential election in modern history. They underscore that multiple factors, including personal experiences and the news media, contribute to what the researchers call neural polarization.

Even when presented with the same exact content, people can respond very differently, which can contribute to continued division, said study senior author Jamil Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University. Critically, these differences do not imply that people are hardwired to disagree. Our experiences, and the media we consume, likely contribute to neural polarization.

Study shows conservative-liberal disparity in brain response to hot-button vocabulary. (Image by Yuan Chang Leong)

Specifically, the study traces the source of neural polarization to a higher-order brain region known as the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which is believed to track and make sense of narratives, among other functions.

Another key finding is that the closer the brain activity of a study participant resembles that of the average liberal or the average conservative, as modeled in the study, the more likely it is that the participant, after watching the videos, will adopt that particular groups position.

This finding suggests that the more participants adopt the conservative interpretation of a video, the more likely they are to be persuaded to take the conservative position, and vice versa, Leong said.

Leong and fellow researchers launched the study with a couple of theories about how people with different ideological biases would differ in the way they process political information. They hypothesized that if sensory information, like sounds and visual imagery, drove polarization, they would observe differences in brain activity in the visual and auditory cortices.

However, if the narrative storytelling aspects of the political information people absorbed in the videos drove them apart ideologically, the researchers expected to see those disparities also revealed in higher-order brain regions, such as the prefrontal cortex. And that theory panned out.

To establish that attitudes toward hardline immigration policies predicted both conservative and liberal biases, the researchers first tested questions out on 300 people recruited via the Amazon Mechanical Turk online marketplace who identified, to varying degrees, as liberal, moderate or conservative.

They then recruited 38 young and middle-aged men and women with similar socio-economic backgrounds and education levels who had rated their opposition or support for controversial immigration policies, such as those that led to the U.S.-Mexico border wall, DACA protections for undocumented immigrants, the ban on refugees from majority-Muslim countries coming to the U.S. and the cutting of federal funding to sanctuary cities.

Researchers scanned the study participants brains via functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) as they viewed two dozen brief videos representing liberal and conservative positions on the various immigration policies. The videos included news clips, campaign ads and snippets of speeches by prominent politicians.

After each video, the participants rated on a scale of one to five how much they agreed with the general message of the video, the credibility of the information presented and the extent to which the video made them likely to change their position and to support the policy in question.

To calculate group brain responses to the videos, the researchers used a measure known as inter-subject correlation, which can be used to measure how similarly two brains respond to the same message.

Partisans showed differences in their brain responses to political messaging. (Graphic by Yuan Chang Leong)

Their results showed a high shared response across the group in the auditory and visual cortices, regardless of the participants political attitudes. However, neural responses diverged along partisan lines in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, where semantic information, or word meanings, are processed.

Next, the researchers drilled down further to learn what specific words were driving neural polarization. To do this, they edited the videos into 87 shorter segments and placed the words in the segments into one of 50 categories. Those categories included words related to morality, emotions, threat and religion.

The researchers found that the use of words related to risk and threat, and to morality and emotions, led to greater polarization in the study participants neural responses.

An example of a risk-related statement was, I think its very dangerous, because what we want is cooperation amongst the cities and the federal government to ensure that we have safety in our communities, and to ensure that our citizens are protected.

Meanwhile, an example of a moral-emotional statement was, What are the fundamental ethical principles that are the basis of our society? Do no harm, and be compassionate, and this federal policy violates both of these principles.

Overall, the research studys results suggest that political messages that use threat-related and moral-emotional language drive partisans to interpret the same message in opposite ways, contributing to increasing polarization, Leong said.

Going forward, Leong hopes to use neuroimaging to build more precise models of how political content is interpreted and to inform interventions aimed at narrowing the divide between conservatives and liberals.

In addition to Leong and Zaki, co-authors of the study are Robb Willer at Stanford University and Janice Chen at Johns Hopkins University.

STUDY IN PNAS: Conservative and liberal attitudes drive polarized neural responses to political content

Go here to see the original:
Hot-button words trigger conservatives and liberals differently - UC Berkeley