Conservative supporter Stephen Taylor ran the numbers to come up with a couple of interesting posts at his blog. His first post details Liberal MPs who won by the slimmest of margins. Cabinet ministers Pierre Pettigrew, Liza Frulla, and Anne McLellan show up on this list. He also posts a list of the Conservative candidates who won by the greatest margin of victory. Cabinet minister material like Bob Mills, Monte Solberg and Jason Kenney are on that list.
The next list that would be neat to see — and perhaps I’ll crunch these numbers myself tomorrow — would be Conservative MPs who won the 2004 election by the slimmest of margins and NDP candidates who finished second by the slimmest of margins. That second one would be interesting in that, in most of the post-Brault polls so far, the NDP has been the biggest beneficiary of disaffection with the Liberals. Mind you, smarter political minds than mine keep saying that that kind of NDP support is ‘soft’ and that it could drift back to the Liberals in an election campaign.
The list of Conservatives who won by slim margins would be an interesting list if only because they might be the ones telling their leader that there is no hurry to go to the polls. Many of those who are on Taylor’s list of Conservative big winners have told me that their biggest problem is convincing their riding associations and constituents to cool their jets. In many Western ridings, getting a chance to beat up on the Liberals in an election is something they’d like to get a chance to do every week rather than once every few years or so.
And that is Harper’s challenge. Those in ridings like Solberg’s or Thompson’s are screaming for Liberal blood right now. But Harper doesn’t need those ridings in order to form a government. He needs to win ridings in Ontario, B.C. and Atlantic Canada, ridings where Conservative support is a little more tenuous. Many MPs and many EDA presidents I’ve spoken to in those parts of Canada are counselling caution, that Harper should wait just a little longer before pulling the election trigger.