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When we look at the ridings in Ontario, these are the ridings I think can swing:

416:
Beaches-East York (Liberal, could go NDP)
Parkdale-High Park (NDP, could go Liberal)

905 belt:
Mississauga-Streetsville (I'm pretty sure the Libs will at least take this one back!)
Mississauga South, Newmarket-Aurora, Oakville (these are high income seats that are still WASP enough to fall to the Tories, they came pretty close last time)
Halton (depends on if people agree if Garth Turner is important as he thinks he is, and/or national trend)
Oshawa (the Tories seem to keep winning this, but the NDP still comes close - what effect will Flaherty have in his backyard?)

Hamilton/Niagara:
Hamilton East-Stoney Creek (possible Liberal steal, though the Libs have really fallen out of favor in Hamilton)
St. Catharines (narrow Tory hold, could swing back to the Liberals)
Welland (Liberal held but the NDP took 30% last time and Peter Kormos represents it provincially)

Southwest:
Guelph (byelection with Tom King running for the NDP, could go anywhere)
Kitchener-Waterloo (Andrew Telegdi's riding, but if he retires maybe it could go Tory)
Brant (narrowly went Liberal last time, possible Tory pickup)
London-Fanshawe (Libs could maybe steal it if "laptop-gate" becomes an issue)
London West (narrow Lib win, Tories could take it)

Eastern Ontario:
Ottawa-Orleans (Tories won it narrowly, Libs could take it back)
Peterborough (ditto)

Northern Ontario:
Algoma-Manitoulin, Nickel Belt, Thunder Bay-Rainy River and Superior North (Liberal seats that were near misses for the NDP)
Sudbury (could go NDP if things are really good)
Kenora (probably the only real three-way race in Ont.)
 
I desperately wished I could get a job in the Liberal marketing, campaigning, and tactical decision making division. ;)

The truth is that the Liberals have all the fuel they need to run a competitive, surprising campaign that would blow all the media pundits, opinion writers, and Conservatives CRAZY.

Mr. Harper's many scandals, people under his ranks just blowing their lid off. From the Flaherty Finance attacks against Ontario to the new scandal of 16 year old videos showing what Conservatives stand for, Dion just needs a more competent team working for him.

Quebec may be the Liberals' problems, but the Bloc is where the real losses are occuring. I can't say I feel any problems about that, Liberals appear to be in a position to gain a few seats in Quebec as well as Conservatives. If anything that's good for national unity.

But Quebec aside, the Liberals could easily form a minority government with the NDP or even a majority.
 
PET then proceeded to move to the right afterwards.
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In what way did Trudeau move to the right?

The Liberals can scream "the NDP killed childcare" all they like, but the fact is the Liberals had majority governments they did zilch about childcare. All that happened was the delay of the election by a few months - Martin was committed to going into an election shortly afterwards.
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Different leader, diferent time. Martin was clearly taking significant steps forward in a national child care program. Even all the child care lobby groups say that. For that matter, what about Kelowna?

I agree with a lot of your thoughts. In terms of theoretical swing possibilities, I suppose any riding is possible. With the NDP where they are in the polls right now, they'll lose a bunch. I don't think Beaches has ever been in play. If Marilyn Churley couldn't take it in the collapse that was 2006, I don't think anybody will!

I think you're right about the Mississauga seats. Mississauga South would definitely be a swing riding in a good Tory year, without an incumbent. I think Szabo is enough to hang on, though. I wouldn't worry about Garth Turner in Halton, either.

I've often been one who optimistically thinks Sid Ryan is going to win in Oshawa, but I just don't think it's in the cards. He pulls all the NDP vote there is to pull, and there just isn't enough there. Last election, I thought the drop in Liberal support would put him over the top, but Carrie wound up with a bigger margin.

Coming from family in Hamilton, Di Ianni is definitely going to take Stoney Creek. I'm acquainted with Wayne Marston, and though he's a decent guy, he's not exactly an electrifying candidate. Di Ianni has his serious problems, but he's very popular over there. I think the Liberals have a good chance on the Mountain, too, though none in Hamilton Centre. I used to think they'd take back ADFW, but I don't think it's going to happen.

I think the NDP have a real chance of taking Guelph in a by-election, when all their strengths come to the fore. In a general election, however, it's a pretty Liberal seat with a very limited number of real NDPers. I don't think it would ever go NDP, but the Tories would have a real chance on a vote split.

Andrew Telegdi will never lose Kitchener Waterloo, but I agree that it would be a swing riding in a good Tory year. Sort of the boundary between a Tory minority and majority. I've always thought that Kitchener Conestoga is the boundary between Liberal and Tory minority, while Cambridge would bring a Liberal majority. I can't see the Liberals winning Cambridge anytime soon, though the candidate is pretty energetic. Kitchener Conestoga, on the other hand, has a great Liberal candidate and, with rapid suburbanization, is getting increasingly Liberal-friendly. Lynn Myers didn't run a very energetic campaign the last few times.

The Tories have a real chance in Brant. It'll all depend on the vote split. I don't think laptop gate will have too much of an effect on London Fanshawe, but I doubt the NDP will hold it since it seems to have been a bit of a fluke. It could go either Liberal or Tory.

In general, the NDP have some of their best chances in Northern Ontario. It just all depends on how much the Green support eats into them up there (I suspect rather less than in Southern Ontario), and how well they do otherwise. Where they are in the polls now, we're talking about major losses for the NDP, but I suspect they'll rise a bit in an actual campaign.
 
I'm not sure if Kitchener-Waterloo is that obvious a Tory prospect even w/o Telegdi--provincially, it's more a Witmer riding than a PC riding.

When it comes to Eastern Ontario, if you gotta mention Ottawa-Orleans, you *absolutely* gotta mention Glengarry P&R as Liberal-swingable.

And as far as three-ways go, I suppose that there's others potentially besides Kenora--Tories aren't necessarily out of contention in London-Fanshawe, or perhaps Welland or Hamilton Mountain or a couple of others, and from the other end Tom King might mean Guelph also counts...
 
John Baird's interference in the last Ottawa municipal election could backfire against him electorally, and a strong candidate from the Liberals could actually have a fighting chance in that riding. Courtesy of Baird, the city is now facing a considerable lawsuit for the cancellation of the O-Train.

Add to that, the Conservative-flavoured mayor is not only under police investigation, but has failed to keep his most substantial electoral promise: no tax increase.
 
Hydrogen said:
John Baird's interference in the last Ottawa municipal election could backfire against him electorally, and a strong candidate from the Liberals could actually have a fighting chance in that riding.
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I don't think the Liberal are likely to take that seat. The Tories won it by 6,000 votes last time and John Baird is pretty high profile. It would go Liberal only if Tory support took a real nosedive in Ontario, I think.

Maybe Elizabeth May should have run there, since she lives in Ottawa rather than running in Central Nova against McKay. She has no connection to that riding, the Greens got about 1% of the vote there last time, and the Libs came in third behind the NDP.

One thing Harper has going for him is he hasn't really governed any differently and even if he hasn't warmed up to the 64% of the electorate that voted against him, he hasn't really done anything to upset the 36% that did vote for him.
 
King of Kensington said:
I don't think the Liberal are likely to take that seat. The Tories won it by 6,000 votes last time and John Baird is pretty high profile. It would go Liberal only if Tory support took a real nosedive in Ontario, I think.
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Though as OW-N is probably the Tories' most "urban" extant Ontario seat, it might not be as out of reach as it appears, at least as a "shock upset" affair...
 
King of Kensington said:
I don't think the Liberal are likely to take that seat. The Tories won it by 6,000 votes last time and John Baird is pretty high profile. It would go Liberal only if Tory support took a real nosedive in Ontario, I think.
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I don't place a high likelihood either. But after years of Conservative babble about Liberal shenanigans, it looks as if Mr. Baird is not above playing political games that people may not like.
 
One interesting thing to note is when the pollsters ask about party and leader - i.e. Conservatives led by Stephen Harper, Liberals led by Stephane Dion, NDP led by Jack Layton, the Liberals tend to do worse than in the case of just Conservative vs. Liberal vs. NDP. When an election takes off, the leader matters more - and that's a real problem for Dion.
 
Harper was viewed as a much weaker leader going into the 2006 election than Martin.
 
Of course. The incumbent Prime Minister is always viewed as a stronger leader. Going into an election, people take a much closer look at the leader, so pre-election polls on leadership are pretty irrelevant.
 
Yes. My point was that pre-election leadership polls aren't indicative of much.
 
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