I;ll call this for the NDP. Andrea, who took the by-election in the old Hamilton East is probably moving to Hamilton Centre, but hsi is basically an NDP incumbent riding, provinically and federally. If Jennifer Mossop, Lib, Stoney Creek, does run again (doubtful)and in HESC. she’ll lose.

Hotly contested NDP nomination July 12 at the Renaissance Centre.

As I called it Jennifer Mossop is not running. The Liberals are again scrambling to find a candidate and the expectation is the NDp will pick up the same three seats provincially they did federally (HESC,Hamilton Centre and Hamilton Mountain. The hotly contested NDP nomination in HESC July 12 is going to be the show to watch

PaulMiller won the NDP nomination solidly and will win the seat solidly.

Just to update-Jennifer Mossop, the Liberal incumbent in Stoney Creek is not running nor is the Liberal incumbent Boutregianno in the Mountain or the Libeal incumbent in Hamitlon West Judy Marsales.

The NDP is runing Brian Adamzyck on the Mountain and Andrea Horwath in Hamilton Centre as well as Paul Miller in HESC. Look to the NDP to take these three ridings provincially as they did federally.
http://tinyurl.com/25phpg

“Look to the NDP to take these three ridings provincially as they did federally.”

I wouldn’t be too sure about that one.

The Liberals have a solid candidate on Hamilton Mountain and will probably retain the seat. HE-SC is still up in the air and could go either way. Hamilton Centre, though, will go NDP without a doubt.

HE-SC and Hamilton Mountain went NDP in the last federal election due to a protest vote. With Di Ianni running in HE-SC for the Liberals he’ll take the riding back from Wayne Marston, who barely won the riding last time. Hamilton Mountain will come back to the Liberals federally because Chris Charlton has failed to do anything for the riding.

Hamilton Centre though, will continue to be an NDP strong-hold until re-distribution.

Following the 2003 provincial election the liberals had the incumbent advantage in Hamilton Mountain, Hamilton West .Hamilton East, Stoney Creek and ADFA- all 5 of the 5 provincial ridings in Hamilton. Following the 2004 Federal election the Liberals had the incumbent advantage in HESC, Hamilton Mountain and ADFA. The only federal riding overlappinhg the 5 provincial ridngs the Liberals didn’t get was Hamilton Centre with Dave for the NDP.

All things being equal, you would figure Hamilton was a Liberal stronghold and the incumbent advantage would mean they would hold on to 5 provincial ridings redistributed for this 2007 election.

Then the Liberals lost Hamilton East provincial to Andrea and the NDP in the 2004 by-election, partly because McGuinty appointed Ralph Agostino as the candidate. denying Alderman Morelli a chance to run and denying the Liberal membership a vote
Then the Liberals lost Hamilton East-Stoney Creek federal to the NDP in 2006, partly because of the party brass favouring Valeri in the nomiantion batle.

The Liberal also ADFA federally to the Conservatives and Hamilton Moutnain federal to the NDP in 2006 and now have had their provincial incumbents step down in Hamilton Mountain, Stoney Creek, and Hamilton Centre. The only Liberal incumbent left in Hamilton is Ted McMeekin in ADFA.

The incumbent advantage is to the NDP in Hamilton -string with Hamilton Centre (with Dave holding it federally for two elections and Andrea representing half that riding since 2004), in HESC provincially (with Wayne holding it federally since 2006 and Andrea holding half the riding since 2004) and in Hamilton Mountain with Chris holding it federally.

Larry Dianni, after he lost the mayoralty with court findings of election finance irregularity, won the Liberal nomination in HESC federally against Ivan Luksic, with Ivan claiming the party brass was favouring DiIanni. When Ivan ran for the Liberal nomination in HESC provincial, McGuinty appointed Nerene Virgin to be the candidate, denying the members a vote.

The Liberal vote in Hamilton is shrinking and they only have one incumbent left in the city. The advantage of incumbency and momentum is to the NDP. Any Too Close to Call seats will go NDP rather than Liberal,particulary HESC.

Local Liberals are in disarray in this riding so much so that the party had to bring in people from Toronto to run Nerene’s campaign. She could still pull it off even with Liberals actively campaigning for the NDP and Conservatives but it will be an uphill battle.

How many Hamilton seats will Dalton lose?

Andrew Dreschel
The Hamilton Spectator
(Sep 10, 2007)

…………
But the big question going into today’s campaign is how many Hamilton seats will McGuinty lose?

Policy issues aside, the reality is he runs the risk of emerging without a single one thanks to a combination of redrawn electoral boundaries that demographically benefit the other parties, the resignation of three Liberal incumbents and a locally resurgent NDP still flushed with momentum from its three federal victories.
….

Building on that power base, the New Democrats now have a strong shot at picking up two, possibly three, inner-city ridings, while the Conservatives have an equally good chance of capturing one, possibly two, suburban ridings.
….
But the real test for McGuinty’s staying power is going to be further east, where changing borders will have a ripple effect across the city.
….
Second case in point: Hamilton East and Stoney Creek disappear as stand-alones to be replaced by Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, held federally by New Democrat Wayne Marston. Small wonder NDP candidate Paul Miller quite rightly has high hopes of joining Horwath in the winner’s circle.

Driving around the riding the signs are overwhelmingly pro-Miller with some locations for PC candidate Crugnale. While signs don’t vote, they are an early sign of organization on the ground. Round 1: NDP have massive organization, PC has a respectable organization, Liberals have none.

WOW. NDP can do some damage here huh?

I did an analysis of signs in pro-Liberal areas of the riding and Nerene had very few of them up. In polls where Liberals would absolutely cover the place with 75plus signs, Nerene had 15-25. I thought maybe she hasn’t canvassed much but friends in those polls are saying she was at their door.

Nerene even had to have an ad in the local paper saying that her campaign opening was a success, she has “hundreds” of sign locations marked, volunteers are coming in the door and she has an “enthusiastic” response at the door!

The ad also says to come see why her HQ is the “talk of the town”.

Normally candidates advertise their party’s platform or what they are going to do. Getting a 3/4 page colour ad telling voters your campaign is going well is pretty desparate.

That’s what you get when you import volunteers from Toronto!

we are all in for a suprise in Hamilton Centre.

Even with talk of “500 election signs missing”, the total Liberal signs in the riding is probably a third of where it should be at.

My street had 5 Nerene signs and 2 Tara and 1 Miller and 3 of the Nerene signs have been taken out by the owners of the house themselves. The others are still there. But the larger issue is that there would have been a good 20 Liberal signs in previous campaigns.

While signs do get taken down, the Liberals should understand that Nerene Virgin is hugely unpopular in the riding. Don’t believe me? Then someone from her campaign should tell us how many Liberal party members in HESC are actively campaigning for her and how many of her team are Toronto implants.

So when Italians are putting up Conservative signs in HESC, it doesn’t mean anything. because as all good Liberals organizers from Toronto know, Italians always vote Liberal. Doesn’t matter the Conservative is an attractive intelligent experienced candiate who is Italian and daughter of the Italian Vice Counsul.
When hundreds of homes that had Liberal signs in the past take down those signs now, it must be the nasty NDP or Conservatives or Greens or Family Coalition. Couldn’t have anything to do with MCGuinty appointing a candidate from ousside the riding when a local activist was signing up hundreds of members for the nomiantion.
Hundreds of NDP signs on former Liberal lawns? call the cops, the NDP is stealing the riding.

The Virgin campaign has been a disaster from the start. Please send her managers back to Toronto- we could use a few more NDP seats there.

The NDP is taking down the signs. Someone took mine down last night. I saw them!

Some Andrea Howarth people took down 100 signs in H-C, I read today on this blog. They’re getting desperate.

o Bud, you didn’t read in this blog about 100 signs going down in Hamilton Centre. You wree supposed to post that there instead of this comment.

“The tide is turning in Hamilton Centre.

Mark my words. The upset of the campaign is about to commence.
Comment/commentaire by Bud 10.02.07 @ 12:19 pm ”

Gee, I love Liberal staffers- they can’t get their own spin straight.

Bud, newsflash – signs are stolen in EVERY election! I have worked on enough Liberal campaigns in Hamilton to know that. However, you compensate for that by having an effective sign crew that replaces those signs quickly. That’s the sign of an effective campaign.

I don’t know whether sign stealing is officially sanctioned by a campaign – sometimes someone who is upset with a party will steal them thinking they are doing someone a favour (not realizing that they are just hurting the political process more than the party whose signs they are taking).

Normally 500 stolen election signs would not be readily noticed in HESC, after all, the Liberals usually get about 3,000 sign locations in this riding, even in bad times. What is more noteworthy in this riding is that the Libs are not putting up many signs in the first place.

Liberals appoint a semi-known name without a nomination process, NDp nominate democratically but the winner is less than overwhelming, Liberals plastering public places with signs, NDP putting unrequested signs on lawns, rumours of Liberals clandestinely submitting sign requests to the NDP campaign for random houses, both sides stealing the others’ signs – this is a good old political catfight that will be noticed by the politicos, staffers, and riding association members, but not by the general public. This could go for either party, and could be a squeaker or a landslide for either side and not necessarily surprise. Will be interesting as its too close to call.

-Nerene Virgin’s office is filled with local volunteers. I know some of you would love to think we’re all from Toronto (because we dress so nice) but too bad we’re Hamiltonians! Nerene was born here and has lived here longer than Dan McLean and I think we all agree he’s a good old Hamiltonian. He may not have been born here but we’ve gladly adopted him!

-The campaign has ordered three batches of signs and placed thousands all over Hamilton East – Stoney Creek.

-There are losers driving around in trucks stealing lawn signs every night. Call the police and ask if you are looking for confirmation. They have stolen over 1000.

-Our opponent’s strategy of lawn sign theft is about as dumb as they come. The fact is you can’t keep a good woman down.

-Stelco does not define Hamilton. Our generation is looking for more. We don’t want Miller. We don’t want to get left behind. Hamilton IS getting left out of the loop. Like it or not developers are building elsewhere (like Brantford) because we have failed to shake off the likes of Miller…His way of thinking is stale. Let’s get on with it. We need another Dominic! We need a champion! We need Nerene!

-If you don’t give your heads a shake this city will face a mass exodus. What will you do then? Who will teach in your schools? Who will work in your hospitals? Who will offer you Tim Horton’s in the morning? If you don’t get that the Liberal government is pushing for Hamilton I wish you’d get out. If not at least get out of the way and let us clean this place up nice for our kids.

-This is not a dress rehearsal

“Nerene was born here and has lived here longer than Dan McLean and I think we all agree he’s a good old Hamiltonian”

Then why has noone in the area ever heard of her? On the Cable 14 debate Paul Miller said he’d never heard of Nerene and she shot herself in the foot by saying she’d never heard of him either. If she’d actually lived in Stoney Creek for 30 years like she claimed, she might have heard at some point that he was a city councillor here. The fact that she is ignorant of this fact shows how little she knows about this riding and if elected, she’d just be “phoning it in” like Jennifer Mossop did before her. Stoney Creek deserves better.

Also, I hope all the Italians DO vote for Crugnale after the Liberals have been calling them liars, claiming that they’re only pretending to support the PCs and that they’ll actually vote Liberal in the end. That’s great campaign strategy, insult the people you want to support you before you’ve got their vote.

Also I don’t doubt that the Liberals have placed thousands of signs all over town, but how many of them were actually asked for by the person who lived there and how many were then taken down by the homeowner themselves who then put up a Tara Crugnale sign in it’s place? Those Liberal signs aren’t ALL stolen by the NDP, most are taken down by people who are disgusted with the Liberal party and unhappy with the parachuted candidate who has no connection to this community despite her claims.

Then there is the possibility that signs that say:
“Vote Virgin” might be particularly susceptible to theft.
a little humour in a too uptight election.

Nicole is very passionate in her defence of NV, perhaps because her name could be Nicole Virgin, Neren’s daughter? Just a thought?

But comparing Nerene to Dominic is a bit of a stretch – Dominic would NEVER have acted as the mouthpiece of big industry (like Nerene did when she sent the “open letter” to Paul Miller regarding the sale of Stelco to US Steel).

Maybe Nicole can tell us how many HESC Liberal party members are actively helping Nerene and how many of them have signs on their lawns? Precious few.

Maybe Nicole can tell us how the former treasurer of the Ontario Liberal Party has publicly blasted the process by which Nerene was appointed by a panel, none of whom live in the riding.

Why is it that Nerene’s campaign manager is from Ajax? Could they not find anyone local?

And yes, Hamilton is changing – thanks for letting us know. And yes we need to invest in the future and the Liberals have moved on this – however, your flippant attitude towards Stelco is part of the problem. HESC is comprised of people who are suffering NOW – eg Frost Fence, Slater Steel, etc who have lost jobs and/or had reduced pensions because their pension funds weren’t fully funded. They can appreciate the future – they know their kids won’t likely follow them into Stelco or Dofasco. But those industries will continue to employ or provide pension or pension equivalents for years to come.

Nerene may or may not win, things can certainly change in a week – but the task of the Liberals winning this riding was made much more difficult when the old boys club decided to appoint a candidate in a riding they know nothing about.

You obviously just don’t get it.
You obviously don’t have your finger on the pulse of this riding.
I understand…The truth hurts.
We’ll see you on election night.

Sorry to have so obviously hurt your feelings (hit a nerve perhaps), but when I saw Nerene and Larry DiIanni being escorted from Eastgate Square by security the other week for campaigning in there without permission (you’d think Larry would know better having been in an election or two in his time), all the people with Nerene were out of towners, as have been the people going door to door with her.

I’m just calling it like I see it. Oh and by the way, you didn’t answer my question so I’ll repeat it again, why has noone in Hamilton heard of Nerene before this election? If she’s a star candidate, if she’s been part of this community for 30 years, if she’s lived here and taught here in our schools, why aren’t we seeing the parents of her former students coming out to support her, why not the students themselves helping out her campaign? That’s a real connection to the community. Those are real people who will tell their neighbours and friends. Where are those people? I’ve heard the endless long story about all that Nerene has contributed to the community but I’ve only ever heard it from her and quite frankly, she’s got a bias in this. Why are all these people she’s helped in the community so silent? Either she didn’t make much of an impression on them or she’s exaggerating her involvement. Which is it?

Boy are the Libs really whinning now on here. This bunch could not organize a two car funeral. NDPer’s stealing her signs. PC signs on Italian households just for show. What a bunch of bunk. I live in downtown Stoney Creek and as of today I have received 0 pieces of literature from the Liberal campaign. 1 from the PC’s and 3 from the NDP campaign. Oh and how about this, that noted local Liberal Arthur Wisz, owner of Effort Trust who in the last week of all previous campaigns has all his buildings in the riding plastered with Liberal signs (has never worked as almost every building in the riding overwhelemingly votes NDP)just had PC signs go up today on all his buildings in the riding. Won’t matter, the residents of those buildings will still vote NDP but hey maybe Tara and the PC’s will finish 2nd and the Libs 3rd. Hey Lib staffers, now tell us all those PC signs were put up without Arthur’s permission!

Yeah I noticed that too (the Weisz buildings having PC signs). Nerene is just starting to hit the polls that are crucial for a Liberal victory.

I look at not only the Italian houses which have PC signs but also the Croatian houses, probably one of the stronger pro-Liberal groups in the riding – very few are taking signs.

Sources in the Liberal camp are telling me that they are getting desparate – trying to get federal Liberals to help them but from the federal exec, no less than three are actively campaigning for Paul Miller and one is actively campaigning for Tara Crugnale.

The chief canvass chair for Jennifer Mossop’s campaign is now working for Crugnale.

Interesting times indeed.

The only candidate who has a right to win this riding is one who as a minimum lives in the riding. The Liberal candidate does not live in this riding and should not be able to represent us.

FYI Shirley, the Conservative candidate also does not live in this riding (Dundas I believe)

McGuinty has time to visit Barrie three times (eg one riding) but only visited Hamilton ONCE in this campaign – that’s pretty telling.

Apparently there were plans for McGuinty to make a stop in HESC tonight but these plans were apparently scuttled after it was revealed that the NV campaign couldn’t guarantee a large turnout.

false. Stop making things up.

you guys are all crazy!!