VIRGINIA WATERS SENDS AN UNMISTAKEABLE MESSAGE

No one expected the District of Virginia Waters to be a cakewalk for any of the Candidates and it wasn’t.   Still, a 40 vote margin of victory by Liberal Cathy Bennett must feel like Everest climbed.  In so doing, she has executed an almost miraculous repetition of the Harbour Grace-Carbonear byelection.  She has proven beyond a doubt there are no safe Tory seats in the Province.

It is a tough loss for Danny Breen; he deserves our congratulations, as does Sheilagh O’Leary.

But it is the Liberal Party’s and Cathy Bennett’s victory.  She has confirmed that a quiet political revolution, one insistent and possibly inexorable, is working its way through the political fabric of the Province.  The Liberals are coming!

Still, there is finality to every democratic vote.  Likely, the Tories long ago forgot that it is also within the purview of the voters to be arbitrary.

Many people will want to read the entrails of this byelection.  I have the following observations:

READING THE TEA LEAVES IN VIRGINIA WATERS

Many people, and not just pundits, are salivating in anticipation of the results of the Virginia Waters byelection.  Perhaps, as its ‘bellwether’ history suggests, the outcome will confirm the winner of the next general election.  Of course, a multitude of signals are sought.  In particular, the Government wants to know if its free-falling popular support has been arrested with Dunderdale's banishment. 

A ‘bellwether’ riding is a term used to denote a single electoral district or region which reflects, with consistency, a larger political trend.  The District of Virginia Waters qualifies; but don’t bet your last dime on the accuracy of this gauge.

Province-wide Polls suggest the Liberals are the Party with momentum; the Tories and the NDP have crashed.  

Still, the outcome of the byelection is not a forgone conclusion.