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:
