Thanks to the close to fifty people who entered. I’ve added the scores up and am prepared to crown a “Champion of Miscellaneous Canadian Political Prognostication” in the First (annual?) Off-Beat Election Pool.
Before I reveal the winners, here are the question answers:
1. Will the Liberals win a seat in Alberta (10 points)
NO
2. Over/Under Conservative support in Quebec – 9% (5 points)
WAY OVER
3. Which party will run the most vicious attack ad (I get to play judge and jury on this one) (5 points)
LIBERALS or BQ. I explain my reasoning here.
4. Which party will win Ottawa Centre? (3 points)
NDP
5. Svend Robinson or Heddy Fry? (3 points)
Heddy
6. Will the Bloc crack 60 seats? (5 points)
NO
7. Will Marc Garneau win his seat? (3 points)
NO
8. Will Allan Cutler win his seat? (3 points)
NO
9. Will Olivia Chow win her seat? (3 points)
YES
10. Will Jean Lapierre keep his seat? (3 points)
YES
11. What date will the first abortion reference be made during the campaign? (5 points for person who is closest, 4 points for second closest, etc.)
JANUARY 10th . This one may take a bit of explanation. Abortion was brought up in the Washington Times article which Harper responded to before Christmas. However, journalists mention abortion all the time – the real question is when it becomes an issue. No one jumped on the abortion part of that story at the time so I don’t consider it a real reference…it barely registered in Canadian newspapers (and I was google searching “abortion + Harper” quite frequently). On the 10th, we saw the (former?) CPC party president bring the issue up and the papers and politicians jumped all over it.
12. Number of times Stephen Harper mentions “corruption” in first English debate (5 points for correct guess, minus 1 for every one away you are)
3
13. Number of times Paul Martin is “clear” or “perfectly clear” during the first English debate (5 points for correct guess, minus 1 for every one away you are)
5
14. Which party leader will the CTV instant poll claim to have won the first English debate? (5 points)
MARTIN. CTV didn’t have an instant poll, but Global did and Martin won it. Every post-debate poll had Martin as the winner too.
15. Will Belinda Stronach appear in a nationally televised Liberal TV ad? (2 points)
NO
16. Monte Solberg’s popular vote over/under – 75% (5 points)
OVER
17. Which leader will get the most points in the Gaffe pool? (5 points)
MARTIN . In a landslide.
18. Voter Turn-Out (5 points for actual percentage, -1 for every percentage point off by)
65%
19. Which polling company’s final poll will be the closest to the actual election results? (10 points)
SES
20. Which party will get the most seats? (I guess it had to be asked) (10 points)
CONSERVATIVES
Since I don’t want to embarrass anyone, I’ll only post the 20 highest scores here. If you’re not listed here, you can e-mail me for your score and rank. Apologies in advance for any adding errors.
1. Saskatchewan Grit 70
2. Mustafah Hirji 63
3. Judy 57
4. Blake Robert 49
5. John G 48
5. James MacDuff 48
7. Mike Berthold 47
7. Mike Gilis 47
7. McGuire 47
10. Michael 43
10. Sacha Peter 43
12. Dorion Hawk 42
12. DeClan 42
14. Hack 41
15. Don 38
16. Roby 37
17. Jason Cherniak 35
17. Matt Oberhoffner 35
19. Freedominion Watch 31
20. Thursday 29