From the Chronicle Herald on yesterday’s elections in Canada:
If Mr. Harper’s big campaign error was blowing potential gains in Quebec, Mr. Dion’s was building a campaign around the Green Shift.
Electorally, it was a shift that simply didn’t work for the Liberals. It shifted old supporters out of the party in fear that it would raise their energy costs, but did not seem to shift idealistic new ones in.
Although Mr. Dion was, as he fairly claimed, the greenest mainstream party leader on offer, green voters didn’t come to him in any numbers in the end. The shift was beyond what mainstream voters were ready to do for the environment; the green vanguard proved fickle and so the great green gamble was a fizzle.