Saint Bernard

After a surprising defeat at the hands of Mr. Shawn Graham's (L - WhatthefuckdoIdonow) Liberals in New Brunswick, Bernard Lord (PC - Timber and Frozen food) is suddenly looking for a new job.

Surprisingly, many pundits instinctively wrote him out of politics forever. I was one of them. I mean, he lost right? LOOO-SER.

Then I thought about it for a few seconds. History is littered with examples of politicians who have lost only to come back. In fact, the current liberal leadership race has one of them: Bob Rae (L - second ballot support). Time will tell with Bingo Bob.

Richard Nixon (R - Missed Saigon) lost the presidency, and then a gubernatorial election in California, before winning the oval office in 1968. Maybe history shouldn't use the two-time loser Nixon as the best example of trimphantly returning....Bill Clinton (D - Speaking engagement) lost the governors' mansion in Little Rock before being returned and subsequently promoted by the American people. Ujjal Dosanjh (L - Convenience) lost 75-2 in the darkest election in the history of the BC (before Campbell) NDP in before he slinked into a federal liberal Cabinet position.

Sure, Lord's party didn't win re-election, but his share of the popular vote went up, and his party finished higher in the popular vote than did the majority winning Liberals. Yet another example to fuel the fires of electoral reform in a land still dominated by first past the post.

The best view of the New Brunswick election isn't that the Liberals won, but that the NDP were crushed. Their popular vote was reduced to less than five percent when they traditionally won over ten. To be fair, Lord lost three seats, and didn't win the NDP's lone seat. A crushing defeat indeed.

I bet that Mr. Lord will stampede triumphantly back into the limelight. I think that in the next federal election he will run as a Tory (along with PEI Premier Pat Binns). I think it is possible that they are both put in cabinet before then. He has denied it, but the first rule about comebacks is to deny that the first career is even over. Saying he would make the jump now would make the next year impossible as the leader of the opposition in New Brunswick.

The real scandal that I see in this election is the fact that the Liberals won 29 seats and the Tory's won 26. That means there are 55 seats in New Brunswick. The most recent census has the population at 757,100. That is just under 14,000 per seat. There are city councilors in Kingston that represent more people.