Geoff MacLellan Has Two Problems, Both Named John

Geoff MacLellan has been an MLA for 10 years now in Glace Bay, but he might be on his way to getting defeated with the help of his own party leader, Premier McNeil - and two guys named John.

The Premier visited Cape Breton recently for an event with the CBRM Chamber of Commerce. During the event, he described his friendship with Geoff and his colleague Derek Mombourquette. While nicely reinforcing how closely they work together, McNeil seemed quite enthusiastic in his response when asked about his thoughts on providing more resources for the CBRM.

The response was "zero."

With an unnecessary arrogance, the Premier effectively attached another "kick me" sign to the backs of the two MLAs, both of whom had big scares in the 2017 elections.

Now, on behalf of the Premier, Geoff and Derek are left with the task of gaslighting their constituents into thinking that McNeil had the right idea when he suggested the right amount of attention to the severe fiscal challenges of the CBRM is zero.

The Premier holds a majority right now, but by a slim margin. A loss from either MacLellan or Mombourquette would be a huge victory for the rising momentum of the Tim Houston PC party. And the premier through bad policy and reckless communication is throwing the two loyal-to-party-first MLAs into precarious election matchups. 

MacLellan was already going to have an uncertain outcome in his second matchup with Glace Bay's PC representative, John White.

White has had additional time to prepare for his second bid, but also will benefit from the strong PC leadership of Tim Houston in his next attempt.

As if one popular John wasn't enough of a risk factor, a second John has indicated his intention to challenge.

While former CBRM mayor John Morgan has thus far only announced his intention to seek the NDP nomination for the riding, it's all but secured already and will likely be quickly acclaimed when the time comes. 

Similar to Dave Wilton's successful MLA win in the past that was followed by a loss, in MacLellan's fourth run, he will certainly face a more challenging three-way dynamic.

When MacLellan won his MLA seat for the first time in the 2010 by-election, he had a solid win against a consistent NDP performer, Myrtle Campbell. In that election, he greatly benefited from the PC candidate, Michelle Wheelhouse performing with below 1,000 votes, which widened his margin of victory.

Running as the incumbent in 2013, he won in his second time out by taking over 80% of the vote. That's a familiar election dominance to MacLellan's soon-to-be challenger, John Morgan. In 2004 and 2008, Mayor Morgan was also elected with over 80% of the vote.

Margins this wide often are a reflection of the lack of strength of the competition. In 2013, MacLellan's large margin of victory was precisely due to him facing weak candidates from both the NDP and the PC party. He sailed on to an easy victory, and probably knew before the polls opened that it was going to be a big win.

But then 2017 came along, and Geoff's results were surprising to many. His worst of three finishes, despite him still pulling out the win, was due to a very strong finish by the PC candidate, John White, a local Glace Bay teacher. This time, a weak NDP candidate may have helped the MLA to survive the solid challenge of John White. 

MacLellan might have had the benefit of a Liberal floor of votes that is difficult to knock down much lower. The riding has, after all, been a Liberal stronghold for quite some time.

Nonetheless, the two-Johns challenge is going to put MacLellan more at risk than ever.

PC and NDP supporters have enough of a right-left divide between them that it's more difficult for them to carve votes away from one another. They'll both try to achieve victory by carving away more of Geoff's support.

There's really no reason to believe that John White will underperform his accomplishment in the first matchup. His supporters know he was within reach and will be behind him again with just as much enthusiasm.

The bigger question is whether or not Mayor John Morgan, after exiling himself from politics and the public eye since the 2012 elections still carries strong support at the present day, while preparing to run under the NPD banner.

In social media polling for hypothetical mayoral matchups, John Morgan and potential 2012 mayoral candidate Amanda McDougall were quite dominant in most matchups against the others, showing stronger support than both MacLellan and former mayoral candidate Rankin MacSween. How skewed that social media data is won't be revealed until the next provincial election.

MacLellan will experience the opposite of what he faced in the 2013 election in 2020/2021.

Instead of two weak candidates, he'll be facing two strong candidates. And while Morgan as an NDP candidate will perform well, Morgan as the candidate voters recognize as their former mayor has the potential to pull support beyond what the NDP party supporters could muster alone.

That's not exactly the kind of scenario you want to enter if you're MacLellan while also having to act as an apologist for the Premier. Will he be able to convince local voters that it really is best for the CBRM if the Premier, himself, Mombourquette and Wilton all agree to give zero attention to the CBRM's fiscal challenges?

One of the biggest tests for all Liberal candidates will be whether or not the age-old practice of dumping money into big projects before an election will work out for the Liberal candidates. At the chamber event, the Premier may have foreshadowed the answer to this question when he said:

"I realized when I came in, you can't buy love. $700 Million and they're still protesting me"

as he mocked the CBRM healthcare protesters outside.



NOTE: The views expressed above are my own and do not represent lokol (goCapeBreton.com). Read more

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