Harper wins, Dion and Layton lose

The last five polls have yet to be counted, but it's pretty safe to call the northern Saskatchewan riding of Desnethe Missinippi Churchill for the Conservatives. That riding has switched back and forth between the Liberals and Tories by less than a hundred votes in the last two elections. Conservative Rob Clarke's win (at this point, by a 16% margin) is a landslide by comparison.

That's embarrassing to the Liberals to begin with; even moreso, given that Stephane Dion hand-picked the Liberal candidate, ruffling plenty of feathers locally (and betraying David Orchard in the bargain). Of all the ridings for the Liberals to lose, this was the most likely. But the margin of victory is a special and direct slap in the face to Dion -- not just for his general conduct as Liberal leader, but for his anti-democratic meddling.

Vancouver Quadra, two thirds counted as I write, is a win for the Liberals, but not by much. The Conservative candidate trails by just 5%. A win is a win, but that's uncomfortably close in a riding that has been one of the Liberals' most reliable seats in the West for decades.

Those two ridings can fairly be called setbacks for Dion; had Vancouver Quadra gone Tory, it would have been a humiliation. But what's interesting, besides the strength of the Conservatives, is the weakness of the NDP across the country.

With 90% of the polls counted in Toronto Centre, the Green Party almost exactly tied the NDP's celebrity candidate, at just under 13%. In Willowdale, both parties were in single digits, but the Greens bested the NDP. And with most of the vote counted in Vancouver Quadra, the NDP barely edged out the Greens, 16% to 15%. Only in Saskatchewan, the birthplace of the CCF, did the NDP handily the Greens in a rural riding -- but still only received 17%.

Of course this is just a by-election, with low turnout. But the Conservatives have been in office for more than two years; there is no honeymoon effect going on. A pick-up by Harper is noteworthy. But just as noteworthy is that Liberal voters are mimicking their leader -- and abstaining from voting, almost costing the party Vancouver Quadra in the bargain. And whatever Jack Layton's strategy is in Ottawa doesn't seem to be resonating either.

The fact that the Greens are polling so strong, at least in the urban ridings, should be very disconcerting to the Liberals and the NDP. Not only are those Green voters likely defectors from those two other parties on the left, but it shows that despite his monomania on the subject, and naming his dog Kyoto, Dion has failed to capture the environmentalist vote.

It's an encouraging night for Conservatives, for more reasons than just the one seat pick-up.