more noise on the fate of the ssm liberals

Over at the Ambler, Kevin Grace takes apart my post (here) on the dozen or so socially-conservative candidates that could be identified last summer. I had suggested that these candidates generally did a couple points worse than we'd expect from the general movement in the election and might be attributable to discomfort with social conservativism. Grace points out that this can just as easily (and more credibly) be attributed to statistical noise.

I think his point is confirmed if we look at the ssm liberals. I list them here with their results in 2004 and 2006, the net change, and the net change in their province.

		2004	2006	change	prov. change
Andy Savoy (Tobique—Mactaquac)	NB	48.2%	42.9%	-5.3%	-5.4%
Paul Zed (Saint John)	NB	43.3%	42.9%	-0.4%	-5.4%
Charles Hubbard (Miramichi)	NB	48.1%	42.3%	-5.8%	-5.4%
Bill Matthews (Random—Burin—St. George's)	NL	46.8%	45.5%	-1.3%	-5.2%
Scott Simms (Bonavista—etc.)	NL	48.2%	52.0%	3.8%	-5.2%
Rodger Cuzner (Cape Breton—Canso)	NS	53.3%	53.2%	-0.1%	-2.6%
Walt Lastewka (St. Catharines)	ON	40.4%	37.0%	-3.4%	-4.8%
Judi Longfield (Whitby—Oshawa)	ON	45.0%	38.8%	-6.2%	-4.8%
Roger Gallaway (Sarnia—Lambton)	ON	41.9%	33.1%	-8.8%	-4.8%
Gary Carr (Halton)	ON	48.4%	41.4%	-7.0%	-4.8%
Ken Boshcoff (Thunder Bay—Rainy River)	ON	39.4%	35.1%	-4.3%	-4.8%
Gerry Byrne (Humber—etc.)	ON	62.6%	52.9%	-9.7%	-4.8%
John Cannis (Scarborough Centre)	ON	56.7%	55.4%	-1.3%	-4.8%
Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay—Superior North)	ON	43.0%	36.0%	-7.0%	-4.8%
Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North)	ON	63.3%	61.6%	-1.7%	-4.8%
Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough—Agincourt)	ON	64.1%	62.6%	-1.5%	-4.8%
Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River)	ON	57.9%	65.6%	7.7%	-4.8%
Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan)	ON	53.4%	56.2%	2.8%	-4.8%
Gurbax Malhi (Bramalea)	ON	49.5%	50.7%	1.2%	-4.8%
John Maloney (Welland)	ON	39.6%	35.5%	-4.1%	-4.8%
John McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood)	ON	57.5%	53.3%	-4.2%	-4.8%
Dan McTeague (Pickering—Scarborough East)	ON	57.0%	52.7%	-4.3%	-4.8%
Paul Steckle (Huron—Bruce)	ON	49.8%	39.8%	-10.0%	-4.8%
Paul Szabo (Mississauga South)	ON	51.7%	43.9%	-7.8%	-4.8%
Alan Tonks (York South—Weston)	ON	59.8%	57.1%	-2.7%	-4.8%
Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest)	ON	49.5%	47.8%	-1.7%	-4.8%
Bryon Wilfert (Richmond Hill)	ON	58.5%	53.4%	-5.1%	-4.8%
Brenda Chamberlain (Guelph)	ON	44.6%	38.4%	-6.2%	-4.8%
Wajid Khan (Mississauga—Streetsville)	ON	50.6%	45.9%	-4.7%	-4.8%
Massimo Pacetti (Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel)	QC	63.9%	57.2%	-6.7%	-13.2%
Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard)	QC	63.6%	51.1%	-12.5%	-13.2%
Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis)	QC	63.9%	48.2%	-15.7%	-13.2%
Raymond Simard (St. Boniface)	QC	46.6%	38.6%	-8.0%	-13.2%

Conclusion? Most of these Liberals' fortunes more or less fell in rough proportion to their provinces. This should mean that same-sex marriage probably played no great role in the election. Or rather, what roles it did play ended up cancelling as those who were motivated to vote pro- on this basis were equalled by those voting con-.

(In a slight defence of my last post, it was intended to explore the effect of social con-ism in general rather than ssm in particular. But still, such changes, except perhaps for Cindy Silver and Rondo Thomas, are probably noise.)