There has been virtually no time in our history when the Saskatchewan CCF-NDP has not looked forward to an election year.
That's because at virtually no time in our history has this party gone into an election without a reasonable prospect of winning.
Beginning with its first election win in 1944 (only the second election in which the then CCF actually ran candidates), the CCF-NDP have won a rather remarkable 12 of the last 17 general elections and has governed this province for an even more remarkable 47 of the last 66 years. Even more remarkably is how seldom the CCF ever went into a campaign with the same sense of despair that its political enemies have had.
Yes, the CCF-NDP has lost five elections, but consider those losses.
In 1964 after the great medicare fight, the then CCF only garnered 1,340 votes less than the victorious Liberals and only had one-tenth of a percentage point (40.3 per cent, compared with 40.4 per cent for the Liberals) less popular vote.
In 1967, the NDP actually increased its popular vote to 44.3 per cent.
In 1982, the NDP was clearly hammered by the Grant Devine's Progressive Conservatives who out-polled the NDP in popular vote 54.1 per cent to 37.6 per cent.
But by 1986 the NDP bounced back, actually taking more votes (277,683 to 244,382) and more of the percentage popular vote (45.2 per cent to 44.6 per cent) than the Conservatives.
In 2007, the NDP saw its popular vote dip to 38 per cent and were hammered by the Sask. Party. However, the NDP still managed to maintain a respectable 20 of 58 seats - only 10 less than the New Democrats held in the last of their 16-year run in power.
What this really means is that only in 1982 and in 2007 did the NDP clearly have no chance of winning.
And why the CCF-NDP always seems to have a change of winning each election can be chalked up to this party's rather amazing recuperative power. This takes us to perhaps the most amazing statistic of all:
At no time since it first started running candidates as the CCF in the late 1930s has the CCF-NDP ever received less popular vote after an election loss.
Sure, the CCF-NDP has had lost consecutive election (although the fact that that's only happened twice since it started running candidates). And, yes, the CCF-NDP didn't always improve its standing after an election win (although the fact that it has had stretches in office of 20-, 11- and 16 consecutive years suggests that this hasn't exactly been an overwhelming problem either).
But after every election loss, a seemingly remorseful Saskatchewan public has always given the NDP a higher popular vote than in the previous election it lost.
In other words, in its 77-year history the CCF-NDP has never really known what it's like to take a true step backwards - something that every other party has had to deal with. Heck, even the 13-year-old Saskatchewan Party received less percentage popular vote in 2003 that it did in its first-ever general election in 1999.
But as we enter this election year in 2011, there is a taste of foreboding that the CCF-NDP has never known.
Since Dwain Lingenfelter took over this party in 2009, the NDP had languished below 30 per cent - 10 percentage points below its popular vote in the 2007 general election.
And unless Lingenfelter somehow manages what would be a historic and miraculous turnaround by the November 7th vote, the NDP is in serious danger of having less support than it did after an election loss. That's something that's never happened to it before.
The NDP could make political history in 2011... although not in the way they would like.Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 15 years.
