The level of analysis and the conversation on the Blogs about the implications and complications of a Harper majority government are showing this new medium at its best.
There are so many great postings and rich and enlightening comment threads on this issue I hesitate to do much by visit other sites and watch it unfold.
I recommend the Prairie Wrangler and Far and Wide as good places to start but wander around the Blogs and make up you own mind about the wisdom of a Harper majority.
The polls of late have been generating more heat than light. The Decima “on-line poll” – gave the Harper Cons a substantial lead and the Dion Libs a sobering sense of sliding. Looking to any sign of a trend or momentum the MSM and right wing Blogs jumped all over this. Speculation over an early election bubbled to the top again. We really need to look seriously at what is happening in the March 19 Budget and the March 26 Quebec election before anyone can really make any strategic decisions about the timing and wisdom of any election call.
In the meantime, I hope Decima made some serious attempt to cull and categorize their on-line poll participants to be reflective Canada in terms of the regional population distributions, gender, education income and all other traditional criteria. I am a big fan of on-line surveys but they are nor necessarily reflective of the collective wisdom of the country. They have a more serious purpose but that is a subject for another posting some other time.
New Poll Shows Cons and Libs Back at a Statistical Tie:
Ipsos Reid is out with a new poll that puts the major parties back in a statistical tie. The context of this poll is the Conservative negative ads about Dion are gone, the Quebec election is on and Harper is buying votes in Ontario. Key findings from this poll – beyond the statistical tie are the Cons still stuck at 36% as at Election night and Dion is up 2% now that the negative ads are off the air.
In Quebec the Dion Liberals are up 4 points (at 29%) and the Harper Cons are down 3% (at 18%) even with the gifts and fawning Harper has been doing for Charest. Even in Alberta Harper is down 6 points but still at a commanding total of 55% support.
Not many undecided folks overall but the largest concentration was in Sask/Man at 18% and Ontario at 15% undecided, refused or didn’t know how they would vote.
Campaigns matter and these various poll results taken when there is no election going on are like mood rings. The “colours” of the opinions and the moods of the participants can change very quickly - but they are not decisive. That will not happen until there is a real election happening.
All we have now is a fluid punditry, a volatile voter base and a voluble blogisphere. Not the stuff to risk an election over yet.
Oddly, these new poll numbers are actually better for the CPC than the previous ones - the NDP's numbers went back up, which is exactly what the CPC needs for a maximized vote split. As well, as you know, the 6% drop in AB is irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteIf you think the picture is rosy in Quebec for the libs, you are really out of touch with reality. A federalist win, with the ADQ holding the balance of power, is exactly the right current for the CPC to go in the next election - as Chantal Hebert correctly stated, any seat that goes ADQ is essentially a conservative seat in the next election.
The $1.3 Billion Dollar announcement in Toronto for public transit is even more proof that an election is near. My LPC colleagues in Ottawa state that they will almost do anything to prevent an election (possibly even not voting against the budget!).
eric - I agree with everything you say...that likely means one of us does not understand the issues.
ReplyDeleteI think the ADQ and Dumont is really Harper's best friend in Quebec...Charest is playing Harper like a cheap fiddle in the typical Quebec extortion mode.
I think your negative ads have had an effect...how lasting is open to question but they did change opinion about Dion for a while for sure.
A few years back the Klein government in ALberta spent $3.5 million on ads to convince Albertans that Kyoto was bad. The pre-campaign polls showed about 70% (if I recall correctly)of Albertans in favour of Kyoto. After the campaign 70% were opposed. Six months after the ads stopped the Alberta population was back to strong Kyoto support.
Now no one seems to want to ask the question re Kyoto support in ALberta any more.