Well, a new poll came out today that should the Conservatives and Liberals in a VIRTUAL DEAD HEAT!!!! OMG!!! Let's leave aside the fact that this poll is part phone and part online, and online polls are never as accurate. And let's leave aside the Angue Reid poll that showed the Conservatives at 34%. And of course the torqued headlines at the Red Star.
Our friends over at LibLogs are now salivating at these poll numbers, thinking they will soon overtake the Conservatives.
Of course they forget that this drop in the polls happens all the time, the Conservatives lose support, drop down to about the level of the Liberals then suddenly come back up again. The Conservatives lose support when the house is sitting and gain support when the house isn't. Been like this for years.
These polls are coming off of the Christmas break where no one was watching, after the attack by the MSM over the prorogation issue, and now we see the Liberals launching attack ads. The attack ads are well timed from the Liberals for once, even though they break a Liberal promise not to launch attack ads. I wonder if Peter Donolo paid for these ads on his credit card?
But I am not sure I would crow over the poll results just yet. While the Conservatives have lost support, the Liberals haven't gained support. This can't possibly bold well for them.
I predict that over the reminder of the prorogation period that the Conservatives will launch ads, take to the airwaves, cheer on Team Canada and continue handing out the stimulus money. This will in turn cause their poll numbers to go up, the Liberals to get cold feet, then abstain or vote for the budget.
This is not to mention that the Conservatives have been out-campaigning and out fund-raising the Liberals for years. Nor does it address the fact that Conservative supports are more dedicated, and they tend to out perform their poll numbers at the ballot box.
I am not worried yet, but if I was a Liberal I would be wondering and worried as to why we haven't picked up any support yet in the polls....
6 comments:
Any online component poisons a poll. It is not very hard to vote multiple times. I have the same problems as an amateur pollster. There are ways to police it, but you can never completely ensure the accuracy. Some of the nuts on the left, like Kady O'Malley, are internet addicts and either they or the orcs who follow them can skew online polling.
28% of my audience would prefer it if I were dead, and yet they keep coming back for more. Go figure.
Iceman, exactly! Online polls are not great.
The Liberals point to how the PM is in "damage control mode" because he is suddenly making media appearances to sell prorogation. But based on what has been happening, I am more inclined to believe that this was a more calculated move for a loftier objective. The media appearances are merely mitigating the expected fall-out.
The Liberals are crowing about recent polls to say that the PM is losing the public relations battle on this issue. They are absolutley clueless; all the PM did was burn some political capital to secure a much bigger prize - control of the senate and it's committees; sacrificing a pawn to get his opponent to put his pieces where the PM wants them to be to set him up for a more intricate play.
Once Parliament resumes, there will be no more reason to be pre-occupied with prorogation. And with recent revelations on the Liberal side regarding the Afghan detainee "issue", the Liberals will have lost yet more of their dwindling credibility in the longer term. After all the very strong language the Liberals have used against this government, they will still support this budget and will lost even more.
These polling numbers don't worry me in the slightest. They've been flucuating since we've been in a minority situation and they will do so again. The one constant is that the worst the Tories can expect is another minority government, at best, a majority. The Liberals are on their fifth leader in about five years. Their next one is already on the move.
Polls have been likened to snapshots of a particular moment in time; and that's exactly what they are. I tend to look at polls over a longer period and so far the Conservatives are headed in the right direction. I predict that, after parliament returns and the Conservatives have a plurality in the Senate, that the Tory numbers will rebound and continue their slow climb toward majority territory. Mr. Harper continues to be seen as the first choice to handle the nation's problems and this, coupled with the fact that most parliamentarians get elected on the basis of local issues, (except here in the west where we would vote Conservative if you ran a pig as a candidate.) will continue to bode well for the Conservatives.
And the election is when? Polls are always great fun unless you like Paul Martin and Jean Chretien try to govern according to the polls. Unfortunately the Libs seem bent on following or at least influencing the polls to bring them back to power rather than looking out for what is good for the nation.
Polls are a joke since then never go by individual ridings so it doesn't matter worth a hoot they attempt to say.
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