New Polling Thread

In my region, I hear that the LPC believe they are in a position to retake many seats they lost to the NDP and that they can regain thousands of lost votes, from the NDP in order to kick out the CPC.

Many people want the CPC gone and are willing to vote LPC to do it.

Ochh! Achhh! Occhh! I have accidentally bumped this thread to the top of the TAT. Sorry folks, may it sink lower than the latest polls.

I don't know why you're even speculating about Liberal minority vs. majority etc... on the basis of one poll in March 2009 - when the next federal election won't be until Nov. '09 at the earliest and possibly not until Spring 2010. Right now the recession is still very much a dark cloud on the horizon for most people - but by Fall people will start to move from being scared to being angry and who knows that that will do to the political environment.

The Liberals were tied in the polls with the Conservatives at several points during Dion's reign - but for some strange reason the Liberals never seemed to believe and they kept on propping up Harper. I'm not sure why they'd believe it now.

If the Liberals get high enough in the polls to want an immediate election - the BQ will probably be the next ones to get cold feet since they would be afraid of losing a lot of seats in Quebec.

Stockholm wrote:

If the Liberals get high enough in the polls to want an immediate election - the BQ will probably be the next ones to get cold feet since they would be afraid of losing a lot of seats in Quebec.

And, hopefully, the NDP would not vote with the Liberals to bring down the government -- not until the Liberal leader came crawling on his knees begging for NDP support.

I have to say - even if it meant us lossing seats, I really hope Jack doesn't decide to prop up the Cons.  I want this government gone.  I don't want to see PM Iggy, but that is the decision of the voters, the role of our representatives is to stand up for the values they were elected for, and I have difficulty imagining a situation where that involved a continuation of this government.

This poll is bad.  It means that Jack has to get off his ass and start swinging hard.  This isn't a 90s like recession.  This is a depression.  If the NDP losses seats in this environment then it has failed for not adherring to its roots.  I don't imagine there are many anti-capitalist parties that think they might lose seats these days... And if the NDP isn't articulatly anti-capitalist, then maybe that's part of the problem. 

If we are going to water down our ideals, then I at least want more 13%.  Otherwise at lesat give us a different voice.  (I actually think the NDP hasn't been doing to poorly on this, but they need to be hitting a bit harder.  Populist outrage ought to be our bread and butter).

We can, if we try, show many Canadians how the financial, environmental and security concerns we share have a common cause, and a common solution. 

I don't think people see the NDP as unrelentingly negative or devoid of ideas. I think they see them as shiftless. If you listen to/read NDP rhetoric from the past 6 months it's pretty much identical to the rhetoric they've had for the past 6 years.

 Admittedly the financial collapse has made their message seem more plausible, but it's still the same message. In a time of crisis voters want a sense of dynamism and reassurance. By bleating about how the NDP has *always* been against greedy corporate interests they're basically running on the line 'I told you so'; that message does not endear a party to an undecided. 

 As for the logistics of bringing down the government, it's quite an ironic twist of fate that the Liberals actually are the ones who get to decide when the government falls (after Dion emptily bragged about it before Harper pulled the plug without him last year). The Tories won't bring themselves down because calling two elections in less than a year is just begging for a thrashing.

Meanwhile, the NDP and Bloc have painted themselves into a corner. If they vote to bring down the government, they play into Liberal hands, if they don't they'll look astonishingly hypocritical, having bleated so loudly about how they don't support Harper and how Ignatieff was a closet conservative because he didn't bring down Harper when he had the chance. 

The Bloc is less trapped by their rhetoric than the NDP is, but I think they'd still have a hard time supporting the Tories.

For one thing, as robbie_dee pointed out, the Tories would be loathe to 'rely on the separatists' even if the alternative was an election. It would still be playing into the Liberals' hands, and I doubt Harper would expose himself so baldly. 

Also, an unspoken principle of the Bloc is that the more elections there are, the better it is for them. An election lets the Bloc take its message to the people directly and on a wide scale - something they can't do when they're not supported by federal subsidies or when people aren't obliged to listen.

On a practical level, secession is more likely to happen if the federal government seems incompetant. Frequent elections are a meta-argument for the dysfunction of Ottawa and the validity of the Bloc's autonomist proposals. 

Finally, I think you overestimate the loyalty of the Bloc's voters. A lot of them are separatists, but a lot of them aren't. They just vote for Quebec's interests. Right now, an overwhelming majority of Quebeckers, many of them Bloc voters, see the Tories as not being in Quebec's interests. If the Bloc fails to stand up to them, these voters will look elsewhere; in that scenario, the Liberals look rather attractive.

robbie_dee wrote:

These early numbers are disturbingly reminiscent of 1993, the last election to take place in the midst of a major economic downturn.  How soon left-leaning voters forget that after 1993, the new Liberal majority promptly broke all its promises, slashing unemployment insurance, keeping the GST and expanding free trade.

Of course, there are also big differences between now and then. While the Bloc remains, the Reformers and Conservatives are together now and national unity issues are on the backburner. On the left, I think Layton is still a stronger leader than McLaughlin and should hopefully be more effective at holding media attention and fickle NDP-Liberal swing voters. I don't think Ignatieff has quite the "left cred" of Chretien, either.

And you forgot another very big difference: in 1993: the NDP label in general was crippled by its association with provincial government incompetence, courtesy of the Rae regime in Ontario and, to a lesser extent, Mike Harcourt's team in BC.  (Note, too, that the one place with a reasonably popular provincial NDP government--Saskatchewan--saved the federal party's face by electing over half of its rump caucus that year.)

Today, there isn't that same immediate "incompetence" association.  Though whether, in certain cases, "impotence" is substituted for "incompetence" is a matter of argument...

yeah - and it's been a long time since they excited this base.

A sustainable financil system to support a sustainable economy to create a sustainable environment - sounds simple enough.

Their attacks on the rotten core of our economy have been about as meaningful as charging for plastic bags has been for the environment.  ATM fees - right, because THAT was the problem...

londoninium wrote:

the Tories would be loathe to 'rely on the separatists' even if the alternative was an election.

in 2006, the Tories "relied on the separatists" to FORCE an election.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly

Sounds like the media in 1999 talking about the Ontario NDP.

Are you dead yet? When will you be dead? Shouldn't you be folding up?

Obviously Jack Layton and the NDP have failed to understand that the coalition deal has crushed them.  Jack can go around the country defending that action, but it is too late, and a very very uphill climb.

Look at how easily Ignatieff has walked away.  No pressure, no backlash, and it isn't coming, nor will it stick when the CPC try to paint a picture of him with the coalition.

The NDP has alot of key support and growth in Western Canada, and it is clear that Jack Layton didn't take their concerns into account, or the potential backlash of getting into bed with Dion and Duceppe.

The time for making their case was back in November and December. Especially during the downtime of Parliment. The NDP did nothing.

If you do nothing, you receive nothing in return.  It is far to late to defend their actions.

They had better find a way to connect with the public, and this will take time. 

The NDP better realize that they are perceived to have little credibility.  This is ironic as the Liberal Emperor has no clothes. 

One could believe that the Public is parking their vote with the LPC and this could be the case. Especially if the NDP can make a case on why the people should vote NDP over all other party choices.

Jack Layton will defend and debate his coalition decision anywhere anyplace.  He may even be dead right, but the NDP will finish Dead last, if they pursue that action.

It was a gamble, perhaps and all or nothing gamble. If that is the case, what is the NDPs next gambit?

I like Chantal Hebert most of the time and i highly recommend her book "French Kiss" which i read over the holidays. But one thing I don't like about her writing is that she has a tendency to have a mean streak where she almost takes some sadistic pleasure on going on and on about so-and-so's weaknesses. She is pretty equal opportunity about it - but when she decides that its your turn to be the whipping boy - you get it. She has written merciless columns gloating about Dion being destroyed Martin, being destroyed, Harper being destroyed, Duceppe and the BQ being destroyed and this is not the first time she has taken a shot at the NDP.

There is no point going on and on about the events of December. That was then and this is now. It was only a few months ago that the conventional wisdom was that running a deficit was political suicide for any government - now its a fiesta of deficit spending. Let's look ahead to what political conditions are likely to when we have an election about a year from now. 

A broken clock can be right twice a day.

I thought it was about the people not begging for support, surely thats the reward doing the job not turning your back on the people because you didn't get what you expected.  Mr. Layton has been in politics a long time and I would hope to think as a servant of the people he would offer up what ever he could to make this country that much greater.  Petty politics I would think better of him.

I think that the key factor to look at in the polls is where Tory support is. There could be a lot of volatility among the opposition parties and Iggy has yet to be defined - but just the Tory number at 30% and in fourth place at 10% in Quebec is really DAMNING for them.

I think Layton's "best before" date has expired, especially after that hilarious shot of him in the last election with Parliament Hill in the background and Layton declaring he's running to be Prime Minister. I like the guy, really, I do, but it's time for a change.

The important point is that the Bloc will still have a faux-sweep of Quebec, because the Liberal vote will, as always, be piled up in huge majorities in their strong seats (that is, the centre and west of Montreal, and Gatineau); so the Bloc's 39.5% in Quebec will once again give them a big majority (like 64%) of the seats.

Why isn't the new UBC seat forecaster up yet? Is there another one to be found on the net anywhere?

Out of frustration, I have plugged this EKOS poll result for Quebec into the 2008 forecaster, and got:

Bloc 48

Liberal 26

and Andre Arthur

Of course that missed Outremont and gave it to the Liberals, so say Liberal 25.

But the point is the fifteen safe Liberal seats full of wasted votes: five seats where the Liberals have over 60%, four more where they have over 50%, and six more safe seats. Meanwhile the typical Bloc seat is won with 47% of the vote, six of them with less than 40% of the vote.

Any decent proportional voting system like BC-STV or MMP would stop this distortion.

This kind of discussion can be even more annoying than the couch-potatoes at work nattering on about sports that would cause their congested hearts to explode if they ever tried actually playing them.

Polls are interesting heuristic devices at the best of times; in times of great uncertainty and volatility they give only a very superficial sense of what would happen if an election were called.  A scant four months ago, the country was throwing a massive snit over the thought that a coalition might unseat the government and take power without an election.  Popular opinion on deficit spending, government intervention in the economy and regulation of industry have been shaken, stirred, blended and whipped into a froth.  There is a new Liberal leader whose media sense, telegenic qualities and command of English have created expectations, but who took the job in a way that has left a bad taste and who is still seen as a question mark by many.  Trying to make sense of shifts of three or four percent up and down in this kind of environment is a bootless enterprise.

As for the NDP prospects, here is what the pollster responsible for the most recent numbers has to say in an article over on the CBC site:

Quote:

EKOS pollster Frank Graves said the latest numbers, accompanied by regional breakdowns showing the Conservatives' level of support well below that of the Liberals in the key battleground provinces of Ontario and Quebec, suggest that "even the question of repeating a minority is an iffy proposition" for Harper's party.

The Liberals and NDP would almost certainly gain seats at the Conservatives' expense if an election were held this spring or summer, Graves pointed out. "There would be little in Stephen Harper's toolkit to discipline an opposition in these circumstances.".

How can this be squared with the comments from Nik Nanos? Well, people need to keep in mind that pollsters opinions are still just opinions, and they do get quoted out of context by news hounds who have little understanding of statistical methods. They can also get it wrong for all the same reasons that regular folks get it wrong- like rooting for the home team rather than dishing the straight goods. I found the comments from Nik Nanos odd, because his polling seems to indicated that a large part of the swing in NDP vote was in areas where they hold one or two seats, and where the statistical power is low. Frank Graves is looking at the regional splits.

 Regardless, it will be months before these numbers are anything more than an interesting but fleeting glimpse of the public mood in a volatile political environment.

Stockholm wrote:

What's the problem with the leader of a party saying that he's running to be PM.

In Canada, due to spill-over from the USA's system, that's what we have to do.

Contrast the world's largest parliamentary democracy, India, where Congress figured out after the last election who would be PM, and the Third Front blithely say that their parties will decide after the election who will be PM if they are the largest group.

Boom Boom wrote:

Uh, in case you forgot, he finished fourth. He should have resigned as leader the day after the election and let some fresh blood take over. He's in danger of being seen as the "Energizer Bunny" of politics, and folks are sick to death of that tired advertisement.

Jeez, Louise, talk about defining the argument in terms that preclude useful discussion. Fourth is the second best result ever for the federal NDP.  Does that mean anything?  Not a lot, but no less than the actual placement itself.

He is not the second coming, but he's taken a party whose caucus could meet comfortably in a motel room and increased its size and regional representation significantly.  We were nowhere when he took over the leadership.  In the absence of a compelling alternative with clearly superior leadership skills, I can't imagine any argument for him quitting for reasons other than ill health or being sick to death of sniping from the peanut gallery.

Boom Boom wrote:

... did you miss the news conference where he said he was running for Prime Minister?

No. And I thought it was a great way of grabbing some media focus for the NDP campaign while making the point that the NDP should be seen as a serious option.  That press conference was brilliantly constructed, from the perspective of both message and visuals.  The snide and angry backlash from Liberals, Conservatives and their news media shills was impeccable evidence that the strategy worked. Who cares that they characterized the message as implausible?

I don't ask that the leadeship win every election, but I do expect that they try.  The message that Jack was running to win was positive, optimistic, and well crafted, the sneers notwithstanding.  There are those who believe that the way forward is ideological purity expressed through turgid policy pronouncements.  They are wrong. Nobody is going to give government to a party that sees itself as too pure to get down and dirty in an election fight, or above presenting itself as a credible potential government.

I've spent enough time in the trenches to know that the biggest challenge confronting the NDP as a viable electoral option is a sizeable chunk of the membership base that sees its role as yakking endlessly about policy and is nowhere to be seen when it comes to working long hours on election ground wars or raising funds.  This is especially problematic east of Manitoba. The problem is not the leader, but a party culture that sees losing as noble, and acknowledging the nature of parliamentary democracy and its implications for those who would stand for office as selling out.

Boom Boom wrote:

 

I doubt anyone in the NDP sees losing as "noble". 

Sorry, but you are wrong about that. I have sat through too many long-winded, pointless speeches from self-righteous members who heap scorn on those who offend their sense of purity and blather endlessly about what they see as priniciple and how they would rather be proud of their position than winning government to see it any other way. You can call it holding government to account or anything else you want, but it is what it is - putting a happy face on losing and revelling in the status of outsider.

I have to add that if you are going to claim that finishing fourth is somehow reason for the leader to quit, it seems a tad inconsistent to then say that aiming high is pitiable.

 and:

Boom Boom wrote:

  If any NDP'ers are running to actually form the government, then they're delusional.

I guess you missed the 1990 Ontario election. The biggest problem confronting the NDP after its win was the fact that it had given no thought to what its policies would mean if it actually had to make good on them, and had done no preparation for holding government - preumably because they thought the prospects "delusional". It didn't help that we had a caucus full of third stringers who would have been hard pressed to win contested nominations if anybody had taken seriously before the election the thought that we might win.

Regardless, nobody much believed that Jack would win in 2008, and many commentators noted that his real goal was to get close to or into Ofiicial Opposition range.  Since the Official Opposition is supposed to be a government in waiting, running to win government is really a minimum prerequisite for the job.

Of course we can do much good as a strong caucus in a minority parliament.  As I said in another post, I don't demand that we win, I just expect us to try.