Polling Thread : Volume 4 Part 14

The Conservatives have the potential to pick up seats in almost every province, and yes, including Alberta.  

Edmonton-Strathcona has a big bullseye on it right now.

Again, Conservatives are so focused on Strathcona that they are leaving other flanks open in Edmonton.

In Edmonton Centre - the Lewis Cardinal campaign raised over $20,000 in March-April.  The highest amount of any non-incumbent riding in the country.

Having said that - I live in Strathcona and I predict Linda Duncan will increase her margin.

Lewis Cardinal Campaign - #1 in fundraising

EDMONTON - The Lewis Cardinal campaign raised over $20,000 during a two month fundraising push by local members.

A challenge from Canada's NDP encouraged local campaigns to raise money in March and April 2010. Cardinal's campaign team in Edmonton Centre added $21,750 to its coffers.

"I'm thrilled with the good results from my team," said Cardinal. "It shows that we are going to be a serious force in the campaign."

Cardinal said his campaign has about $40,000 raised so far, just under half the Edmonton Centre spending limit set by Elections Canada.

"We're just getting started. We will be building on this success and making sure we have the resources we need to win."

-30-

Betweem Lewis Cardinal and Kevin Chief (and others I'm sure), it seems like the NDP is doing a good job of recruiting some up and coming First Nations personalities as candidates!

While we are glowing at the fundraising results in Edmonton Centre it worth noting a couple of points:

1) In the 2008 Campaign, the NDP spent $36,000 in Edmonton Centre.  This means that before the writ is even dropped - Lewis Cardinal's campaign has raised more money than the party spent in the last election - a very good sign.

2) There has been some interesting research done by the Pundit's Guide about the relationship between campaign spending and success at the ballot box.  This is particularly true of NDP campaigns. 

In the last campaign in Edmonton Centre - the Tories spent over $2 for every dollar spent by the NDP.  That advantage won't be there this time - so we should expect big things from the NDP in that riding!

Lou Arab wrote:

Again, Conservatives are so focused on Strathcona that they are leaving other flanks open in Edmonton.

In Edmonton Centre - the Lewis Cardinal campaign raised over $20,000 in March-April.  The highest amount of any non-incumbent riding in the country.

Having said that - I live in Strathcona and I predict Linda Duncan will increase her margin.

Given her incumbency and the fact that there is no evidence that the Liberals will be any more of a factor than they were last election, I share Lou's prediction. It wouldn't have been difficult to do a better job than Jaffer, but Linda is an excellent MP.

New Ekos poll:

http://www.ekospolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/full_report_may_13.pdf

Kady O'Malley did lead with "everybody wins", but I think it was Frank Graves' original spin on the numbers that influenced most of the coverage.  Right now he is trying to give himself a bit of cover from the Conservatives' attacks on him, so I know why he's telling the story that way.

Rex Murphy tonight praised Gilles Duceppe as the 'Parliamentarian of the week". I forget why, but Rex surely got a chuckle out of his viewers when he announced the leader of the separatists got his award this week.

Maybe they could have also given her the title the ONLY effective local politician (in federal politics)

Stockholm wrote:

FYI: Notice that the headline in all the news coverage of this poll is "Tory support grows". Wait a cotton-pickin' minute - Tory support is indeed up by 0.5%, but Liberal support is up by 1.0% and NDP support is up by 0.9% - so in fact the gap between the Tories and their main opponents is narrower than it was last week.

Talk about totally biased coverage of a poll!

I think this headline makes sense to most people following the news.  Jaffer-Guergis, HST, maternal health, etc. would lead many to believe that Conservative support was likely to trend down.  In that sense, it is surprising that Con support headed up, hence the headline of the polling "story" this week. 

More like directionless, idealess and afraid of their own shadows.

What would happen if Jack Layton got up in the house and actually challenged the government on 1st principles? I mean seriously, so far, bending over backward to appear "conservative lite" hasn't managed to get the party over their regular 16%. Jack could try saying something different...

He could try for example, asking what possible kinds of national security issues are relevant to the detainee documentation, as opposed to agreeing that there must be. Lets think, some Taliban sympathizer might read the Toronto Star one day and find out the name of some Canadian soldier... and this would benefit some furry faced fellows hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan, exactly how?

Shoot. Exactly how could documents, now several years old could harm Canadian soldiers? I am all ears. The easiest way to harm Canadian soldiers is to observe their movements and then set off explosive charges under them. This seems to be the most frequent method, and happens without the need of being privy to document relating to detainee transfer.

Hell, anytime the DoD is planning an "operation" the DoD annouces where it will be and the general scope of the operation so they can claim bragging rights. They even openly discuss specifics locations, units and tactics.

See, here, some military personnel, are suggesting that the long advertized "Kandahar summer offensive", annouced by the DoD, is consequent to them changing location for the summer:

Quote:

Despite its remote location FOB Lane sits across a key infiltration route into Kandahar, where Nato forces are making final preparations for the largest offensive of the war. With reports of mysterious foreigners and a rise in Taleban activity, the key question for Western commanders is whether the insurgents will put up a fight in Kandahar or simply move elsewhere - such as Zabul.

Mysterious ‘White Taleban' strike fear in village hearts

There aint nothing in those documents that could possibly be more useful than a DoD press release.

I suppose that hypothetically, the documents might include names of double agents and spies for Canada who might get murdered by Taliban if their identities become known. That's about the only example I can think of where there might be a legitimate argument for secrecy.

Fine, very simple: Just redact those names... next?

First of all none of it is current.

Second: no one will be talking about logistics in documents dealing with transfer of prisoners -- the Afghans know where all the roads are and what travels on them. Their spies will tell them when convoys are moving, and these movements will be changed regularly anyway.

Thirdly, the Taliban know where we are based -- notice, above I linked to an article with a very nice picture of "FOB Lane", from which you could probably devine some useful intelligence about the defensive qualities of the base -- but the Afghans only had to read the paper to see that.

Fourthly, encryption of internet and radio communicaiton is automatic and part of the telecommunications and radio network, not something that would be published as in a breakable code -- we dont do that anymore: what you would want is a programing manual outlining the encyrption/decryption system, and hardware blueprints. As for communication: yes Afghans know about radios.

Fifthly, our protocols are what we are teaching the "Afghan National Army" and hardly a state secret.

In short what make you think that any of that stuff would appear in reports and documents associated with prisoner transfers and interrogations?

It has to do with principles and how that would affect polling numbers. I agree with cueball on this. There is nothing that is going to change what they don't already know. I mean communicating with the mountain people would be very difficult at best anyway. And if we weren't in afghanistan(you know principles) then none of this would endanger anyone.

If they are clueless as to how the CF operates after 9 years there, then we have nothing to worry about anyway because they would be the most incompetent people never mind soldiers to ever face off against another army. How are they managing to kill "our boys" if they didn't already know how we do things, Luck?

No there isnt anything that should not be made public, period. 40,000 pages on transfers are you kidding me. This is a lawyer trick. Kill it with paperwork. If there was really 40,000 pages on the transfer then you know we have been doing something wrong. Hell our own top soldeirs who aren't generals have already stated they knew people got tortured. Why the big deception...or are we not to trust our not quite top military.

It has to do with layton... or anyone growing a spine... as we can see, playing image politics, and playing into the right wing agenda, under the guise of populism, has, and continues to serve absolutely no purpose. The NDP under Layton is still 16 in the polls as it has been for the last decade.

What is needed is people to make clear stands on principles and ask serious questions. Where is the NDP to be found grilling the Tories on these issues regarding what kind of "national security" concerns are relevant to these documents. Surely these questions could be asked?

Instead, the NDP has accepted the paradigm that the executive has a right to withhold information from Parliament, and set conditions for its release, based in "national security" and Harper giving us a "victory for Democracy", according to Layton.

My point is that these questions would be asked if the NDP were to concentrate on its moral focus, as opposed to playing to what they think is a populist agenda that both of these questions would be answered in the affirmative. However, my impression is that the present leadership doesn't really have a moral focus, or any kind of analysis at all, so these questions are not asked, because they simply don't occur to them to ask -- in this case they have swallowed whole the "national security" arguement, as if it is justifiable and realistic, as opposed to questioning it in a forthright and detailed manner.

Now, Layton gets his backstage pass to the "inner circle" and calls it a victory, and in so doing confirms in public the validity of the "national security" argument.

A cursory analysis of these polling threads provides all the appearance of a harmonized strategy at work, involving imaginative ways, means and excuses with which to hold fast to the existing share of SFA, while concurrently channelling the legitimate aspirations of socially minded voters into a sinkhole of a party, where all such sentiments disappear into nothingness.

Well, your polling still sucks. And has for years. And years and years of trying to ply the "center", what I call center-right, has gotten you sweet fuck all. Despite the plethora of these "polling" threads, and endless point by point discussions about the tiny shifts in opinion, none of which are really outside the scope of the statistical error margin of the polls, as if these shifts can be spun to reflect some kind of meaningful shift in opinion, this approach does not seem to be doing your party any good at all.

This is the opposite of not being able to see the woods from the trees, this is not being able to see the big picture of the woods, and spending your time examining the trees in minute detail.

It's about time you took a look at the big picture, and start thinking about doing some things differently. Playing footsie with the right wing agenda is getting you no where, this recent "victory for democracy" is another case in point, in a long history of NDP sell-outs. The whole point of selling out is to get a reward.

At 16% (no change) it's pertinent to ask: where is the reward?

What do you care - you've made it quite clear that you have no use for any parties or for any elections at all - so I assume that this whole issue is completely irrelevant to you.

Not ones without any backbone or political vision, you bet I don't. You people just have no balls, is all. Having balls gets you a minority government, as Harper has adroitly shown, even when no one particularly likes you, having none gets you 16% in the polls. ROFL.

Good, I'll munch popcorn and watch the train wreck. Remind me how many votes the Communist party got across Canada in the last election?

Whatever the cause, the reality is that there is a broad National consensus on a host of issues in this country so the ballot question is rarely do you agree with the policies of party A or B but who do you trust to do the right thing, who are you most mad at, is it time for a change (more cosmetic than substantive, to be sure), etc.

Cueball's tone notwithstanding has a point, fundamentally we have hit a wall NDP polling - 15-20%.  We may be able to eke out a point or two more, and that can have a cumulative effect if it leads to an increased seat count, but we have not succeeded in moving up in the pecking order to become a governing alternative.

Its not that the Liberals and Conservatives haven't also hit a wall too, just theirs are both, particularly the Tories, within spitting distance of a majority government given the nature of FPTP.

Not sure what will produce the next shift in the currently stagnant electoral dynamic but one area that I suspect everyone is looking at is the Bloc voters.  With the PQ set to come to power in Quebec would Duceppe return to become a cabinet minister - I don't know whether Marios has any personal relationship with him but it would be hard to deny Quebec's longest-serving "Ambassador" to Canada.  I think that Duceppe has gained a great deal of personal political capital in Quebec, if only from his long tenure and a new Bloc leader may not be as personally popular.  If Iggy and Harper are still around a Munclair-led NDP might shift the dynamic - something that I suspect Jack may already be considering.