latest polling thread - 5 july, 2012

nicky wrote:

The so- called attacks on Trudeau and the Liberals in these threads are very much reactions to the mindless propaganda coming from the Liberal trolls. If we were not constantly baited with claims that the sun shines out of Justin's bum then there would be a greater focus on Conservative sins.

You aren't being constantly baited. Saying positive things about Trudeau and his campaign is no more trolling than saying positive things about the NDP and Mulcair.

It seems to me that "Debater" spends such a gigantic amount of time on babble doing notjing but attacking thye NDP, i have to wonder if he actually has a job or anything else going on in his life. i mean seriously how do you manage to earn and living and or have any friendships with people or have any sort of a personal life when you spend about 70 hours a week going nothing but acting your "NDP derangement syndrome".

I wonder if Debater EVER actually attacks the Conservative Party and/or Stephen Harper in websites where rightwingers hang out - or whether the Conservatives get off scot-free whgile he spends 100% of time on his anti-NDP vendetta.

Debater wrote:

For you to sit here and pretend that NDP supporters on this board are totally innocent and that they don't start any of these arguments is total hogwash.  Liberal-bashing is the favourite sport around here.  There is very little focus on Conservative misdeeds or discussion of how the Conservatives are far worse for Canada.

This just demonstrates how poorly you understand the term "discussion". This is a discussion board. Those of us who use it in a sincere fashion do so to discuss things with other people. Someone like you just uses it to broadcast propaganda and derail the discussions of others. That's why you can't wrap your cynical little brain around the fact that not every single thing that people believe comes up for comment. Often the things that get discussed the least are the things we feel stongest about, but they are also the areas where we have the least disagreement within the babble community, so little conversation results.

Those of us who do interact with the other posters honestly (rather than just using them as pieces in shifty agitprop nonsense like you) obviously are highly influenced in the subjects we discusss by who we're talking to. If a bunch of Conservative supporters flood the board then we'll be in endless arguments about how the Cons suck. That's what interaction means. It means responding to the people around you. You don't understand this because your playbook never changes. You have one script that's designed to do one thing. You don't interact, so you can't comprehend how others do.

What actually happened was that a bunch of Liberal supporters flooded the board, prompting endless discussions about how much the Liberals suck. If you don't want those conversations happening all the time, all you have to do is go away and then we can get back to talking about something useful. If, on the other hand, you are going to stay on this discussion board, then you're going to have to figure out how discussion works. It's the disagreements that start conversations. You hate the Cons. I hate the Cons. We have nothing to disagree over. Your constant shilling for the Liberal party, on the other hand, I disagree with very strongly, and it prompts discussion. That's how this stuff works.

I think it's time for you to get socialised, Debater. Go spend some time with real people and learn a few lessons about interaction. Whining because people aren't having the conversations you want them to have is very childish.

http://www.threehundredeight.com/

The only thing that we know for sure is that the Liberal lead is eroding as we approach the election.

In politics it is the trends that count, and the Liberal trend is heading South. 

Rokossovsky wrote:

Trudeau can not beat Harper.

Expect even more frenzied attacks on the NDP, as they really start to flail after their mouth goes under the Tory blue wave.

No. If the Liberals lose it is on their own heads just like the NDP is responsible for their lock on 3rd place.

Rokossovsky wrote:

Trudeau can not beat Harper.

Expect even more frenzied attacks on the NDP, as they really start to flail after their mouth goes under the Tory blue wave.

Trudeau cannot beat Harper?  But Mulcair can?  That's sure not what the polls, by-election results or last 50 years of NDP history show.

And what 'Tory blue wave' are you expecting?

Yes actually Mulcair can beat Harper, and actually is the only federal political leader in Canada who can.

Doesn't Trudeau's fallin' support, as Canadians get to know what he is all about, tell you all you need to know about the latest Liberal messiah?

Returning the Conservatives to a minority would at least be some accomplishment.

NorthReport wrote:

If I were you alan I wouldn't go to Vegas with your distorting and forecasting abilities.

At the end of the day,my forecast will eclipse yours.

Especially when you believe that somehow the NDP can gain 13 points as the Libs lose 13...Not going to happen,mate.

Debater wrote:

Interesting Federal Seat Projection model from Eric Grenier.

The more polls & data that get entered into these seat projections, the more accurate they will hopefully become.

I think the model probably projects a few too many Liberal seats in BC, but it's interesting to see.  It shows the Liberals winning 4 seats in Alberta, but the NDP just winning Strathcona.  That's probably realistic based on the trends we've seen under the Mulcair NDP so far.

It gives the Greens a good chance of a win in Victoria and maintaining Saanich-Gulf Islands, but I think Liz May is hoping for more than just 2 seats.

Grenier is a Liberal; you're not fooling anyone Debater.

ajaykumar wrote:

yes they are all liberal infecte pollsters, unless they show the dippers winning

actually Bruce Anderson and Grenier both DO have links to the Liberal party of Canada. Just as Alann Gregg was connected to the former PC's.

Ipsos and Forum are not always wrong.  They're actually both correct sometimes.  As much as I dislike Ipsos because of its Conservative bias, I would never completely ignore their numbers.

As Nate Silver says, he always looks at all the polling data, even if some pollsters are less accurate than others.  It's still data and it can still be useful.  And sometimes their numbers are bang on.  So you miss out if you totally ignore data.  At the moment, Forum actually gives the OLP lower numbers in Sudbury than Oracle, so it's also not the case that they always give high Liberal numbers.

As for Bruce Anderson, he has worked for both Liberals and Conservatives.  As do a lot of people in the political consulting field.  It's a small community and they all know one another and often work on multiple campaigns and for different parties over time.  But one shouldn't go around accusing everyone of bias and of fixing their numbers like NR does.  Not only is it not true, but it's not an argument any serious observer of politics would make.

Any major pollster that wants to have long-term credibility has to be professional and be accurate more often than not if they want to have any credibility in the field or be hired for paid work by networks, political parties, governments, etc.  The same goes for polling analysts like Eric Grenier.  He works darn hard with his polling analysis and wants to have a good reputation so he can be hired, and because he genuinely wants to be right.  It reminds me of the right-wing commentators in 2012 in America leading up to the Presidential Election who accused Nate Silver of shilling for Obama because he showed the Democrats winning.  That would have destroyed his reputation.  Reputation = $.  And because Silver was doing a professional job and was so accurate, his fame exploded and he became known as The Seer and went on to publish a book and get hired by a sports network to do sports stats analysis.  Eric Grenier also wants to be accurate and have a good reputation.  He is certainly not shilling for the Liberals or picking only polls that are good for LPC.

Polling analysts like Silver and Grenier are aware of the fact that political partisans (eg. Republicans in the US and NDPers on Babble) get upset when the polling data isn't going their way.  They know that they will get accused of being in the tank for this party or that.  That's why they work hard to be accurate and have a good reputation for being right the large majority of the time.  Because they don't want to have their reputations impugned with that sort of nonsense.  If you check Grenier's site, he posts his prediction in advance of every general election and by-election and keeps a running total of his predictions precisely so that partisans who claim "You're trying to make the polls look good for 'X' party" can be shown otherwise very quickly.  If you check Grenier's record on by-elections, he has been right on almost all but a couple.

Pondering wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

Trudeau can not beat Harper.

Expect even more frenzied attacks on the NDP, as they really start to flail after their mouth goes under the Tory blue wave.

No. If the Liberals lose it is on their own heads just like the NDP is responsible for their lock on 3rd place.

Huh? I didn't say that the NDP not polling as well as they might because the Liberals are attacking the NDP. I think they are not polling as well because the Liberals got hold of a star candidate with more name recognition, than the NDP. I simply said that I expect the desperate calls for strategic voting and attacks on the NDP to increase, as Liberal fortunes go down the tubes -- what I mean by that is that I expect your behaviour to get worse, as the campaign goes on, and the failure of the "strategic plan" of reasserting the Liberals as the "natural party of power" based on "brand" alone, becomes more evident.

That old saw is old hat, and as soon as Liberals realize that the change of 2011 is irreverisble, and that things have changed, the better are their chances of winning. So listen up.

Justin' vanity, and the vanity of those who run the Liberal party have let their own interests intervene in a political process that might be catalyzed into a movement for real change in this country, without real regard for the fate of the country, and this is evidenced by pretty much total lack of any cohesive program or plan that distinguishes the Liberals from the Conservatives.

Worse, no plan at all -- just posturing.

Privilege does as privilege wills, and in this case is revealed in a total lack of cohesion in policy or principle. Just check them denouncing Bill C-13, then voting for it. How absurd is that in the context of a majority parliament, where there is no chance of the government failing to get its legislation passed?

They just voted for C-13 for appearances sake, in order to not scare away any Conservatives.

The point of political power in a democratic society is to propose and follow a general political vision. The Liberals clearly have none, except what is being promoted by Kathleen Wynne from the sidelines.

Now they are talking openly about misusing the public trust of the pension funds to enable public policy. Essentially saying they will use pensioners "nest egg" to buy the vote of the electorate and fund infrastructure spending.

How could one be so obscenely cynical and corrupt to actually believe that it is somehow moral to influence the "independent" boards of the pension plans, when we all know that those boards are controlled by the government through their board appointments, and then have those board "green light" the investment of the pension plan money in P3 investment vehicles that the government also devises to implement public policy, and pay for campaign promises?

The government folding the right hand into the left, and then shaking on the deal to sack the pension funds. Can you even call it "conflict of interest"? "Insider trading"? Brison calls it "opportunity" -- I bet.

You are damn right it is going to be the Liberals who fall on their own lack of merit, clear amorality, lack of ideas, and vanity.

The only question is: will they hand Stephen Harper a majority or not?

I LOVE your post Rokossovsky! You summed it up much better then I have done in four years on this board.