Another squalid American-style push poll, which has all the hallmarks of a Wildrose Party operation, had telephones dingling in Alberta yesterday evening.
Meanwhile, yet another legitimate poll, this one released Thursday by Return on Insight, shows the Progressive Conservatives under Premier Alison Redford continue to hold a commanding lead among decided voters.
Quite possibly the results of the ROI poll and others like it explain the tactics being used in the push poll.
A push poll, as previously noted in this space, is a political campaigning technique in which a political party or interest group attempts to change the opinions of the people whom they contact by pretending to conduct a poll.
A robo-call push poll first reported on Alberta Diary in late October 2010 used a recorded voice to ask two questions designed to push “respondents” (that is, the message audience) toward a negative view just-selected Progressive Conservative Premier Alison Redford. One question tried to tie Premier Redford’s policies to former federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion, the other to financial difficulties experienced by a company owner by her chief of staff, Stephen Carter. There were also questions of the standard “who’s-winning-the-horserace” variety.
A robo-questioner, with a weird Marilyn Monroe-like baby doll voice, asked listeners to respond by pushing numbers on their telephone.
After a few days, when the story caught the attention of mainstream media and became controversial, the Wildrose Party fessed up to being behind the push poll, opting to brazen it out and claim their robo-call survey used a completely legitimate polling technique.
The latest demon-dialed push poll, while apparently done by another research company that employs a robo-interlocutor with a more professional voice, uses exactly the same technique. While there is no formal acknowledgement the Wildrose Party is behind the poll, the inference is unavoidable.
In addition to the expected questions about voting intentions and demographics, it asks three questions designed to steer voters away from supporting Premier Redford and toward supporting Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith:
The first asks: “Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservative government has announced it is planning on balancing the budget by increasing revenues through some form of taxation. Which kind of new tax would you prefer?”
It then gives respondents the following choices: “Press 1 for a provincial sales tax; press 2 for an increase to personal income taxes; press 3 for an increase in business taxes; press 4 for a $1,000 per-family health tax; press 5 for an increase in alcohol and cigarette taxes; press 6 for no tax increases; press 7 if you’re not sure; or press 9 to repeat the question.”
It’s pretty obvious where this is going!
The inclusion of the item about a $1,000 per-family health tax is interesting. Is the question designed to imply Redford’s Conservatives are considering such a measure, which has not been part of the pre-election debate to date, or is the Wildrose Party testing the water for this idea?
The next question asks: “Premier Redford’s Progressive Conservative Government just passed a new impaired driving law that will seize the vehicles and suspend the licenses of people who blow under the point oh-eight legal blood-alcohol limit. The Wildrose Party has stated it will repeal this new law and instead increase check-stop enforcement and penalties for those over the legal point oh-eight limit. Which approach do you prefer?”
Finally, the third question of a type we used to call a Russian ballot back in the day wonders: “As reported in the media, Elections Alberta is currently investigating the Progressive Conservatives for soliciting and accepting tens of thousands in illegal donations from taxpayer funded entities such as municipalities, universities, school boards and Alberta Health Services. How will this affect your vote in the next provincial election?”
Possible responses include, “Press 3 if it will make you less likely to vote PC,” and “press 4 if it will make you more likely to vote PC.” One wonders how many Albertans will press 4.
Each of these questions sails close to the wind on technical accuracy — I don’t recall Redford promising to raise taxes, for example, and the third question overstates both the magnitude and nature of the illegal donations. But all are fair enough in terms of political debate.
Whether or not they constitute an honest or legitimate polling technique is another matter entirely.
Regardless, voters should get used to this kind of thing because the Wildrose Party — which obviously faces an existential crisis if it cannot overcome the vast Conservative lead — seems likely to pull out all the stops to remain in the game.
What’s more, if negative Wildrose advertising starts to bite and the Tory lead shrinks, you can bet that the deep-pocketed Redford Conservatives will respond in kind.
The Americanization of Alberta politics was probably inevitable no matter who was buying the ads and commissioning the polls, because these techniques are known to work. Regardless, it is with us now and is unlikely to go away no matter what any politician tells you.
This latest push poll originated with a Southern Alberta number — 403-910-3758. If you call that number, a voice will identify the line as belonging to “Chase Research,” or something that sounds like that. If you do that, you may be called back in a few minutes and asked to complete the survey.
All of which brings us back to the completely legitimate ROI poll published by the CBC on Thursday. This poll of 803 Albertans conducted between Jan. 25 and Jan. 31 gave Redford’s Conservatives a strong lead of 46 per cent among decided voters.
Its sound methodology puts it among the “good polls” that have tended to show stronger support for the Conservatives than a cluster of polls using on-line panels or demon dialers that have given better numbers to the Wildrose Party.
The ROI poll does, however, show upward movement in Wildrose support from earlier polls using similar methodology — 24 per cent province wide, compared to 14 per cent for the NDP and 12 per cent for the Alberta Liberals.
Interestingly, CBC quoted ROI pollster Bruce Cameron suggesting that the Alberta Liberal vote “is collapsing and it’s benefiting the PCs somewhat and the NDP secondarily.” This is an important point when one considers how many political commentators assume the Liberals are a party of the “left,” and erroneously assert that Liberal and NDP voters are essentially the same people.
The ROI poll showed the Alberta Party at 4 per cent among decided voters, better than in recent polls by other pollsters. It put the undecided vote at 20 per cent.
This post also appears on David Climenhaga’s blog, Alberta Diary.
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