02.14.2011 06:43 PM

Political assignment

Here’s the new Ipsos:

The poll, conducted from Feb. 8-10, found the Conservatives supported by 39% of decided voters — up by five points.

Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals are at 25%, a four-point drop. The findings could be troubling news for Ignatieff, who has been the target of a recent Tory ad campaign that attacks his character.

The NDP, led by Jack Layton, would garner 18% of the vote — up by two points and a continuation of the party’s climb since it was plagued by internal turmoil last fall over issues such as the gun registry.

Your job: spin it, whether it be for the Grits or the Cons (or the Dippers, even – knock yourself out). Have fun, keep it clean, and spin away!

21 Comments

  1. Dan F. says:

    This is great news for the Libs, as it demonstrates that they are in trouble mostly when the Cons launch attack ads. The teenagers running the Con war room won’t be able to resist going all out negative during the campaign (when Canadians are actually paying attention) and the attack ads will inevitably step over the line and become the issue (recall the Chretien face ad from 1993)
    The Canadian people will see the vile, disgusting, hate-filled Conservatives for what they really are, and turf them from office.

  2. Bob Wood says:

    When my father lft to join the RCAF in WW2 my brothers and I had to look after cleaning out the cow (and bull) barn. That experience left me with the ability to recgnize BS when ever I see it. Your video is pure BS.

  3. Dan says:

    I have to admit I’m pretty perplexed by the numbers. Whatever one might think of Ignatieff I thought that his leadership and communications surrounding corporate taxes, fighter jets, home care etc. were improved lately and might be effective. I still think that Ignatieff has improved, and eventually he’ll be rewarded for that.

    • Eric says:

      I agree that Ignatieff seems to have better (consistent to date) leadership / communications skills on these topics, but I think that a lot of the public recognize that he voted to implement the corp tax cuts so a credibility gap exists. Is it also possible that the Blue Libs are sitting on their hands or jumping to the CPC? Many could equally imagine Layton singing the same songs.

  4. bigcitylib says:

    Don’t matter cuz there won’t be an election. All parties should continue what they were doing.

  5. TDotRome says:

    Of course it means us Tories have wind in our sails! We always have wind in our sails! Because, we’re Tories and God likes us more. He sends wind for those on the right. We’re so right, that we even sail to the right. Who cares if we only go in circles!

    This poll is brilliant. It proves that a thousand people always prove the will of the country. Or says what we want to hear…….whatever, same same!

    Anything run by Darrell Bricker has to be right because his name is Bricker. BRICKER! That’s catchy and tough-sounding, so I like it. He assured me that the 12% margin of error was done by a communist computer hacker and it’ll be “taken care of”. Bricker!

    Of course the Liberals are down! We’ve been running those super-cool ads I had my 9-year-old niece make. Kids are awesome at making fun of people. We rewarded her by making Telefilm grant her $5 million to make a documentary on why all Liberals are poopy-heads. (John Baird narrates……really loudly!)

    We, frankly, can’t believe they got 25%. Oh well, at least 75% of the people hate them! And, if that’s true……….then 75% of the people must love us! We do have a majority!!!

    Yeah! We did it!! This poll truly did change the momentum…….whatever that is.

  6. Namesake says:

    The implications of this new poll should be considered in light of this recent account of the current state of political polling informed by the preeminent pollster for the former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada:

    “The dirty little secret of the polling business… is that our ability to yield results accurately from samples that reflect the total population has probably never been worse in the 30 to 35 years that the discipline has been active in Canada,” says veteran pollster Allan Gregg…. For a poll to be considered an accurate random sample of the population, everyone must have an equal chance to participate in it. Telephone surveys used to provide that but, with more and more people giving up land lines for cell phones, screening their calls or just hanging up, response rates have plummeted to as little as 15 per cent.

    Gregg says that means phone polls are skewing disproportionately towards the elderly, less educated and rural Canadians. Pollsters will weight their samples to compensate but that inevitably means ‘messing around with random probability theory’ on which the entire discipline is based.

    …When Gregg started polling in the 1970s, there were only a handful of public opinion research companies. Polls were expensive so media outlets bought them judiciously.

    Now, Gregg laments almost anyone can profess to be a pollster, with little or no methodological training. There is so much competition that political polls are given free to the media, in hopes the attendant publicity will boost business.”*

    Note, this is the second national telephone poll that Ipsos-Reid Canada has conducted and released exclusively to Postmedia News in the space of two weeks.** As usual, it has not publicly released detailed results on its sample sizes, weighting methods, numbers and percentages of undecided voters, or the actual wording and order of its questions.

    * http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/pollsters-advise-voters-to-be-wary-of-polls-ahead-of-possible-spring-vote-116112554.html

    ** http://ipolitics.ca/2011/02/04/leading-tories-losing-vote-momentum-poll/

  7. John Mraz says:

    I think that Bev Oda admitted to what smacks of fraud today precisely to curb this trend. Mr. Harper has no desire for an election. He cares only for the good of God, king and country. And if it turns out Graves’ numbers were in fact correct – goshdarnit he will take a hit. We’re in a recession donch’a know, there is no time for democracy. Happy Saint Valentines Day all.

    jm

  8. Sisu says:

    The attack ads and the phony polls are strong signals that Harperabji is feeling threatened from inside his own party — year Six and counting and still under the waterline of whole Con-support of 40%.

  9. Sean says:

    no spin… GAME OVER.

  10. MississaugaLibPeter says:

    1. Ignatieff bettter quickly publicly acknowledge that he said some things, written some things he wish he had not. He needs to do what Ford did when he got caught with transgressions. And dump the idiots who have been advising him not to do this for so long. This simple Conservative narrative should have been neutered by Ignatieff before he even became leader. Idiots!

    2. Then focus on Harper’s integrity. It is the simplest message that resonates with all people. Bible thumpers will vote for a perceived visiting professor (or stay at home on E-day) before they vote for a lying turd. The basterd stared at the camera and said there was no recession in store last time around, when that was the reason why the quick election was called. The basterd said …

  11. michael hale says:

    People have been asked this question so many times over the past five years, their answers are becoming habit. Go check the numbers. Every time we get to session, the numbers revert to these levels, regardless of issues or coverage. It’s a default response from a public that have tuned the pollsters and the pols out.

    It tells nobody anything they can count on, except that Cons start out ahead, Libs start out behind and the NDP remain irrelevant to the final outcome.

  12. spate says:

    Could just be people like me, who know the current government depends on polling data to determine when it wants elections, and are willing to lie to pollsters about their voting choices in order to try and force an earlier election so we can get the current group out of power. When you feel like the government is lying to you, lie back, and this is the easiest legal way that will (hopefully) do the most damage.

    Count on my vote for the Conservatives? Sure! Please count on it..

  13. Cath says:

    it simply tells me that Canadians – those polled at least – still aren’t warming to Ignatieff. Couple that with pretty lackluster performances in Question Period (when the guy shows up) AND you’ve got your answer WK. It’s more a reflection of the leader than the issues I’m afraid. I don’t think he carries off issues pertaining to the average Joe very well because well, he’s not an average Canadian. Iggy doesn’t deliver the issues well at all. He’s not believable. Can’t turn an elite in to an everyman.

    The water-torture drone of the Con. ads are hitting the mark. Ignatieff’s been soundly defined.

  14. Dan F. says:

    Of course, this won’t really count as spin since it is unfortunately based on facts/statistics/reality (and as Stephen Colbert has often mused, reality has a liberal bias), but even with this poll result, the Cons will *still* not be in majority territory: http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com/2011/02/conservatives-lead-by-14-in-new-ipsos.html

    Quoth the great Eric the Statistician: “Despite the 14-point national lead, the Conservatives do not reach the 155 mark needed for a majority. This might come as a surprise, but it shouldn’t. In some regions of the country, the Conservatives are up against a ceiling. An improvement of three points in Ontario will not give the Conservatives more than nine seat gains, as projected for this poll. And note that, despite the overall increase in support nationwide, the party is still five points below their 2008 result in British Columbia, one point below in Quebec, and eight points below in the Prairies. To achieve their majority, the Conservatives cannot afford any losses in any part of the country.”

  15. DCS says:

    Inciting gossip over debate, uncertainty over the truth, and slander over of rhetoric – Harper’s regime echo?s High School politics

    The Conservatives continue to attack Ignatieff’s loyalty because it’s the only card in their hand. When I see ads time and time again, I think “how desperate can the conservatives be when they continue to gossip?” Canadians are smart. Canadians want to move forward and prosper – not question one sentence said in 2002.

    If Ignatieff was un-Canadian because he spent time abroad, would you say the same thing to someone in the military? Doctors working abroad? Canadians working in other markets growing their business? Nope.

    (with that said: Politics is a rough sport – we need to toughen up. Attack ads work. period. We need to fight back with a counter punch and attack a plethora of mismanagement the Conservatives has given us:
    -Prorogue – silencing our democracy
    -Helena Guergis scandal – Harper the Bully
    -Kyoto – big business over the plants
    -fighter jets- spend, spend, spend
    -G20/G8 – spend a billion to have Canada embarrassed and Toronto’s heart ripped out
    -Long form consensus – dumping down government and academics
    -Record deficit – despite campaigning on “balanced budget”‘

    …you get to the drill. I don’t need to remind anyone…

    Ignatieff might want an Athenian debate, but he’s not going to get it. We are going to get a bare knuckled brawl in a barn. Let’s fundraise so when the time comes, we’re ready. )

  16. Namesake says:

    Ok, so now it’s a trifecta, but I can’t dispute this one (37% to 27%) as much, since it’s got a nice big sample: 3,025 completions (by phone)

    http://www.harrisdecima.ca/news/releases/201102/1059-conservatives-hold-ten-point-lead

    http://www.harrisdecima.ca/sites/default/files/releases/2011/02/15/hd-2011-02-15-en1059.pdf

    Looks like the attack ads may’ve worked… a bit,

    but it’s really not much change from their early January poll: 36% to 28%.

    http://www.harrisdecima.ca/news/releases/201101/1037-conservatives-take-clear-lead-popular-support

    (Except that, um, that seeming 2 pt. increased gap is pretty much within the MOE for the 2 polls.)

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