10.10.2015 08:43 AM

KCCCC Day 69: right about now, turkeys are starting to feel uneasy

  

  • I’m feeling good, better than New Democrats feel. Picked up our Raptors tickets, ate at the Patrician, sent off the (final) book, got set for the first SiriusXM show, cleaned up before my Mom and cousin and others arrive, our great friends Ian and Jill are getting married, and I’m still married to a genius feminist supermodel. Not bad. 
  • All that I have to pass along is this: Months ago – when the NDP were on top – I and many others could not figure out why the Cons were not aiming their well-oiled attack machine at Tom Mulcair and Co. I expressed puzzlement that to CPC friends.
  • Said one senior CPC guy: “We need Trudeau 10 points lower than he is at the moment.” I didn’t understand that then, but I do now: the CPC never lost sight of the fact that the Liberal brand – notwithstanding the missteps of its various leaders – has staying power. It was their main threat. 
  • I still think we are looking at a Conservative minority. Their core vote votes more often, and is made up of what David Cameron’s guys call “Shy Tories” It’s a growing constituency that hides from the pollsters, but comes out of hiding on election day.
  • That said, I give big credit to both the CPC and LPC war rooms. The former never lost sight of their real target – and the latter never wavered from pushing the “change” mantra. The NDP? Well, the NDP aren’t turkeys, but they can be forgiven for feeling like turkeys on this 2015 Thanksgiving weekend.

87 Comments

  1. The Observer says:

    Is the media a relatively corrupt institution? At best journos are not part of a profession, at worst they are generally unethical (and completely lacking in self awareness by their lack of ethics).

    If a lawyer decided to represent his client less vigorously because of his clients’ political views, or if a doctor decided to miss a few stiches for the same reason, they would stricken from the profession and perhaps prosecuted.

    Yet a view of the “coverage” and, more glaringly, their twitter feeds (where they lower their guard more) it is remarkable how in the tank they are for Trudeau and absolutely desperate to report in ways harmful to Harper (and also to Mulcair of late so as to push the “strategic vote” to Trudeau).

    Rather than dispassionately reporting facts for the citizenry they opt to “make a difference”, which means advance their agenda.

    It is no wonder gallup has trust in media at all time historical lows. In Canadian politics, the depths of this current media to abuse their trusted position of providers of information is unsurpassed.

    • bobbie says:

      Very well said.

    • Gord says:

      Indeed! I wish they would police their own profession. When Margaret Wente writes “The PM is a man without a heart”, somebody should be calling her on it.

    • Al in Cranbrook says:

      Very well stated!

      Control the narrative, control the body politic. Pretty simple formula. The MSM, whom self-righteously proclaim themselves the protectors of democracy and free speech, have managed to drive the counter-narrative from the airwaves and underground. See, f’rinstance: therebel.media

      But it goes beyond the MSM. Universities across N. America have become the anti-thesis of open and balanced discussion, as student councils literally outlaw counter-narrative expression. Here the censorship of “political correctness” knows no bounds, and tolerates no opposition. Made legitimate by faculties whom by far for the most part, see their classrooms as opportunities to inculcate liberal left ideology. Hidden in plain sight in polling data is a telling and consistent statistic: Conservatives generally dominate in the categories of “High School” and, somewhat less, “College” education, while apparently most whom pass through our universities come away with a Liberal (left) ideological world view. Some will say that this is what a good education will do for you. I think not. Instead, this is what systemic indoctrination will accomplish. Back in the ’60s, this started in high schools, where classrooms for “Social Studies” and “English” too often were ruled by, to varying degrees, an ideologically inspired socialist teacher bent on molding tomorrow’s minds to his/her way of thinking. (Hey, been there, experienced it first hand. Some of the verbal wars I got into confronting them were highly entertaining to a room full of teenagers, most of whom couldn’t believe I had the nerve, if not smarts, to challenge a teacher’s ranting politics.) Now it starts in elementary schools, as children are sent home, even with documents in hand, to ideologically tune up their own parents on matters such as climate change…mostly because what do kids know, eh? Insidious hardly covers the scope of it all.

      The frightening aspect of this is that, while children obviously don’t know any better and thus cannot challenge the “system”, university students don’t dare to confront it, for…tragically…they place their own higher education in harm’s way. This is NOT an exaggeration of the reality of ideological social engineering that increasingly, and alarmingly, is starting to dominate our institutions of advanced learning.

      Point being: There’s no balance any more, and any attempt to regain balance must face what is becoming a staggeringly dominant narrative, largely via the MSM and our educational systems. If nothing else, what the Donald Trump phenomena demonstrates is an exceedingly deep sense of growing frustration among the masses with being told repeatedly, and from seemingly every direction, that their values and ideals are wrong, obsolete, passé, if not just ignorant and stupid…meaning, of course, “uneducated”.

      This can only go of for so long before the proverbial shinola finally hits the fan, and things explode in every direction. The pendulum swings.

      • Stan says:

        Somebody aptly labelled it the “liberal goebbellian propaganda organ”. The CBC for instance.

      • doconnor says:

        In university you learn how to discover the facts. There is no reason that they would be balanced at the ever shifting poltical centre.

        “The facts have a well-known liberal bias.”

      • Bill Templeman says:

        Agreed that there is lots of bias at the Toronto Star, the CBC, the Globe & Mail, etc…But there is also lots of bias at rebelmedia. If you are going to call out Michael Enright on the carpet, then we also need to make room for Ezra Levant. Democracy before the law, evidence-based decision making and all that, no?

        • Al in Cranbrook says:

          Bill…

          The point is that, while the CBC and CTV are front and center in the MSM with their liberal left bias narrative, the counter-narrative has been forced underground…i.e., the rebel.media, formerly Sun News.

          In the US, the balance on TV looks like this: CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN on the left. Fox on the right. Interestingly, Fox’s market share consistently is larger than the afore mentioned combined. (I don’t watch any of ’em.)

          Without getting into the pros and cons of AGW, the narrative du jour is so heavily skewed on the pro side that it verges on brainwashing. There is absolutely no balance whatsoever in the MSM, to the degree that it starts to resemble the definition of a conspiracy.

          e.g.: When Climategate broke, it took between five and eleven days before CBC, CTV, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN even acknowledged it. And when they finally did, it was scant mention, and to the effect that, “There’s nothing to see here, folks. Now move along.” Only Fox News jumped on it right from the get-go. It’s not the controversy in and of itself that I’m talking about, but the fact that it was counter to the (liberal left) narrative and thus suppressed by 90% of the MSM. This is dangerous manipulation, and thus poses a threat to the very essence and principles of democracy that the MSM so sanctimoniously professes to protect! How can the public possibly influence political and governmental policy when half the truth is kept from them, or at best they have to go searching for it? And then face extremist activism’s hysterical assaults for even having dared to doubt the narrative they in the first place created, and now ruthlessly attempt to control via an ideologically aligned MSM.

          The same arguably applies to ISIS, and the resulting refugee crisis that now threatens to tear Europe to shreds. We’re getting one side of the story here in Canada and the US, very little of which covers what is actually happening at ground zero in Europe…almost all of it alarming as hell! Look at CTV’s and CBC’s coverage of the PMO’s audit on refugees, going so far as to infer it’s all about bringing pro-Conservative voters to Canada. The fact of it is that the government has always been clear that their aim is to protect minorities in the region whom are the target of extremist factions for literal extermination, of which there is more than ample and devastatingly shocking evidence. So someone says that these people are already in refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan. Yes, but the fact of it is that they have nowhere to go; their prospects for returning to their homes are virtually zero! Even if they still wanted to! Absolutely they should receive first consideration!!! The reporting on this from the usual suspects is so shabby and biased against the CPC, it defies comprehension, if not the most basic notions of decency!

          I’m so sick of all of it, I’m about ready to swear off of all things political. I just can’t stomach this shite any more, and I’m waaaay beyond fed up with feeling helpless to do anything about it…a sense I’m certain millions of people share.

          Topped off by an election that appears will be won by the Media Party, regardless that the collection of petty minded little bastards won’t show up on anyone’s ballots.

  2. ben burd says:

    The NDP war room wtf is that more like the Somme – “lions led by Donkeys”

    • True we don’t have a strong war room. We never had. Our strength resides in our grassroot movement. Not saying it will be enough to beat the seasoned Conservative and Liberal campaigns, but we did it in the past, we can do it again. Whatever happens, only the NDP can form a government of the People, by the People, for the People.

  3. The Observer says:

    The news coverage is bad, but the twitter feeds (where they let their guards down) is even worse: the Ottawa media are looking like giddy little Trudeau campaign staffers. Attacking Harper directly (and Mulcair of late so as to further the “strategic voting” initiative).

    Note to media: your “profession” is give its vaunted status so as to provide news/information to the public, not drive agendas. Imagine if a doctor left a few stiches in, or a lawyer argued poorly in court, depending on their patients’/clients’ political stripes. They would be stricken from the profession and perhaps prosecuted. In the media it has become the norm.

    No journalism isn’t a “profession” in any traditional respect. Yes, it’s become highly corrupt institution.

    The public is also paying attention:

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/157589/distrust-media-hits-new-high.aspx

    Trust in media at historic lows.

    • Stan says:

      Are you suggesting there will be a voter backlash against the media mavens and maggots pushing for Justin and mostly in the larger urban centres?

  4. James Smith says:

    Warren,

    I think it comes down to whether the Liberals have a 3-4% lead in polls the Sunday before.

    The “shy tories” you speak of (although I hate the term “Tory” when it comes to these far-right Bush wannabes) in Canada do exist.

    Here’s how the polls under allocated for the Conservatives last time (2011):

    Abacus -2.6
    Ekos -5
    Forum -4.6
    Nanos -2.5
    Angus Reid -2.6
    Ipsos -1.6
    Leger -3.6

    One poll, however, over allocated for them:

    Compas +6.4

    The Liberal and NDP vote were almost bang on except Compas (+6.2 NDP).

    In other words, Any poll you see, add 2-3 pts for the Conservatives (let’s say 2.5%). Now…they also had a lot more momentum in 2011. And the Liberals absolutely tanked, so there is that.

    So Nanos this morning
    LIB 34.8
    CON 28.6 (Adjust that to 31.1)

    Libs leading by 3.7

    EKOS:
    LIB 34.1
    CON 32.5 (Adjust that to 35)

    Cons leading by 0.9

    LEGER:
    LIB 34
    CON 30 (Adjust that to 32.5)

    Libs leading by 1.5

    ABACUS:
    LIB 32
    CON 33 (Adjust that to 35.5)

    Cons leading by 3.5

    FORUM:
    LIB 35
    CON 31 (Adjust that to 33)

    Libs leading by 2.0

    (Mainstreet also shows the CONS up by 1 pt, but I won’t include them since they weren’t around in 2011).

    Either way, it will be a long night, after a long campaign, in which I have gone from a moderate, sorta not sure who to vote for disenfranchised ex-liberal to a “Holy shit those Conservatives and their racist, xenophobic, dumbing down and hate-crime inciting ways piss me off” shameless Liberal cheerleader…and for once, my home province of British Columbia will be the deciding province. Hooray BC!

    • Matt says:

      Ekos is now also doing daily pollins and releasing three day averages like Nanos.

      October 9th EKOS:

      Libs 33.8
      CPC 33.7
      NDP 20.4.

      CPC leading or statistically tied in all regions except the Atlantic.

    • Matt says:

      You also leave out some of those polls overestimated Liberal and NDP support.

      • Terence Quinn says:

        I think there is a silent majority out there who waited to see if JT could perform before releasing their vote. That will happen this week and some disaffected Tories will also blot to the Libs. I think the silent Tory votes will be negative this election.

    • Mervyn Norton says:

      Don’t overlook CBC polls analyst/aggregator and ThreeHundredEight.com founder Éric Grenier, whose latest seat projections (Oct. 9) are Liberals 131; Cons 122; NDP 80; BQ 4; Greens 1. (Liberals pulled ahead only in last three days.)

      Even it Harper wins the most seats, there is no such animal as a “Conservative minority” in 2015 since they will be tossed in non-confidence vote.

    • ottlib says:

      I disagree that polls always underestimate the Conservatives. They have underestimated the Conservatives during the last three elections but 1997, 2000 and 2004 they underestimated the Liberal share of the vote.

      In 1997 the public polls were saying that Jean Chretien was going to win but be reduced to a minority government. He was sitting at about 37% in the polls. On election night that went up almost 3% and he won a 5 seat majority.

      The same thing happened in 2000, particularly in Quebec where polls were saying the Liberals were moribund only to have Quebecers elect Liberals to more seats in that province since Pierre Trudeau.

      In 2004, the polls on the eve of the election had the Conservatives and the Liberals tied at 33%. On election night the final tally was 36% for the Liberals and 29% for the Conservatives.

      In 2006, it was the Conservative vote that was underestimated while the Liberal vote was overestimated.

      In all cases the party that won the election had their share of the vote underestimated by the polls on the eve of the elections. There are always people who wait until the last moment to decide how they will vote. They are never caught by pollsters and they almost always break for the party that wins the election, often significantly altering the final outcome in ways not foreseen by the pollsters and pundits just a couple of days before election day.

      Conservatives are dreaming if they believe that they are automatically benefit from some “shy Tories” this time. If they do indeed win they will probably be the ones to benefit from these last minute decision makers of this election and their final share of the vote will exceed what the pollsters stated just days before. However, if they lose it will be the Liberals that will benefit and it will be the Conservative numbers that will be revealed to be overestimated.

      Here is a thought for all of you. That last polls will be published next Saturday. If the Liberals are ahead and sitting at around 37 or 38% in the polls it is a very good bet that they will pick up 2 or 3% on election day and likely win a majority government. On the other hand the same can be said of the Conservatives if they are in that position.

      • Matt says:

        1997 and 2000 there were various combinations of the PC’s, Reform, and Alliance.

        The Conservative party of today didn’t exist.

      • ottawacon says:

        My suspicion is that we are going to see more of a ‘Silent Tory’ effect for the Bloc this time round, at least proportionately.

      • MoeL says:

        I asked you this on another post, but you may have missed.

        You obviously know what you’re talking about so I would like your opinion on the following…
        1) How big an issue is it that on-line polls are a random sample of a self selecting universe?
        2) If a pollster also asked what party you voted for in the last election, they could then calculate the results of the last election based on their sample. Do you think this could be used to estimate any bias that is built into the sample?

  5. A. Voter says:

    Didn’t Justin Trudeau vote against the all party motion recognizing Quebec as a nation? I thought that would be the key to the NDP holding Quebec, but I’ve never seen the NDP refer to their history of supporting Quebec as a nation during this election.

    • Vancouverois says:

      I believe all the parties supported the motion in the end, even the Bloc (despite the phrase “within a united Canada”). According to Wikipedia there were only 16 votes against, only 15 of which were Liberal — out of a Liberal caucus of over one hundred. So I doubt there would be much hay to be made there.

      And as mentioned in previous posts, the NDP always faces the dilemma that the more they appear to Quebec nationalist/separatist sentiment, the more they alienate voters in the rest of the country.

  6. Ian Howard says:

    Steven Harper is not the best of us, he is the worst.

    The utter disdain for First Nations issues, the contempt for the judicial system, the refusal to acknowledge the need for real strategy on climate change, dog whistle politics and the niqab, omnibus bills, paranoid opposition to meaningful debate, the Duffy debacle, and the smug arrogance of entitlement, it is clearly time for a change. Steven Harper’s vision for Canada is an ugly thing feeding his base and ignoring the majority of Canadians who detest his politics.
    Let us hope enough people vote strategically and in ridings that are in play to remove his icy calculated grip from office.

    • Matt says:

      Disdain for first nations issues?

      Your emotional anti Harper rantings are not supported by facts.

    • Danny says:

      I don’t think Harper and the CPC are enemies of aboriginal people. He did work out a multi Billion dollar Aboriginal Education pact with the Shawn Alteo and the AFN, but it was rejected by the chiefs. I would say he tried.

      • Ian Howard says:

        After too many years in power Harper sees the country as those who vote and raise money for the party and those who vote and raise money for the party.

        Just watched Nixon by Nixon:In His Own Words, minus the profanities I think they share the same megalomania and paranoia.

        Harper has even managed to stonewall a scandal and a politically driven bombing prior to an election.

        ” Would You Change Dicks In the Middle of a Screw ” an apt slogan

      • Elisabeth Lindsay says:

        Mr. Harper also was the first PM to ever offer the official apology.

        • Ian Howard says:

          I think safe drinking water would have been of some use.

        • The Doctor says:

          Oh, stop it with your inconvenient facts!

        • Terence Quinn says:

          He also said he would be totally transparent and honest. Failed miserably on both counts

          • Ian Howard says:

            The apology barely acknowledged that Canada’s history is riddled with the subtle and not so subtle institutionalizing of racism. On one hand he apologizes for trying to kill the Indian in the child but then uses race to inflame his base and wedge voters in Quebec.
            Politics is one thing but playing with ethnicity and race is for the George Wallaces of the world. I have voted conservative in the past but I will never vote for a party led by Stephen Harper.

  7. Bluegreenblogger says:

    I don’t know about crediting the CPC war room. I know it is hard to stay the course when things are going sideways, but staying the course is only a virtue when the course is the correct one. Making a fundamental mis-calculation, then not adapting is not virtuous. (The mis-calculation being that the past could be repeated ad-infinitum). They WATCHED Trudeau tear apart their attack ads and turn them to his own advantage with an unintended audience. Just look at how those ads propelled Trudeau into the land of credibility. They just did not believe that the electorate would change their behaviour. Well, we shall see in another two weeks just how many of their voters they can retain with race baiting, now that the main chance is dead.
    I have to say that we have been blessed with Abacus ‘change vote’ polling. In the absence of real campaign based data, we peons have had a window on the battle between the NDP and the Liberals over the floaters and undecideds. Most of the other polls made a lot more sense when you understood just how fluidly people are moving between NDP and Liberal support, but giving the Conservatives a pass. If a double digit chunk of the electorate is changing their minds between NDP and Liberals daily, then it is pretty easy to mis-allocate the undecided vote, or record a blip on the radar as the real thing.

    • Vancouverois says:

      My sense of it is that the Conservatives have been taking the right approaches… but then taking them too far.

      The “just not ready” line did resonate… but when Kory Teneycke said “I think that if he comes on stage with his pants on, he will probably exceed expectations,” that came across as incredibly dismissive, condescending, and rude. It was offensive.

      The niqab business likewise did resonate… but when they started talking about a “barbaric practices snitch line”, that too was offensive, and put off a lot of voters.

      It’s clear that all the parties think that the average voter is pretty dumb, and I have to say that it’s hard to argue with that; so who knows, maybe it will pay off for the Conservatives on the 19th. But I do get the sense that they’ve gone farther than they should have (from an electoral strategy point of view).

  8. Matt says:

    Agree on the Tory supporters not participating in the polls.

    Got the Nanos call yesterday. I just hung up.

  9. Vancouverois says:

    I certainly hope it is a minority of some stripe. I don’t trust any of them with a majority.

    My only concern is that a Conservative minority might get voted down and replaced immediately with something else (most likely a Liberal-NDP coalition), which I do not think would be a terribly good outcome. I suppose that in the abstract it would be interesting to see how long it would take for that arrangement to collapse, but I don’t particularly want to spend all that time waiting for it to happen.

  10. Alex says:

    I half-agree with you Warren. Without a doubt, the Libs have run a great campaign. However, the Grits should not make the mistake of thinking that the good old days are back.

    I think the big lesson of this campaign is that there is a large pool of progressive voters (the majority of the country?) who are willing to vote for different parties. In this election it looks like this pool will vote Liberal. But in future campaigns? If Trudeau disappoints progressives then the Liberal brand won’t save him.

    Imagine an election in which Jack Layton is still the leader of the NDP and the niqab does not become a ballot box issue. I can see the NDP winning. That being said, Dippers should not assume that progressive voters will flock to them in future campaigns. The Greens long-term plan is to become the go-to party for Progressives.

    • Vancouverois says:

      Why focus on “progressives”? There’s a large pool of voters who are willing to vote for different parties, period.

      It’s hard to lose sight of that when you have strong political views of your own, but a lot of people just aren’t that invested in the whole process. They vote once every few years, and don’t think about politics for the rest of the time unless it intrudes in their lives directly in some way.

    • Mike says:

      Imagine an election where my grandmother had wheels. She’d be a bus.

      Even Jack Layton was not saint Jack until after the election. There was no Laytonmania sweeping the country in 2011. A lot of the Layton mythology built up after the election and quite frankly after his death. And the fact the he died allows us to project all of the desirable qualities we think we would like to see in a leader. And there isn’t the reality of a real person with all of his faults and frailties to bring us back down to earth.

      If you look at the 2011 Orange wave, it basically stopped at the Quebec border. Outside of Quebec the NDP did not great increase their seat count.

      But you are correct that there is a big pool of voters that no longer identify with any particular party. They will switch between all 3 depending on leaders, policy and events. The question for all three parties is do you have a big enough base from which to build from and add to, to form government. The CPC has proven they do, the Liberals are showing in this election that they do, and the jury is still out on the NDP. They had their chance this election but they could not seal the deal.

      What has become apparent and should concern all parties, is that as easily as they could form government, they could just as easily be reduced to 3rd. They’ve all been there now.

  11. A. Voter says:

    “Imagine an election in which Jack Layton is still the leader of the NDP”

    Well, that would get the “Walking Dead” fans votes.

    • Reality.Bites says:

      Indeed, when I read that post my thought was “Yeah, well any politician who knows how to come back from the dead probably would win an election, especially if he promised to explain how he did it.”

      • Scotian says:

        LOL!!!

        Thank for that! After a long day of driving people to polling stations that were running far too slowly I really needed a good laugh, and your last sentence on explaining how it would be a real popularity booster if he explained how he came back from the dead just cracked me up! Again, thanks a lot, I really did need that.

  12. ottlib says:

    If the Conservative core are the only voters that vote for them this time the Conservatives lose. That core is just too small to put them over the top. They need to be able to attract voters from outside of that core to have any chance at victory. So far there is no evidence that they have been able to do that on a consistent basis.

  13. Windsurfer says:

    But the brouhaha about long lines at advance polling stations, yesterday ‘after only one day open’ may be a sign of change in the country. Even without Un-Elections Canada’s less than helpful verification processes, we could see an upswing in total votes cast. To benefit who or whom? Why the motivation to cast a ballot? Voter suppression may have exposed its vulnerable under-belly – a p…d off electorate.

  14. L. Miller says:

    On the contrary. Gerald Butt’s warroom has done irreparable harm to the Liberal brand. The non-“open” nomination process and multiple revelations of the vicious nature of many top-drawer Liberals has driven many away. There is coat-hanger girl Bezruba – who Trudeau refused to fire. There is marijuana mommy Joy Davies. There is Nour El Kadri: “…nothing yet quite matches the conundrum the Liberal Party’s “green light committee” had to grapple with late into the night this week. It had turned out that an approved contestant for the Liberal nomination in the newly created Ottawa riding of Nepean appeared to be harbouring a rather too opaque relationship with another party, one that sports its very own stylized swastika, sings an anthem to the tune of Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles and lavishly indulges a habit of suicide-bombing and assassination. I speak of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. At the moment, the SSNP is busy running death squads on behalf of its patron, the Syrian tyrant and mass-murderer Bashar Assad, mostly in the vicinity of Homs and the suburbs of Damascus.” (Glavin, NP). The Liberal Party now openly supports Vladimir Putin. And so on.

    Conservative majority. Trudeau loses his seat. The opposition: who cares.

    • Scott says:

      I’d like to be a fly on the wall at your place on election night.

    • Ridiculosity says:

      Butts’ war room? Positively brilliant.

      Irreparable damage? People have short memories.

      Conservative majority? Delusional.

    • Reality.Bites says:

      You’re very funny. But you really shouldn’t be criticizing what OTHER people are smoking.

    • Bill Templeman says:

      L.Mller, can we agree that all the parties have run overly-lax background checks on candidates? Yes, the Libs messed up, and so did the Dippers and the Cons. Please don`t make me find the list of former candidates from all parties who have been tossed for assorted bozo-eruptions on social media. I agree with you on the nomination process. Butts & Co. ran an overly cautious ship that favoured yesmanship rather than initiative. The rejection of Warren as a candidate is but one example. And we could add the Eve Adams adventure to the list of Liberal sins. Is the Liberal brand damaged as a result? You could make that case. But if we are going to embark upon a dissection of brand management during this election, then let’s look at Lynton Crosby and the on-going Niqab fiasco. That ploy didn’t work out so well for Team Harper. “All Justin has to do is show up with his pants on” didn’t work out so well either.

  15. Kelly says:

    Couple of observations. Take them,for what they are worth. Statistically they are meaningless but they are real and things I have never experienced in over 30 years of voting. You may have observed other things that indicate other trends.

    1. I always vote in advance polls because I like to lock in my vote in case I get hit by a bus before E-day (you never know) In Winnipeg south (Con the last 3 elections, solidly Liberal before that), I have never seen such a turn out at an advance poll before. Does heavy turn out at advance polls really spell trouble for incumbents? I don’t know. We will see.
    2. Outside the polling place in the parking lot an older gentleman was speaking to a Muslim couple in fairly traditional dress (he had a full beard and vest, she wore a Hijab. He was apologizing for the Conservative party and for the first time would not be voting conservative. (I specifically remember hearing the word disgusting being used)
    3. My dad — who is 80, and lives in a traditionally very conservative riding, and who once wore a cap with a picture of Pierre Trudeau’s head on a rat body with the words keep Alberta Rat Free under it (I’m sure warren remembers those) — declared he was voting Liberal. I nearly fell over. He said Harper disgusts him (there is that word again) and thinks he pushes people around too much. He said women were getting beat up. Justin seems like an honest guy, he said. (Wow.)

    Anyway…3 isolated observations, meaningless on their own, statistically, but I dunno…I’ve got a feeling about this one…

  16. Al in Cranbrook says:

    Just voted, looooong line up.

    $64 question: What’s that mean?

    Change, like in Alberta?

    Or, no GD way is what happened in Alberta going to happen to Canada!

  17. Joe says:

    I for one am not going to write anyone’s political obituary or victory speech yet. I don’t trust polls in the days of caller ID and cell phones. That being said I do believe that the NDP has run a poor campaign and to a large extent so have the Liberals. The only saving grace for the Liberals is that the NDP have run a worse campaign and the anti Harper vote is moving to the Liberals. That being said the real loser in this election is the voters who are left picking between “I think he is bad”. “I believe he is bad” and “I know he is bad”.

  18. Kaiser Helmets 'n Motorbikes says:

    Is the real October surprise the return of Franophone Quebecers to center stage after a generation on the outside?

    If the Quebecois shift “en masse” to the CPC over the next week, the Cons win a majority, and the majority of Cons are Quebecois.

    Overnight Quebec is back in the corridors of power after two decades in the wilderness. No matter what your politics, having the country’s second largest province back in the fold is a good thing for our common future.

  19. The Doctor says:

    Regardless of whether it’s a decisive factor in this election, I think the Shy Tory phenomenon definitely exists in Canada. Just look at what goes on in universities (including, as WK would know, our law schools). Invariably it’s the lefty/prog students who are vocal about politics, wear their politics on their sleeves, organize events and protests and so on. Look at most student governments in Canada — very left wing, and that Canadian Ferderation of students is a clear reflection of that.

    I remember going for beers with a couple of guys in my 1st year law class, both of whom never said a peep in class all year — while our left-leaning classmates were constantly sticking their hands up and dominating classroom discussion. Then over beers with these guys I find out they’re both rabid Conservative supporters who thought all those mouthy lefties were utterly daft.

    And I see the same thing on my facebook feed — I have hindreds of fb friends, and the Harper-haters have been posting partisan spam all campaign long. My conservative friends? Not a peep. I think generally, except for the uber-partisans, conservatives tend not to wear their politics on their sleeves the way lefties and progs do.

    • Nicole says:

      That may be your experience of law school but not mine. The political people were political in law school be it left or right and often the right were more vocal because they felt they were a minority and needed to “prove” the arguments ad nauseum.
      The silent majority in law school simply wanted to get a good articling position and find time to drink once the studying was done. They also knew that there are shades of grey for almost every position, because that is what you are taught in law school.

      Now undergrad is a different story…

    • Vancouverois says:

      I think there’s a lot of truth to this. But still, are there enough shy Tories to make a significant difference this time round?

      Also, I think many of those shy Conservatives have been put off by some of the Tory war room’s tactics. Enough to switch their votes or stay home? Who knows? I think it may depend a lot on what the Conservatives focus on during these last few days. From what I’ve seen of their renewed focus on the Liberals’ promise to run deficits and the “Trudeau-Wynne” tax (which we all get if Trudeau-wins — get it?), I think they’re taking the most advisable approach at this point.

      But, as always: we’ll see.

  20. JH says:

    Like many on here I’ve noted how biased the media can be when they pick political favorites. Thus comments on here about their biases in this campaign, surely can’t be a surprise to many. May be for the NDP though, as they’ve become used to being fortune’s favorites so to speak, when it came to the National Press Gallery crowd.
    It’s obvious why two thirds of the folks tell pollsters they don’t trust the media’s ethics or honesty. And yet these so called journalists still wonder why their industry is shrinking more and more all the time and jobs are disappearing. Simple really, every day, more people are coming to the realization that on the net, which is basically free, no one needs to pay to read or listen to a journalist’s biased opinion. So why bother paying for print or broadcast journalism? And of course if you really want to get behind a pay wall, by going to Incognito on Google Chrome you solve the problem. And once you reach your limit, logging out and logging back in solves that problem. It’s not about a free press, it’s about freeing me from them. 🙂

  21. Matt says:

    My brother and mom went to the advanced poll at 3:30 this afternoon.

    Said only two people were there. One voting, one in line. The riding is Scarborough Centre. EC workers there said about 100 people through today, 300 to 400 yesterday.

  22. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    My bet is on more ShyJustins than ShyHarpers. We’ll see.

    • Vancouverois says:

      Because “shy” is a word everyone associates with Justin?

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Vancouverois,

        As some Conservatives know, I wasn’t exactly fond of the leader when I was a party member. My theory is based on gravitas. Harper has more of it than the others. That makes his voters less likely to be shy than Liberal voters. I may be proven right, or wrong soon enough.

  23. Scotian says:

    It would not surprise me if the turnout was heavy on Friday because people wanted to get their voting out of the way before enjoying the long weekend, and that this was more than elections Canada expected to face, although that should have been an entirely foreseeable potential and planned for accordingly. I’m waiting until the advance polls have run their course before I will take any evaluations of turnout seriously, but if the turnout is significantly heavier than the norm, then I would say it is an early bad sign for the Harper CPC, because it is almost always only in change elections that we see turnout go up absent an overriding/overarching national grand debate/issue driving such to the polls, and by that I mean on the order of things like the Free Trade debate, or repatriating the Constitution/adding the Charter, that level, and we clearly have not seen anything close that that in this election.

    I do know that this is the first time in a decade where by this point in the campaign I’ve actually felt at all confident that the end result was looking good (which for me is a Harper defeat, as I’m sure many recall I am first and foremost an anti-Harper person and have been all along for reasons I’ve explained in exhaustive detail many times before) to my goals. I this case it does feel like the Libs are clearly in the top position, the NDP are in the bottom, and that to me means the strategic voting I’ve been expecting will be for the Libs in the end likely even enough to cause a majority in the end. For those that wonder what strategic voting I mean, I don’t mean the targeted form politically informed people have been calling for, I mean the form where a large percentage of the voters have been waiting for one party or the other to firmly show itself as the better anti-Harper vehicle by the end of the campaign and will jump ship to that party in an effort to tip the scales so strongly so as to guarantee Harper is gone, even if it means another majority government, be it NDP/Lib not really an issue so long as it means Harper is gone.

    I am convinced this is the real strategic voting that will happen should there be strategic voting because we know from all the polling information that not only do we have a significant undecided vote this campaign, we also have roughly half of both declared NDP/Lib voters saying not only are they still open to switching their votes away from their current choice, but that their second choice is the other opposition party. That reads to me very much like the anti-Harper voters initially siding with their heart’s preference at the start, but whose final goal is the removal of Harper, and therefore are parking their votes with their heart’s preference until the end of the campaign when they can see which party is best positioned to beat Harper, and then shift to make sure of it. I say this because I keep in mind that way over 90% of the regular voters of this country are NOT people who pay close attention to politics, who are not going to be taking the time to look for targeted strategic voting initiatives and tools, who are simply going to go with the simplest and easiest way to try and make sure Harper doesn’t win, and that is by tipping the scales so hard for one side at the end as to make it impossible.

    I also would suggest that when both opposition parties have a soft vote support of nearly half, that too is unusual and speaks to something like what I’m suggesting. I’ve thought this for a long time now, and initially I was expecting the NDP to be the eventual recipients of this (which was not my heart’s preference, but still so long as Harper was gone I could cope) but at this point I’m finding it hard to see it being anyone but the Liberals, the NDP have clearly lost a lot of ground whatever the reasons for it and I just do not see how they could pull themselves back into contention with this little time remaining. It would take a massive, and I mean truly massive to everyone’s POV and not just the partisans/anti-Trudeau people out there, blunder by Trudeau, and given how well he has run in the campaign and the debates, that seems quite unlikely at this late date, because of TPP wasn’t enough right off and it since doesn’t look like it is even close, so that Trudeau blunder is the only path left for the NDP to make a significant comeback in the time remaining IMHO. They don’t have a Layton on their side nor does their main vote rival have an Ignatief on theirs, if anything one could argue they have flipped in this respect from 2011.

    That’s my take at 9 days out.

    • I think you are spot-on Scotian, and the truth of the matter is the NDP wilted the day they presented their costed platform and it turned out to be a dud with nothing exciting to offer but a promise to balance the books. Probably, they and the Libs were assuming a $10B deficit one way or the other in their first budget (using the standard “Hoo-Boy, did those last bastards ever cook the books” saw) as justification. But by putting it out there, it gave the Liberals the chance to put down their trump card under the rubric of “investing” and taking all the wind out of the sails of the grassroot NDP support – I am talking to you, Gerald Caplan – that had been waiting ever so long for their day in the sun to proudly make just such a damn-the-torpedoes announcement. They trusted this Mulcair guy to carry the banner of social democracy and he let them down that day. Plus, you can see the long campaign is wearing on him.

  24. Scott says:

    Sure the Liberal brand is a good one but it didn’t save Dion or Iggy. Trudeau is the guy making the difference. Of course the Cons will be blaming it all on media bias.

    • Steve T says:

      Disagree entirely. Trudeau is the one holding back the Liberals. I am a small-c conservative, and am interested in seeing a change in government. However, Trudeau makes me very nervous. I don’t believe he would be an effective Prime Minister, or be a good representative internationally.

      A huge missed opportunity for the Libs was to trot out their experienced and more senior MPs (and MP candidates), whomever they may be, and have Trudeau note that irrespective of what you think of him, he has a number of smart people who he will go to frequently for support and advice. The fact they avoided this tells me (a) they don’t have enough smart and experienced MPs who are willing to be trotted out, and/or (b) there is a desire to have Trudeau dictate all policy. Either way, I’m scared, and will probably vote CPC.

      • Vancouverois says:

        I trust you’ve seen that Conservative ad where they just show his worst gaffes for two minutes+ straight? Devastating.

        It really is a sad comment on the state of Canadian politics that he’s considered a viable candidate for MP, much less party leader. And if he actually wins… well, I just hope it’s a minority. The idea of him having absolute control over our nation’s government for the next 4-5 years does not inspire confidence.

    • JH says:

      Don’t know why they would blame the media. Near as I can figure from comments on here, FB and otherwise, most folks ignore the national press commentators these days or laugh at them – with some rare exceptions of course. Do you really think many folks are influenced by twits like Fife, Coyne or Barton for instance? In this area people tend to read the weekly paper, listen to the daily talk show and watch the local TV news at suppertime. I’d highly doubt that very many watch the national pundit shows and few of my neighbors pay for a daily newspaper subscription anymore.

  25. Matt says:

    Elections Canada reports 26% increase in voters using the advanced polls over 2011. Not sure if that’s just based on Friday’s numbers or Friday/Saturday.

    Cue all the partisans to make wild assumptions as to what that means based on their own bias.

  26. Matt says:

    Angus Reid yesterday:

    CPC 33
    Libs 31
    NDP 26

    BUY – Only 44% of Liberals and 42% of NDPers are commited.

    They also caution the Liberal surge in their polls is almost exclusively from the 18 to 34 age group who historically vote in much smaller numbers.

    Could that change? Of course it could. But if only half of their 18 to 34 support actually vote, they drop fro 31% to 26% Nationally.

  27. RogerX says:

    The whole election will hang on who can GOTV. Is there a silent polling majority out there ready to vote CPC? Is the NDP truly tanking across Canada? Will the youth vote and cougar vote turn out for the Liberals? Is Justin just riding a wave of ‘popularity’ and not ‘electability’? Can Harper pull it out of the fire with his last minute appeal to the ‘family’ vote? Is confused Canada headed into another messy minority government and instability?

    Oh, and on another note, Obama is singing the praises for TPP… and where the USA goes so goes Canada… because we are an integral part of continental North America… and what therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder

  28. Al in Cranbrook says:

    I was going to save this for post-election if Trudeau wins…but would come across as sour grapes, etc.

    In the event that happens, a prediction…

    He won’t last two years as Prime Minister, and not because of the collapse of a minority government. It will be because of his own caucus in revolt.

    Up until now he’s been leading the third party in the House, and a very small one, with severely humbled, but desperate just the same, MPs. Desperate enough to hand a young, thoroughly unqualified and inexperienced Trudeau the leadership on a platter.

    All the prepping, speech writing, coaching, propping up and covering up of the last two years still does not a potential Prime Minister make.

    Expectations and the demands of the office, on Oct. 20 will be an entirely other matter from what has been the case up until now.

    Good luck with that and Justin.

    It’s not that he’s not ready. The reality is that he’ll never be ready.

    I’ll be the first to admit, were the likes of John Manley or Frank McKenna leading the Liberals instead, this election would have been a foregone conclusion for some time now, for no other reason than change.

    • Al in Cranbrook says:

      And, yes, that was harsh.

      But it’s a harsh world out there right now, unforgiving, and potentially explosive. An Iran playing with nukes, a N. Korea with nukes, ISIS, Putin with only God knows what plans he’s got on his mind, the refugee crisis that will tear Europe to pieces, and precarious economic and financial issues simmering away under the surface of everything.

      The people I talk to are scared, quite literally, about who possibly could wake up leading this country on Oct. 20th.

      This is not a game.

  29. Krago says:

    I just saw the latest Liberal ad on TV. It looks like Justin is starting his touchdown celebration while he’s still on the 10-yard-line.

  30. Jeff says:

    The higher turnout at the Advanced polls is likely due to commited CPC voters just getting it over with. Remember…Advance polls were high in 2011 and people thought it was a popular uprising looking to vote the bums out. I remember reading in hindsight that the Advanced polls were swamped with CPC votes because Harper fans weren’t going to change their minds at the last minute so they thought they’d beat the rush.

    I suspect this could account for the 2 to 3% under-polling for the CPC as well. Notice how their lead is blown after 3 days of Advance voting? It’s because that old CPC voter that answered the phone last week and was asked how he’d vote if an election were held today decided to participate in the speculation of the questioner.
    After he’s already Advance poll voted? It just seems like snooping right? No answer is provided…that is if he even answered to begin with since in his mind, his vote has been cast and his participation is over.

    Advance poll voting Liberals and NDP folks would answer the phone and continue to support the process. They are more eager to influence and younger…so opinion polling activity seems valuable to them…like social media. They are prouder to claim support for leftist parties since it’s a cultural badge of honour. There are no Shy Liberals or New Democrats…they are morally superior and will let you know it.

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