Categories for Musings

A joke.

That’s what media political polls have become in this country. And, if the news media continue to trumpet the results of polls, they risk becoming a joke, too.

By the time you read this, the pollsters will have hit the TV panels, trying to fool everyone into thinking that they didn’t really get the stunning Quebec election results wrong. But they did, and dramatically so. And they’re doing it all the time now.

“PQ headed to comfortable majority: Final poll before Quebec election.” That was the actual headline on a National Post story, published one day before Quebec trooped to the polls.

The PQ had “a large lead over the Liberals,” the Post declared, relying on a poll by an outfit called Forum Research. Forum claimed to have polled nearly 3,000 adult Quebecers, and that the PQ would win 36% of the vote, with the Liberals eking out only 29%. Forum also claimed their poll had a margin of error of less than 2%.

Well, they — and the Post — were off by a hell of a lot more than that. In the end, the Quebec Liberals and the separatist Parti Quebecois both received 31% of the vote, with the PQ a paltry .7% ahead.

The Post wasn’t alone in getting it wrong, however. A political website called ThreeHundredEight.com, one that is relied upon by many reporters, analyzed a number of polls, and stated that the Parti Quebecois could win as many 75 of the National Assembly’s 125 seats on Tuesday night, with the Liberals winning as few as 25.

When all the votes were counted on election night, however, the PQ had won only 54 seats, and the Liberals — who too many had suggested were as good as dead — captured 50 seats.

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This is, hands down, the funniest column I have read about politics in ages.

Along with the jokes, it also contains some truths worth knowing.

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…actually, we knew you quite well, as it turns out.

Hands up anyone who is surprised by this. Anyone? Anyone?

Didn’t think so.

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OMG this is genius.  And, yes, I am and always shall be an unrepentant Trekkie.

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Here’s my straight-up views on the by-elections in Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo.

• Liberals: We won huge in Vaughan, in a seat that is comfortably Conservative federally. I didn’t expect we’d win as big as we did.  In Kitchener-Waterloo, we got clobbered in a seat held by the Conservatives for a generation. I didn’t ever expect to win, but I certainly didn’t expect we’d get clobbered, either. We got the message, however. We have work to do.
• New Democrats: Their win in K-W was significant. Hats off to them. In Vaughan, they were a distant, distant third. They can dismiss that if they like. They probably will, because they’re insufferably pious and pompous. They also have a genetic tendency to equate by-elections with general elections.  I like it when they do that.
• Conservatives: They lost, badly, in Vaughan, when they should have been much more competitive. They were humiliated in K-W, a riding that has been theirs, as noted, for a quarter-century. My biggest concern, now, is that we will lose Tim Hudak, who – as Jacques Parizeau did after the 1995 referendum, blamed voters, sneering in a prepared official statement that they’d been “bought,” quote unquote.  Like Rob Ford, Hudak is a major Liberal asset. I will pray again, tonight, that his party shrugs off the by-elections and sticks with him. Please, God.

We, however, won’t shrug off the results. By-elections aren’t general elections, as every sensible person knows. We got a sent a message in K-W, however, and we intend to heed it. And act on it.

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Britain is America’s “closest ally”? Really?

Thanks for nothing, Mr. President.

Sincerely,

Canada

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…To cover Obama’s speech live!

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Here.

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1. She wanted to force an election months after the last one.
2. She isn’t supported by her own party when it counts. She lets nutcases run for her.
3. She isn’t honest.  Ever.
4. She’s hiding where, and how, her party gets money.
5. She’s lies to the media, and the public, about her party. All the time.
6. She lies about hard-working frontline health workers, and won’t apologize when caught.
7. When it matters, nobody thinks she’s terribly impressive.  At all.
8. She doesn’t tell the truth. She says one thing, does another.
9. She says she cares about folks who need help, like the disabled.  But she won’t help them.
10. She doesn’t have a plan. She has crazy policies.

Don’t vote for Horwath’s Ontario NDP.  They don’t deserve your support.

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1. His own party doesn’t like him.
2. He has crazy policies.
3. He was prepared to force an election months after the last one.
4. He is prepared to put politics before peoples’ safety.
5. His hacks conceived and managed Ornge, and were responsible for the resulting scandal.
6. His own supporters think he’s leading them into humiliation.They disagree with him all the time.
7. His caucus is packed with sexist, intolerant old men.
8. His cabal are knee-deep in scandal at any given time.
9. His biggest pal and supporter is Rob Ford, now enmeshed in a conflict-of-interest scandal.
10. He doesn’t like “foreigners.” He doesn’t like gays.

Don’t vote for him, people.  He’s bad news.

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