Election Hysteria Grips Media

All of a sudden interest in Canada's federal election seems to have caught fire, after a lacklustre and moribund start that had most Canadians yawning with disinterest.

The story 'du jour' is Jack Layton's ascension in Quebec and media coverage has been hysterical and the frenetic pace of coverage has led to a bunch of stories that should never really have seen the light of day.

First, the polls, which are all over the map, leaving me to believe that we are in that statistical anomaly, the mythical 19th out of 20 polls that the pollsters keep in their back pocket as an excuse for a completely botched prediction.

With supposed margins of error of 3½%, it's hard to understand how two different polls are more than 7% apart, but no matter.

 There's almost a nine point difference between the EKOS and NANO polls and considering that according to the two pollsters own combined self-declared margin of error, there shouldn't be more than a 5.3% difference at worst. Hmmm.....

It reminds me of what our 13th Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker, once said about polls.
"....dogs know best what to do with polls."

Worse than that was the outrageous predictions of projected seat counts. The difference between certain news organizations calls into question whether they have any clue at all.
Here's what Threehundredeight.com predicts. I like this website a lot more than the individual polling firms because it aggregates the lot of them.
This is how they see the actual seat count as of a couple of days ago. Close, but still not a Harper majority.

The Montreal Gazette gets the cake for the stupidest most outlandish prediction of all and one wonders what the editors were thinking when they published this drivel, last Friday.

"According to a mathematical analysis of the poll, the Conservatives' majority could be huge, at 201 seats, the largest majority in the House of Commons since Brian Mulroney's record 211 seats in 1984, and in Quebec, the Bloc Québécois could plunge to the unheard-of depths of four seats." Montreal Gazette

....HaHaHa!!!!

While polls show national and provincial trends, one of the most difficult things is predicting the actual riding by riding impact of polling numbers. In Canada, our federal election is comprised of 308 individual elections and while national numbers are an important key to predicting what will happen, when things are close, as in many ridings, all bets are off as the force and magnetism of the individual candidates does make a difference.

When reviewing polling numbers, mathematics make it easy to spot reporting blunders, but it's more difficult to spot bias. That being said the slant in some news organizations is hard to miss, with two prime examples being Canada's largest web news aggregators,  Bourque and National  Newswatch both of whom have become Liberal party shills during the election.

In Tuesday's National Post, (a huge Conservative booster) a giant front page story tried to paint Michael Ignatieff as a bullshitter, who  changed his story in regards to some old war story
A rather naked and blatant attempt to smear his reputation in the waning days of the campaign.

Read:Ignatieff rewrites an old war story

Or there's always Radio-Canada who got some mileage out of a story that Harper’s communications director, Dimitri Soudas, interfered to shill for Robert Abdallah ­ as a candidate for board chairman at the Montreal port authority. Harper was forced to defend himself against the charge of undue influence

See:Harper defends aide over meddling allegations

Trouble is, the story is TWO YEARS OLD and was dredged up to specifically hurt Harper.
Here's the original story published in 2009! LINK{FR}

Last week, SunTV launched it's news channel which Liberals have sarcastically dubbed FOX NEWS North. The station has predictably taken up the causes near and dear to conservative Canadians, much to the howls of derision from political opponents.

To my eye, the launch hasn't been a rousing success. Short on content and long on moral outrage, viewers won't be satisfied with long-winded rants like that of Ezra Levant who lectured us for much to long on the evils of visiting Cuba.

Aside from Charles Adler, the talking heads collectively seem horribly ill at ease, but hopefully things will improve. First change needed is a decent 6PM newscast, without which the channel is hard to take seriously as a national news force.

SUNTV- Hard to compete with FoxNEWS!

Changes are sure to come. The first time I watched the morning show with Pat Bolland and Alex Pierson, I was not only struck by the  stilted banter and horrifically amateur content, but the off-putting image of the not so perfect bare legs of the otherwise lovely Ms. Pierson.

The next time I tuned into the morning show, the co-hosts were mercifully ensconced behind a desk instead of a couch. PROGRESS!

As for charges in the National Post that the network is home to bimbos wearing sleeveless dresses, all I can say is that the High Def version of the channel is not particularly kind to any of the on-air personnel and so in summation, all I can say is that SUNTV is no Fox NEWS, personality-wise, leg-wise or content-wise.

But I remain hopeful.......

Liberal Fortunes Haven't Really Changed

With most of the press screaming that the sky has fallen for the Liberals, the most cursory look at the numbers tells a much different story.

Here's a graph of voter support comparing this election campaign with a baseline of the 2008 election results. It shows that Liberal and Conservatives support has stayed pretty much the same.

This is the net difference between 2008 and now.

For all the sound and fury, the NDP aren't in line to pick up a ton of seats and the Bloc isn't in line to lose a ton of seats, such is the vagaries of our election system.

Nobody is talking about the incredible nosedive that the Green Party has taken in popularity, dropping in voter preference by almost half. It's hard to see the party surviving under Elizabeth May and with it's taxpayer subsidy set to drop by almost 50%, times will be tough.
Can it be that the environment is a dead issue in Canada? 

By the way...
We've been reminded over and over again that the cost of this federal election is about $300 million dollars.
What isn't considered is the loss in productivity.
If all working voters take just one hour of employer paid time to vote (the law provides up to three) it will cost the country another $200 million in lost productivity. This doesn't even consider the loss of time in classes as hundreds of schools are closed down to become polling stations.

As it stands today, it looks like we are going to have another minority Conservative government and we very well may be back at the polls again within two years. Hooray!

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 I'd be remiss in not wishing the Montreal Canadiens good luck in their seventh and deciding game tonight in Boston.

Here's some sweet inspiration!

Let's hope Bruins blow a seventh game four years in a row!

Separatists Hit Panique Button

Easter weekend has not been kind to Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois as poll after poll describe the fortunes of the party in a precipitous decline, now trailing the Ndp in popularity, something none of the experts dared predict before the election.

This last weekend has been particularly unnerving to those in the sovereignist movement and since the news dropped that two out of the three major polling firms have placed the Ndp ahead of the Bloc Quebecois, confusion and panic has set in.
Although Duceppe has started to attack Layton, the NDP leader appears to have a latex exterior and so far the political attacks have bounced harmlessly off the dapper politician. Let's be honest, it's hard to demonize Jack Layton.
The Conservatives have taken a much more subtle approach, likening Layton to an affectionate old uncle, loved and appreciated but not to be trusted with the family wallet.

One of the most sacrosanct beliefs held by expert Quebec-watchers is that support for sovereignty and independence has a bedrock base of about 30%.
It has become an accepted fact that this 30% will remain militant sovereignists come hell or high water and will always vote for the sovereignist option, just as it is accepted that about 45% of Quebeckers will always vote for the federalist option, again, no matter what.

Commodity traders describe a 'resistance line', or a 'trading range' to refer to a product like pork bellies or frozen orange juice's traditional price range.

When the product 'breaks out' either above or below this range, it becomes a wildly unpredictable affair and the so-called 'experts' throw up their hands and watch the unfolding scenario, unable to realistically predict the final outcome.
If recent polls are to be believed, support for the Bloc Quebecois has fallen below the critical 30% level, with the EKOS poll and IPSOS-REID poll both putting the Bloc support at 27%. In fairness, a third poll done by NANOS pegs the Bloc support at 32%. LINK

That being said, what is noteworthy, is that all three polls have support for the Bloc falling in this last week of the campaign and if the trend continues, no one can predict with any certainty what the actual results will be in terms of who will be elected..

It is important to note that about 70% of Bloc voters (or former Bloc voters) indicate that the Ndp is their second choice and with the Liberals floundering in Quebec rather helplessly, it's also hard to see a Bloc voter going anywhere else but the Ndp, the Conservatives certainly not an option.

So why the change of heart?
Anyone who claims they have the answer is Monday morning quarterback.

No doubt there is a bandwagon effect going on, similar to the one a couple of years ago that saw the ADQ make a giant provincial election breakthrough, also at the separatist's expense.
But since then, things have fallen back to normal with the Pq and the Liberals holding the majority of support and seats provincially.

It's fair to ask if this infatuation with Jack Layton and the Ndp is a one-off thing.

But for the moment, there's no doubt that about one-third of historical Bloc voters are looking for something else. It seems that Jack Layton has struck a cord and for many of the disillusioned, a vote for the Ndp is a well-placed and acceptable protest vote.

For the sovereignists, desperation has set in.
Yesterday morning the Bloc had brought back out of retirement, a frail yet hearty Jacques Parizeau to hit the campaign trail to inspire the troops with warnings of impending doom and gloom.

If they could, separatists would dig up the corpse of Rene Levesque, slap on a new suit and a little makeup and get Andre Philippe Gagnon to mouth his voice in a couple of well-placed TV commercials.

That's how desperate things are..

Whether the trend will hold until election day is the $64,000 question and if it does, what exactly the effect on the actual election will be is an open question. The new Ndp support is so diffused that whether it can make a difference in more than a few ridings is questionable.
It will however, help secure the fortunes of Quebec Tory incumbents who were thought to be in danger due to the arena fiasco. It will undoubtedly, help Conservative independent MP, Andre Arthur save his seat as well as Justin Trudeau.

As for the rest, there aren't more than a half dozen close races and whether the Ndp surge can take more than a projected two seats in Quebec, remains to be seen.

Interestingly, the big Ndp bump seems to be an exclusively Francophone affair and although no hard statistics are available, I don't think Jack Layton's new found strength translates into the English community. If it did, it would be good news for at least two Conservative candidates, Larry Smith and Saulie Zajdel, both who need some help to overcome traditional Liberal support to have any hope of winning.

At the end of the day, whether the Bloc returns to Ottawa with thirty seats or fifty seats is of little consequence if Harper gets his majority government.
That remains the overriding concern for Quebec nationalists who rightfully consider this the overriding matter at hand.


BTW::::

I'm off to the Canadiens game tonight with my son and so I hope readers will wish us LUCK!!!!
To the Vancouver Canucks and their fans, I hope all works out for you guys later tonight!

KEEP THE FAITH!!!!!!!!!!

Campaign Signs We'd Like to See

For more fun, see;

Defaced Election Signs

Have Happy long weekend- back on Tuesday...

Federalists Help Elect Separatists

The new found strength of the Ndp in Quebec doesn't seem to translate into many new seats with the Bloc Quebecois apparently set to hold onto a number of seats by the skin of their teeth due to the federalist vote splitting.
Looking at the numbers tells us that there are several Bloc ridings that could easily be won by a federalist party, should they only combine forces.

In all but a handfull of Quebec ridings in the 2008 election the federalist parties garnered more votes than the Bloc, but because of vote-splitting the Bloc won over two-thirds of the seats with less than 40% of the vote.

As things stand now, they are set to win just about as many seats, but with support down to the 34% level, if the latest polls are to be believed.

André Arthur

Withdrawing a candidate and leaving the field open to a 'favoured' enemy, is a strategy rarely invoked in Canada, but it is not unheard of. In the last election the Conservatives did not run anyone in Portneuf - Jacques-Cartier, allowing independant, André Arthur to squeak in ahead of the Bloc candidate. Once again in this election, the Conservatives are adopting this pragmatic approach, choosing to have an ally outside the party, rather than a Bloc member.

The only problem about withdrawing a candidate in favour of another party is that you must be confident that the votes will go where you want them to go.
This was a no-brainer for the Conservatives in Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier, few of their supporters were apt to vote Liberal and even if some of their supporters bled to the Bloc, the vast majority went to Arthur.

Between the three major federalist parties, withdrawing a candidate in favour of another party's runner makes sense only for the Ndp and Liberals. It is natural that should an Ndp candidate stand down, support would move massively to the Liberals and vice-versa.
It'd be hard to predict where the Conservative support would go should they adopt a stand-down policy and perhaps many Conservatives would choose not to vote rather than vote Liberal or Ndp.

That being said, let's look at some Bloc ridings that would go federalist, would the NDP and Liberals cooperate by pulling one candidate or another. I'm using data from yesterday's projections as reported by Threehundredeight.com.


Here's a look at at ten ridings that could be be taken back from the Bloc by combining the Liberal and NDP vote;

There are another five or six ridings that are close.

While cooperation would seem to be mutually beneficial, it seems that the natural competitiveness makes it hard to put into practice.
In the hotly contested riding of Gatineau the Liberals are accused of trying to smear, Francoise Boivin, the former Liberal MP and now NDP candidate, who is actually leading the incumbent Bloc candidate.

"New Democrat Leader Jack Layton accused the Liberals of playing dirty tricks against one of his star candidates in Quebec and called it a sign of desperation....

.....Montreal newspaper Le Devoir reported Tuesday that Boivin did not actually leave the party for ideological reasons as she has previously stated, but because she hired a woman to work in her office the Liberals say was her same-sex partner and then refused to acknowledge she had broken the rules." LINK

Look up at the table and you'll see that if in fact Miss Boivin's support drops because of the allegations, it'll be the Bloc candidate who'll be the winner, even if the lost NDP vote goes to the Liberals!

Cooperation? Oh well...... just dreaming.