Lies, Damned Lies, and Daily Polls

If there's one thing I've noticed this election cycle — other than an increased personal desire to yell and throw things at the computer monitor — it's the love that certain pundits and media organizations have developed for daily poll results; Less than three weeks in and I've already seen pages of prognostication and blathering over everything from tiny national shifts to larger regional shifts.

Or perhaps I should say perceived shifts.  Because there's one thing I don't quite get about the obsession with these polls: the number of people surveyed per day tends to be rather low, resulting in large margins of error.  Of course, this means that any perceived shift has to be monumental in order to be confirmed as an actual shift in voter intentions as opposed to just potential error.  In other words: a 5% gain when your margin of error is +/-2%? That's a notable change.  A 2% gain when your margin of error is +/-5%? That could just be phoning the wrong couple of households on a given night.  (I saw a recent one where the margin of error for Atlantic Canada was 0.1% shy of a full +/-10%.  Somebody would have to eat a baby on live television for any change to be noticeable against that.)

On the plus side though, at least most of the numbers tend to include regional breakdowns.  Whether a 10% national support is concentrated in one region or consistent nationally makes a huge difference with regards to whether it translates into likely seats or not.

Checking the Mail — Commentary on the Debate Decision

The image below comes courtesy of Inky Mark, who — if the mail was to be believed — has apparently decided to abandon his Manitoba riding of Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette in favour of Fredericton, New Brunswick.  He joins the ranks of previous defectors Brian Storseth (Westlock—St. Paul, Alberta), Laurie Hawn (Edmonton Centre, Alberta), and Chris Warkentin (Peace River, Alberta) — and that's just this past month.  I wish them all the best luck, but suggest that running that many Conservative candidates in one riding might be a poor decision.

Fig. 1: The rest of the mailing isn't that important.

Putting aside all the facetiousness for the moment, I'm of the opinion that the above shows a fair degree of hypocrisy vis-à-vis Harper's position regarding the leaders' debate; May and the Green Party don't meet the criteria needed to debate Harper (and the other leaders, though let's not fool ourselves: it's just going to turn into everyone ganging up on Harper, perhaps with Layton occasionally attacking Dion), yet she meets the criteria to be included in the campaign-mailings-disguised-as-information that I've been receiving for well over a year.

When it comes down to it, I can't say that I'm surprised.

Smells Like Snap Election In The Morning

As was expected, an election was called on Sunday.  I'm sure I have a rant in me somewhere about this and the reasons for it, but at the moment I can't really work up the energy to form it into coherent thoughts.  (So bonus for you, I suppose.)

On the other hand, I did spot this story over on the Globe & Mail — Tories launch pre-dawn attack on Dion — which helps sum up my feelings regarding the run-up to the election and what I fear the campaign will be like.  Now admittedly, I'm just as likely to vote CPC in this election as I am Bloc Québécois.  (Which is to say: not going to happen.)  So it is possible that my own dislike is colouring how I view things.

On the other hand, the last sentence in the article — "However the party did not announce any plans of its own during the press conference." — pretty much says it all.  So far in the run-up we've been hearing from the CPC how Dion's plans are terrible, how one should not vote for Dion.  But at the same time, there's been no reason why "Don't vote Dion!" necessarily translates into "Vote CPC!" and not "Vote NDP!", "Vote Green!", or even "Vote Bloc!".  What are the CPC's plans should they form the government?  Search me.  Sure, there have been the election-style mailings for months of which I tend to receive one a week — never one from an MP in my province, oddly enough.  But they're just insubstantial platitudes and vague think-of-the-children! worrying (queue Mrs. Lovejoy here), combined with more-of-the-same (i.e.: anti-Dion attacks).  Nothing that says exactly what the CPC feels should be done on the issues, just that they feel Dion isn't the one to deal with them.

I'm reminded of a quote from another article before the election was called, where Harper was complaining that the opposition parties wouldn't meet with him and give their consent/dissent to the government's agenda.  Near the end was the following line: "Mr. Harper continued on Tuesday to avoid providing specifics about what items on his agenda he wants the opposition to agree to pass".

I think that about sums it up.