Self-reflexive Stephen Harper; looking for poll joy

This explains much about the current government's problems. The fact that the Prime Minister seems to lavish himself with his own image( a christmas card that reveals he has at least twenty four pictures of himself in his office), raises the question of where does anybody else fit in the picture? The Christmas card is photoshopped, but the government lobby isn't.

This obliviousness explains why, despite the opposition Liberal's lacklustre performance with Michael Ignatieff at the helm, the Conservatives are in a statistical tie with their nemesis. More over, despite the polls indicating the widely held view that Stephen Harper is the most competent leader in the house, the Conservatives still are a long way from getting a majority. Moreover, they have declined in popularity since the last election. The criticism of the Liberals for their inability to surpass the the Conservatives must be cold comfort to the Tories, when the Conservatives' inability to improve their popularity is so conspicuous.

The currentEkos poll, published here by the CBC:
Conservatives: 31.2 (+0.2)
Liberals: 29.0 (-)
NDP: 16.5 (+1.0)
Bloc Quebecois: 8.8 (-1.5) (In Quebec: 35.9 (-5.8))
Green: 11.8 (+0.5)
Other: 2.7 (-0.1)
Undecided: 11.4 (-1.7)

Winners and Losers; the only poll that matters

Well here is a comment from Inside the Queensway, Kady O'Malley's blog. It comes from Scott Reid;

"The country is and always will be decidedly centrist. The seat totals you cite should be of at least equal concern to Conservatives as Liberals. They had the sponsorship crisis and an extraordinary RCMP intervention in 2006 -- still weren't able to consolidate. They had an opponent with constrained skills carrying an unpopular policy proposal in 2008 -- still weren't able to consolidate. If Harper was the genius he claims, or the country were listing so far to the right, they'd be winning by a mile."
-Scott Reid

The numbers- and if you can't express something in numbers it's only opinion- say that most Canadians didn't vote for the Conservatives, and that the increase in votes for the Green party and the New Democrats indicate that the country is less conservative than before. If we had a 'rep- by- pop' system, the Conservatives would have earned about 114 seats, the Liberals about 81, the NDP about 56 seats and the Greens about 20 seats. The Bloc should really have 30 seats.

So the Tories still only have a plurality, and given the low turn-out, 4o% of the electorate didn't really care. So the Conservatives only directly represent about 20% of the electorate. If the Grits fall apart, then many ridings will go to either the Greens or the NDP- or the Grits will rebound and scoop up the pragmatic majority of the Greens and 'dippers. Either way, the Conservatives should feel insecure. They may have pushed the NDP another step on the way to becoming the Natural Governing Party of Canada because progressives will see the 'Dippers as the reasonable party for a fundamentally liberal centrist society, if the Liberals do truly implode.

37.7%

Well, my prediction was low. Still, if voter turn out wasn't so low I suspect the overall number would have been about 34%. This view was shared by most pollsters, at the end.

The Conservatives have 46% of the seats with only 37.7 percent of the vote. The Bloq Quebecois have 16 % of the seats with only 10 percent of the vote.

Check out Fair Vote Canada; I'm tired, like about 6 million other Canadian citizens, of being an orphan voter.

Monday before Election 2008; The statistics

The final polls going into election day, as reported in the Globe and Mail:

Strategic Counsel, in a national poll conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV, had Stephen Harper's Conservatives at 33 per cent (down three points from their 2006 popular vote) and the Liberals at 28 per cent (down two points).

The New Democrats were at 18 per cent, the same as their vote in 2006, and the Greens were at 11 per cent, up six points. The Bloc Québécois were at 10 (42 per cent in Quebec, unchanged from 2006).

The Strategic Counsel poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

A Harris/Decima poll done for The Canadian Press had the Conservatives at 35 per cent followed by the Liberals at 26 per cent and the New Democrats at 18. An Ekos Research poll put the Conservatives at 34, the Liberals at 27 and the NDP at 18.

Nanos Research(PDF) reports the Conservatives at 33 per cent followed by the Liberals at 27 per cent and the New Democrats at 22. The Greens are at 9 per cent and the Bloc Québécois at 10 per cent.

This seems to confirm my longstanding prediction that the Tories can't grow their base above 34%. The issue tomorrow will be turnout. People aren't that enthusiastic about this election. Will this help them, their supporters being slightly less apathetic than others, or will the ABC vote show up to make sure the Conservatives don't gain seats?

34% on October 14th

For some time now, Between Adam's Ears has been predicting the Conservatives will achieve at most about 34% voter support on election day. It seems others now share this opinion; The Globe and mail reports

A Harris/Decima poll for The Canadian Press shows the Conservatives gliding downhill from a high of 41-per-cent support on Sept. 11 to 34 per cent on Oct. 4.

The fundamental limitations of Stephen Harper and his Conservatives in a country where two thirds of the population oppose them will limit his electoral success. It's important to remember the last election was largely fought to punish the Liberals for the Sponsorship Scandal. Given the party has purged those involved, and others have gone to jail, people may remember the fiscal restraint and economic growth under recent Liberal governments. They should also think about the lack of progress on the environment, and the response of the Conservatives in Ontario to the last recession- Mr. Flaherty was finance minister there. Not to mention the national debt and deficit doubled under the previous conservative government of Brian Mulroney.

Harper's copy-cat speech; Polls slide for Tories

I had confidence that the Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper, would shoot themselves in the foot. They are only really competent at spin. As soon as one of their candidates speaks, the media are hustled off by Harper's praetorian guard of Mounted Police, lest the public hear the inane and often venomous opinions of the useless Conservative candidates. Let us not forget that even the Cabinet and the PMO is hardly flawless. Just think of Maxim Bernier, Rhona Ambrose and the various backroom operatives that keep having to resign.

Really, I didn't think Harper himself would be to blame for sabotaging his own campaign. He must think Canadians are so stupid and of short memory that they wouldn't notice his past performance; That the taxpayers(even Conservative ones) would not notice he's bribing them with their own money by creating spending proposals that reflect polls and the news cycle- take the tax break for arts classes;That he would say or do anything to get elected; that behind this year's sweater is the same Mr.Mean there's always been.

Not noticing he was reading John Howard's speech word-for-word? That speaks to incompetence, both his and that of his staff.

The polls- Ekos, Nanos and Strategic Council- all show the conservatives are sliding because eventually some Tory opens his mouth. This is especially true in swing ridings in Quebec and British Columbia where Conservatives often won with a tiny margin. It's time to shut down amateur hour.

Updated!

Go to Harpocracy.ca to see which of his candidates he has muzzled most recently.

34.3 percent and falling; Stephen Harper's greater fool theory

"You can fool some of the people, some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" -Attributed to Abraham Lincoln.

Between Adam's Ears stands by its prediction that the Conservative Party will not garner more than 34.3% of the popular vote in the next election. Angus Reid Strategies reports that the Conservatives are polling 36% to the Liberals 28%.

However, the details of that poll reveal that Stephen Harper is distrusted by many. That the environment is seen as the top issue by Canadians, transcending short-term issues reveals the fundamental weakness of the Conservative party, both as politicians and leaders. As the Tory's ads say "Stephen Harper is a straight-up guy who knows what he thinks" but try and get him to tell you in detail what he thinks and his party publishes a vague press release. So although many people feel he has a vision for this country (and I'm certain he has), those people may also feel that vision has more in common with Dante's 'Inferno' than what most Canadians really want for their families, their country and the world around us.

It is important to remember that last Conservative government doubled both the national debt and deficit while in office. Despite talking the talk of fiscal conservatism, the current Conservative government has increased the national debt and flirted with a deficit during the last two fiscal quarters.

Although the efforts by our troops to secure Afghanistan are honourable and deserve our respect, the policy that keeps them there has more to do with 'making nice' with the current George Bush administration than anything to gain from the 'dirty little wars of empire' of which the original mission to Afghanistan has degenerated into.

I expect tomorrow, or shortly after, Stephen Harper is going to call an election, a year earlier than his own fixed election-date law calls for. He hopes that people will forget the election fraud investigations that hover over his party, the privatisation of food inspection that preceded the Listeriosis outbreak (claiming nine lives so far),and the Bernier scandals. After the Chuck Cadman tape scandal, his lame policy failure attacking gay marrige(bigotry at the least) and his turning a blind eye to turncoat MP's(such as Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson who switched from the Liberals) after saying that such behavior should be banned reveals one thing;

Stephen Harper thinks at least 36% of Canadians are too stupid to notice when he's lying. And in Conservative party strategy, that is all the people they have to fool.

Polls; lies, damn lies and statistics

the major polling companies publish their poll results and those results are duly reported in the media.

The Ipsos Reid poll, published in the CanWest group of newspapers, put support for the Conservatives at 35 percent, unchanged from a poll in March. But support for the Liberals fell to 30 percent, from 32 percent.- from Reuters

However a summary of headlines based on this poll includes:

Tories and Liberals remain deadlocked, new poll suggests The Canadian Press

Tories hold on to poll leadNational Post, Canada

Then a poll released about a week ago gives

Ten-Point Lead for Conservatives in Canada Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research, April 02, 2008
Outlying statistics are loudly reported, but the boring fact that the published 3 week averages produced but generally under reported show little variation from Tories with 34%, Grits with 30% Dippers with 16%. The Greens are slowly growing and the Bloq slowly waning. The big issue is that with the current stable popularity of the various parties, the Liberals will gain seats, and the Bloq and NDP will lose seats if an election were called. The Conservatives will remain a minority government.

I'm not sure why the Liberals don't force a confidence motion, since they'll gain seats in an election, and probably the NDP and Bloq will prop up the government lest they lose seats in any current election. Currently, an election would help then Liberals and the greens, because both would gain some seats. The Conservatives would look like half-milers because they'll still be in minority.

Expect the election when the snow melts. A gain in seats would strenghten Dion's position(I think his nuanced positions will gain currency against that of the bully-boy, backroom Tories). I think the Greens will be the big winners next time around because the parlour pink socialists of the NDP and the psuedo-left Bloq will melt with the late spring. Knowing that the next government will also be a minority should help relieve the pressure for strategic voting.

Certainly, ending the government by fiat of Stephen Harper's Tories would allow us to go forward in a more kindly and effective way as a nation.

Conservative support sinking

Despite reportage of anomalous spikes in polls as accurate representations of the popularity of Canada's Federal parties, the actual popularity of the various parties has been fairly stable. This week for example Harris/Decima reported the harper conservatives at 37% popularity- however Harris/Decima's own research indicates this was an anomaly in a three week period where the Conservatives consistently polled 34%.

I suppose the anomalous stuff makes for more interesting press releases.

On the other hand, the Conservatives have been unable to expand beyond their base of 29% diehards and 5% who still want to punish the liberals. And the figures seem to indicate that 5% is shrinking. Pooling the results of the major polling firms over time shows this.

A vote of confidence over the Budget, or Aghanistan is now very likely, triggering a general election. My prediction as to its outcome still stands, except that the Conservatives will probably poll even lower than I've predicted.
At this time Between Adam's Ears is suggesting the next General Election's results will be:

Liberals36%
Conservatives33%
Bloc Québecois 9%
Green 7%
NDP 16%

The press releases and the detailed data is available online at:
Angus Reid
Environics
Harris/Decima
Ipsos
Strategic Council