Sunday, September 21, 2008

Where is the panic in the Liberal campaign?

Am I missing something here?

Pretty well every poll except the Nanos one (more on that later) are showing the Liberals in the low to mid-20s, about 15 points behind the Conservatives. It is three weeks before the election, which means if those polls are correct the Liberals lose unless there is a meltdown of biblical proportions in the Conservative campaign. Again, if those polls are correct the only thing the Liberals could hope for is to cut their losses.

So, why is there no sign of panic or even a heightened sense of urgency in the Liberal campaign? Usually, when a campaign is this far down signs begin to show. However, it would seem it is not there. In fact, Mr. Dion is taking the day off today.

Some would say that Mr. Dion "shifting" focus from the Green Shift Plan would be a sign except he has not actually made that shift. That was all made up by the media still trying desparately to maintain the "Dion is a dead duck" narrative.

As well, why are the Conservatives not as relaxed as they should be considering they would appear to have this election in the bag? If the polls are correct they cannot lose and the only thing in question now is whether it is a majority or a minority.

So what's up?

The Nanos poll might give us a clue. One of the reasons why he has become the polling guru is because his client is CPAC, a television station that goes out of its way to be non-partisan and balanced. They do not care about creating a narrative. Instead they care about bringing Canadians information about Canadian politics with much less spin. So, instead of demanding polls to support their narrative they demand polls to give Canadians solid information on how things are going out there. So, Mr. Nanos designs polls to do that. That is why his polls are the most methodologically sound of all of the polls being produced out there right now.

That incidently is exactly what the party pollsters are doing. All three of the main stream parties have their own pollsters doing nightly tracking polls probably using very similar methodologies as Nanos. All three political parties want their polls to give them solid information to help them in their decision making as the campaign goes forward. They do not need or want spin.

So what are those polls saying? Are they saying the Liberals are 15 points back and certain to lose the election or are they saying the Liberals are much closer to the Conservatives?

Who knows for certain except the party insiders running the respective campaigns. However, the apparent lack of panic or even a heightened sense of urgency within the Liberal campaign would suggest that they do not see much of a problem at this juncture in the election campaign. As well, the one poll (Nanos) that is conducted using methodology very similar to the party tracking polls has been saying the Liberals have been within striking distance of the Conservatives since the election campaign started.

Of course those public polls could be correct and the Liberals could just be going quietly into the night but for some reason I doubt that would be the case.

Like I said, am I missing something?

2 comments:

Carrie said...

I don't think you're missing anything. I'm worn out from the polls and have started to ignore them.

What is getting harder to ignore is the increasing negative projection and lies coming from Harper and Layton and most of their supporters. It's making it difficult to watch any election coverage. If anyone is panicking, it looks and sounds to me like it's the NDP and the Cons. Both started out ignoring the Liberals. Big mistake. They're all talking about the Green Shift, which only creates more interest in it if only so we citizens can figure out the truth about it.

Garth Turner has a great Q&A up about the Green Shift. So he's doing a lot to help the Liberals and it's very nice to see.

Btw, have you seen this...
http://blog.macleans.ca/2008/09/21/btc-ken-dryden-is-not-amused/

Anonymous said...

Nik Nanos is one of the very few honourable pollsters in Ottawa. Can't say enough about the man. Never pushy.