Proof the SNC Lavalin "scandal" caused no long-term harm to the Liberals and Mr. Trudeau and proof they do not fear it will come back to bite them again during the election.
Gerald Butts is back with the Liberal Party for the election. Mind you he never really did leave. He has been involved with the Liberal Party since he "resigned" his government post he was just being low key about it...until now.
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Friday, July 19, 2019
Polls are for dogs
I generally ignore polls. Which is to say that I do not put any stock in the estimates contained in them or the "analysis" of pollsters and pundits of the estimates. Polling has become way too predictable.
There are Conservative friendly polling companies that generally show the Conservative Party is in good shape.
There are Liberal friendly polling companies that generaly show the Liberal Party is in good shape.
Then there is Nik Nanos who I believe is not friendly to any party but who is still often guilty of reading way more into the estimates of his polls than what is there, just like all of the rest.
Overarching all of this is Mr. Grenier and his poll aggregator. When he was independent I found his work interesting, although I still did not put much stock in it either, but when he joined the CBC I knew that going corporate would degrade the quality of his work and I was correct. And it did not take long. I stopped looking at his aggregator well before the 2015 election.
Polling used to be done to provide people with an idea of what people thought about things, whether is be politics or whether they prefer Coke or Pepsi. The polling that is done for product market research is still useful but political polling ceased being about informing people about public opinion and became about trying to sway that public opinion a long time ago.
You see around 50 years ago some social science research was published that indicated that polls could swing a small percentage of voters to the party that the polls said was leading. So naturally, it was only a matter of time before political parties and their allies in the media would attempt to use that to their advantage.
The problem is 50 years ago there was only one major polling firm. That was Gallup. If a Gallup poll stated that the Liberals of Pierre Trudeau was leading in an election then it was more than likely true. Now of course there are about a dozen polling firms publishing polls, with some completely contradicting the others. No longer is there one generally trusted polling company there are many polling companies only trusted by a segment of the population that would agree with their estimates.
In other words 50 years on the social science research indicating that polls could swing votes is no longer valid. There are too many polling companies, releasing too many contradictory polls to swing any vote. People are overloaded with polling information so when they process it they are going to process it according to their preconceived notions. Conservatives will cheer polls indicating the Conservatives are doing well and stating that the polls that indicate the opposite as wrong. Liberals will do the same for polls that indicate the Liberals are doing well.
Meanwhile, those with no preconceived ideas of who they support will process the polls by generally ignoring them. It is hard to take polls seriously when companies that are polling one population, Canadians, come up with wildly different results. These are the voters most coveted by political parties but they are also the voters less likely to take what the polls say about the popularity of the policial parties into account when making their decision at the ballot box.
So John Diefenbaker was right, although he was about 60 years ahead of his time. Polls truly are just for dogs.
There are Conservative friendly polling companies that generally show the Conservative Party is in good shape.
There are Liberal friendly polling companies that generaly show the Liberal Party is in good shape.
Then there is Nik Nanos who I believe is not friendly to any party but who is still often guilty of reading way more into the estimates of his polls than what is there, just like all of the rest.
Overarching all of this is Mr. Grenier and his poll aggregator. When he was independent I found his work interesting, although I still did not put much stock in it either, but when he joined the CBC I knew that going corporate would degrade the quality of his work and I was correct. And it did not take long. I stopped looking at his aggregator well before the 2015 election.
Polling used to be done to provide people with an idea of what people thought about things, whether is be politics or whether they prefer Coke or Pepsi. The polling that is done for product market research is still useful but political polling ceased being about informing people about public opinion and became about trying to sway that public opinion a long time ago.
You see around 50 years ago some social science research was published that indicated that polls could swing a small percentage of voters to the party that the polls said was leading. So naturally, it was only a matter of time before political parties and their allies in the media would attempt to use that to their advantage.
The problem is 50 years ago there was only one major polling firm. That was Gallup. If a Gallup poll stated that the Liberals of Pierre Trudeau was leading in an election then it was more than likely true. Now of course there are about a dozen polling firms publishing polls, with some completely contradicting the others. No longer is there one generally trusted polling company there are many polling companies only trusted by a segment of the population that would agree with their estimates.
In other words 50 years on the social science research indicating that polls could swing votes is no longer valid. There are too many polling companies, releasing too many contradictory polls to swing any vote. People are overloaded with polling information so when they process it they are going to process it according to their preconceived notions. Conservatives will cheer polls indicating the Conservatives are doing well and stating that the polls that indicate the opposite as wrong. Liberals will do the same for polls that indicate the Liberals are doing well.
Meanwhile, those with no preconceived ideas of who they support will process the polls by generally ignoring them. It is hard to take polls seriously when companies that are polling one population, Canadians, come up with wildly different results. These are the voters most coveted by political parties but they are also the voters less likely to take what the polls say about the popularity of the policial parties into account when making their decision at the ballot box.
So John Diefenbaker was right, although he was about 60 years ahead of his time. Polls truly are just for dogs.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
The General Irrelevance of the Daily Political Minutae
We are bombarded with news on a daily basis regarding what is happening with our governments and the journalists and pundits cannot help but make all sorts of claims of how a given event, situation or statement will move the political needle.
We are seeing it with the situation with Donald Trump in the US, the situation with Doug Ford in Ontario and things swirling around the government of Justin Trudeau.
The Liberals are seeing an upswing in their polling according to the public polls and now the pundits are all opining about why.
In all cases I will go out on a limb and state their reasons are wrong. It is not the cooling down of the SNC Lavalin "scandal". It is not the fact women are coming back to the Liberals. It is not any particular reason that the MSM point to. The main reason for their recovery is they are the incumbent government at the end of their first term.
As I have pointed out in this space before first term governments tend to be given the benefit of the doubt during their second election in this country. Sometimes they are given the benefit of the doubt beyond that but for the most part Canadians usually decide to stick with a government for two straight elections before then considering a change.
Stephen Harper, Jean Chretien, Brian Mulroney, Mike Harris, Dalton McGuinty and many others all benefited from this phenomenon. They all faced serious "scandals" and controversies during their first terms and the media all questioned whether they would be able to pull off another election victory as a result. In the end the results of their second elections were not even close.
The same will probably be true for Mr. Trudeau. That is probably the reason why the Liberals seem to be climbing in the polls. That is also the reason why we have not seen any discomfort from the Liberals this year. They have been the prohibitive favourate to win the election this years since they won in 2015 and probably none of the political minutae that we have been bombarded with will change that.
Unfortunately for progressives in both Ontario and the US this same phenomenon probably means that both Doug Ford and Donald Trump are the favourates to win their next elections.
I know progressives in Ontario are heartened by what is happening to Mr. Ford in Ontario and some are saying that he might not last until the next election. The problem is Mike Harris had similar problems during his first term and he won his second election handily. My guess is Mr. Ford will still be the premier in 2022 and that he will win another majority government, a reduced majority with a strong Liberal Opposition, but a majority government all the same.
The same is true of Mr. Trump. Americans tend to stick with the same President for two elections. There have been a couple of exceptions in the last fifty years but as a rule they stick with him. My guess is the same thing will happen next November, although the Republicans could lose the Senate, fail to regain the House and lose a bunch of governors' houses and state legislatures.
I used to follow every little event in politics but I stopped once I realized just how irrelevant they are in determining the result of elections. It really is just noise with very little meaning or impact.
We are seeing it with the situation with Donald Trump in the US, the situation with Doug Ford in Ontario and things swirling around the government of Justin Trudeau.
The Liberals are seeing an upswing in their polling according to the public polls and now the pundits are all opining about why.
In all cases I will go out on a limb and state their reasons are wrong. It is not the cooling down of the SNC Lavalin "scandal". It is not the fact women are coming back to the Liberals. It is not any particular reason that the MSM point to. The main reason for their recovery is they are the incumbent government at the end of their first term.
As I have pointed out in this space before first term governments tend to be given the benefit of the doubt during their second election in this country. Sometimes they are given the benefit of the doubt beyond that but for the most part Canadians usually decide to stick with a government for two straight elections before then considering a change.
Stephen Harper, Jean Chretien, Brian Mulroney, Mike Harris, Dalton McGuinty and many others all benefited from this phenomenon. They all faced serious "scandals" and controversies during their first terms and the media all questioned whether they would be able to pull off another election victory as a result. In the end the results of their second elections were not even close.
The same will probably be true for Mr. Trudeau. That is probably the reason why the Liberals seem to be climbing in the polls. That is also the reason why we have not seen any discomfort from the Liberals this year. They have been the prohibitive favourate to win the election this years since they won in 2015 and probably none of the political minutae that we have been bombarded with will change that.
Unfortunately for progressives in both Ontario and the US this same phenomenon probably means that both Doug Ford and Donald Trump are the favourates to win their next elections.
I know progressives in Ontario are heartened by what is happening to Mr. Ford in Ontario and some are saying that he might not last until the next election. The problem is Mike Harris had similar problems during his first term and he won his second election handily. My guess is Mr. Ford will still be the premier in 2022 and that he will win another majority government, a reduced majority with a strong Liberal Opposition, but a majority government all the same.
The same is true of Mr. Trump. Americans tend to stick with the same President for two elections. There have been a couple of exceptions in the last fifty years but as a rule they stick with him. My guess is the same thing will happen next November, although the Republicans could lose the Senate, fail to regain the House and lose a bunch of governors' houses and state legislatures.
I used to follow every little event in politics but I stopped once I realized just how irrelevant they are in determining the result of elections. It really is just noise with very little meaning or impact.
Monday, July 08, 2019
Mr. Bernier goes to Calgary
In the mid to late '90s I played the political game in this town (Ottawa) being a member's assistant for a Liberal MP in the Chretien government. During that time I met other assistants from MPs of the other parties. I have kept in touch with a few.
I had occasion to have lunch with one of them a few days ago. When I knew him on The Hill he was working for a Reform MP. He came with the wave of Reformers that arrived after the 1993 election.
Inevitably we talked politics and I mentioned my theory that Mr. Bernier would be campaigning in the Conservative ridings of Quebec and Ontario leaving the Liberal and NDP ridings alone. His response was "that is what Preston Manning did to Kim Campbell so I would expect the same from Mr. Bernier." He went on to explain that Mr. Manning was not trying to win the 1993 election because he knew he could not. Instead he was trying for official party status and nothing more. The fact he went on to become the Leader of the Official Opposition was a bonus. Mr. Manning achieved this by focusing his campaign on ridings that tended to generally vote PC. He left the Liberal and NDP ridings alone.
My friend agreed with me that Mr. Bernier is not setting his sights on winning the election and that his ambitions are a little smaller and that he would probably pursue a similar strategy to what Mr. Manning did in 1993.
There are some key differences. Mr. Manning had a true national party with a large enough budget to conduct a national campaign. Mr. Bernier will be campaigning on a shoe string and will probably not have the ability to criss-cross the country searching for votes. However, Mr. Manning's base was in Alberta. He did not have a base in Ontario or Quebec going into the 1993 election. Mr. Bernier, on the other hand, has a base in Quebec and he should have enough money to criss-cross that province and Ontario looking for votes.
If he is even remotely successful he will steal enough votes in Conservative ridings in those provinces to not only deny Mr. Scheer victory but to greatly reduce the number of seats currently held by the Conservative Party of Canada.
I asked my friend what he thought of Mr. Bernier's chances of achieving his objectives. He stated that they were not high but he also stated that they said the same thing about Preston Manning's chances in 1993. He did agree with me that Mr. Bernier would probably not win more than his own seat and maybe a couple more around Quebec City. But he also agreed with me that Mr. Bernier could take enough votes, that would normally go to the Conservatives, to allow the Liberals to take a bunch of close races. He mentioned some long held Conservative ridings in Ontario that were vulnerable to a "Bernier insurgency".
All of that to say that it would appear that Mr. Bernier is beginning to implement this strategy judging by the news report I saw today. He is in Calgary where he is not criticising the Trudeau government. He is trolling for Conservative voters instead. I suspect we will be seeing more of the same as the next few months unfold.
I had occasion to have lunch with one of them a few days ago. When I knew him on The Hill he was working for a Reform MP. He came with the wave of Reformers that arrived after the 1993 election.
Inevitably we talked politics and I mentioned my theory that Mr. Bernier would be campaigning in the Conservative ridings of Quebec and Ontario leaving the Liberal and NDP ridings alone. His response was "that is what Preston Manning did to Kim Campbell so I would expect the same from Mr. Bernier." He went on to explain that Mr. Manning was not trying to win the 1993 election because he knew he could not. Instead he was trying for official party status and nothing more. The fact he went on to become the Leader of the Official Opposition was a bonus. Mr. Manning achieved this by focusing his campaign on ridings that tended to generally vote PC. He left the Liberal and NDP ridings alone.
My friend agreed with me that Mr. Bernier is not setting his sights on winning the election and that his ambitions are a little smaller and that he would probably pursue a similar strategy to what Mr. Manning did in 1993.
There are some key differences. Mr. Manning had a true national party with a large enough budget to conduct a national campaign. Mr. Bernier will be campaigning on a shoe string and will probably not have the ability to criss-cross the country searching for votes. However, Mr. Manning's base was in Alberta. He did not have a base in Ontario or Quebec going into the 1993 election. Mr. Bernier, on the other hand, has a base in Quebec and he should have enough money to criss-cross that province and Ontario looking for votes.
If he is even remotely successful he will steal enough votes in Conservative ridings in those provinces to not only deny Mr. Scheer victory but to greatly reduce the number of seats currently held by the Conservative Party of Canada.
I asked my friend what he thought of Mr. Bernier's chances of achieving his objectives. He stated that they were not high but he also stated that they said the same thing about Preston Manning's chances in 1993. He did agree with me that Mr. Bernier would probably not win more than his own seat and maybe a couple more around Quebec City. But he also agreed with me that Mr. Bernier could take enough votes, that would normally go to the Conservatives, to allow the Liberals to take a bunch of close races. He mentioned some long held Conservative ridings in Ontario that were vulnerable to a "Bernier insurgency".
All of that to say that it would appear that Mr. Bernier is beginning to implement this strategy judging by the news report I saw today. He is in Calgary where he is not criticising the Trudeau government. He is trolling for Conservative voters instead. I suspect we will be seeing more of the same as the next few months unfold.
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