Conservatives soar in opinion poll

[tuvor]

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Conservatives are riding their highest level of public support in almost 20 years, and would win a majority government if an election were held now, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday.

The Ipsos-Reid survey of 1,003 voters gave the Conservatives 43 percent support, compared with just 25 percent for the opposition Liberal Party. It was the highest level of support for the Conservatives since 1988.

The Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper, won a minority government in the January 23 federal election. A new election doesn't have to be held for five years, although minority governments in Canada traditionally last only 18 months or so.

"People are still giving Harper a pretty good honeymoon," pollster Darrell Bricker told the National Post newspaper, which published the survey. "And it just seems to be getting stronger as we move along."

http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-05-23T121314Z_01_N23451969_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-POLITICS-POLL-COL.XML

[daleo]

1. I find this difficult to believe

I guess I just don't believe these happy-happy conservative polls. The news agencies that commission the polls have become too biased to trust the results. I saw this one in my Canwest paper today - there was a lot of text, but not so many numbers. That always makes me suspicious of what is being held back.

For example, NDP support was down, but so was Liberal support. Would NDP support really go to the Conservatives before the Liberals (or vice versa)?

Perhaps I am whistling in the dark, though.

[Spazito]

2. Hmmm, I wonder what questions were asked, etc.

I do find Ipsos-Reid one of the better polling outlets, depending on a number of factors, but it would be interesting to see if this poll was commissioned by someone/some specific organization and, if so, by whom.

Edited to add: I found out who commissioned the poll: Canwest and Global, surprise, surprise (NOT!) to find the outlet most supportive of the faux Cons is coming out with a supportive poll.

I haven't found out what the questions were yet, knowing what they were might be educational.

Harper has support to win majority

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=0cad14a6-eaed-457b-bbb9-3c252bbc355b&k=78274

[Bragi]

3. Better we deal with the reality

I think pretending that there is something wrong with the polling won't get us very far. Ipsos Reid is a respectable polling firm, and doesn't fudge results. And if you think about it, all the polls since the election have shown Harper on the uptick, and this latest one just confirms this.

Personally, I think it is more productive to deal with the question of why Harper is doing so well in public opinion, and what can be done to prevent him from getting the majority he is now poised to get in the next election.

- B

[Spazito]

4. LOL, Actually most people can multi-task, imo

Look at the validity of the particular poll while keeping a close eye on Harper. One does not have to do either/or.

[Bragi]

6. Huh?

I don't know the exact point you are making, apparently in response to my posting.

What did you mean when you wrote:


<<LOL, Actually most people can multi-task, imo

Look at the validity of the particular poll while keeping a close eye on Harper.

One does not have to do either/or. >>



- B

[Spazito]

7. It was in response to your post...

"I think pretending that there is something wrong with the polling won't get us very far. Ipsos Reid is a respectable polling firm, and doesn't fudge results. And if you think about it, all the polls since the election have shown Harper on the uptick, and this latest one just confirms this."

One can research who commissioned the poll, what the questions were while still working to defeat the faux Cons, it is not an either/or nor should it be.

I don't necessary accept the poll results until I can see what the questions were, how they were phrased, whether they were "push polls" which polling companies do when being paid to do so and that includes Ipsos-Reid. Canwest/Global is notoriously right wing and therefore suspect when commissioning a poll yet not reporting what questions were asked in the poll they commissioned.

[Bragi]

8. Okay...

On reflection, I concede that my phrase was poorly formed, and it is quite true that: "One can research who commissioned the poll, what the questions were while still working to defeat the faux Cons, it is not an either/or nor should it be." So I now understand what you meant.

You then add:

<<I don't necessarily accept the poll results until I can see what the questions were, how they were phrased, whether they were "push polls" which polling companies do when being paid to do so and that includes Ipsos-Reid.>>

I think there is some journalistic code of some sort that major media sign on to that requires that they report relevant methodological matters. This includes assurance that there is not some unknown party directing the research. In this case, the party/client directing the research -- Canwest -- is named in the report.

As for push polling, I don't see how just asking people how they would vote is push polling. Push polling is when you ask the respondent if their vote might change knowing that candidate x is a crack addict.

You then write:

<<Canwest/Global is notoriously right wing and therefore suspect when commissioning a poll yet not reporting what questions were asked in the poll they commissioned.>>

I'm sure if you go into it, you will find that the news story, like the research, meets all the applicable standards. This is the case notwithstanding the fact that the poll is paid for by a partisan participant in the political process.


- B

[Spazito]

9. There are a couple of points here....

First:

"As for push polling, I don't see how just asking people how they would vote is push polling. Push polling is when you ask the respondent if their vote might change knowing that candidate x is a crack addict."

My point was exactly that, we don't know what the questions were, whether they were simply "If an election were held today, would you vote for:

The Conservatives
The Liberals
The NDP
Other

A question posed this way would, indeed, be a fair, neutral question.

A push poll question, on the other hand, would be phrased something along the lines of this:

With improved relations with the United States, a solution to the softwood lumber impasse and the Prime Minister's increase in funding for Darfur, if an election were held today, would you vote for:

The Conservatives
The NDP
The Liberals
Other

At this point, I have been unable to find the questions asked and until I see them I will continue to question the poll.

Second:

"I'm sure if you go into it, you will find that the news story, like the research, meets all the applicable standards. This is the case notwithstanding the fact that the poll is paid for by a partisan participant in the political process."

The only response to that is for you to see what CanWest/Global, through the National Post, is responsible for this:



Do you feel this meets all applicable standards given the article cause a furor around the world and turned out to be completely bogus?

[daleo]

11. There are ways to bias polls

The first is to be careful to oversample in areas where you can expect "correct" results. Sure, polls are random samples, but they are generally geographically stratified random samples. There is room for maneuver there.

You can also do multiple polls, then only publicize the ones that go your way (and there will be outlier polls and as well as the usual margins of error to help).

Then there is question wording, question order, etc.

I don't think there is any particular standard that pollsters or newspapers have to stick to, other than not flat out lying. It is like advertising in that regard. Buyer beware.

On edit - I checked the Ipsos website. The detailed results are "premium content" that requires a $$$ subscription. Even at that, it still doesn't say you would get a detailed methodological report.

[Bragi]

15. Why would Ipsos Reid fake a poll?

I find a lot of weird conspiracy theories on this forum about polling.

Why exactly would a major polling firm like Ipsos Reid, which does a relatively small amount of its business on media and political polling, why would they go out of its way to create and publish fake and biased polls measuring political support?

I ask this because, since they do these polls regularly, if they were rigged, then they would have to rig the questions and/or answers every single time they run the poll, for years on end, just to maintain consistency.

Which is a rather bizarre scenario.

I suppose it's natural to want to dismiss unfavourable polls, but I don't think doing this establishes a good foundation for developing a winning counter-strategy.

- B

[Spazito]

16. They didn't fake a poll, they may have, however, used a question

format predicated to get a certain response as opposed to neutral questions such as I gave in my previous post.

I find it interesting you don't question what polling methodology was used as that is very important in any poll and when the methodology is not made public one should, imo, wonder why.

Here is a link to an article that you might find interesting:

http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2005/05/16/GlobePollUnethical/print.html

[daleo]

17. It's not really faking a poll

They are delivering a product to a biased news source, Canwest (biased in favor of a conservative government that will deliver the tax regime and other policies they prefer). Ipsos can steer their methodology a bit to deliver the desired product. The news company can then report it in such a manner that they encourage a bandwagon effect among the citizenry towards the party they prefer.

Just like with advertising, you will rarely hear any out and out lies - just partial truths, carefully managed information, emotional key words, broad hints, and unsupported generalizations. It is all a matter of managing perceptions.

It's not a conspiracy - it's just capitalism.

[Bragi]

20. Sorry, I don't buy it...

You folks assume that major polling firms are happy to bias their results to please major media subscribers. Well, they don't, and they won't do this, because a) it would be easily detected and criticized by people who do understand polling methodology (like their competitors) and b) it would undermine confidence in their services among the people who matter most to pollsters -- which are private sector and institutional clients, *not* political parties or media outlets.

If you want to read a quite informative article on political polling in Canada, I would recommend the article titled ""Inside the poll story - who got it right, who got it wrong, and why?" by Bea Vongdouangchanh and Kady O'Malley" which is in the March 2006 issue of Policy Opions magazine, at http://www.irpp.org/po/

- B

[Spazito]

21. I have read the article you provided, it is very interesting but, in

reading it, methodology with regard to pre-election night polling is barely touched upon and, ironically where it does discuss it, backs up the article to which I provided a link regarding Strategic Council as, per the article you provided, they were the BIG losers along with Ipsos-Reid, the polling company that did the poll in the OP. The primary focus of the article is the issue of the accuracy of seat projection pre and post election night.

I appreciate the link to the article, none the less, it is an interesting article in it's own regard.

[Bragi]

24. And my point is...

The article illustrates that there are always issues and debates and scrutiny associated with various public polling methodologies, and this is unavoidable and just fine.

What would not be fine, however, would be for a reputable firm to undertake and publicly release a poll done for whatever purpose on whatever subject that is methodologically indefensible. There's no way they will do this because they can't get away with it, so it would serve them no good.

Which is my central point.

Glad you found the article interesting. I did too.

- B

[daleo]

25. It all depends on what you mean by methodologically indefensible

Is it ok to do a poll and not publicly release the results if they didn't bend the way you like? Sure, that's nobody's business but the customer's. Is it ok to oversample in some regions and undersample in others? Sure, you just say you wanted higher confidence levels in Quebec or the west, for example. Is it ok for the news outlet that commissioned the poll to cherry pick the results that are favorable, and ignore the rest? Sure, that's called editorial judgment.

Until Canwest releases this fundamental date (e.g. the actual raw numbers, to see if their was regional oversampling), I will suspend judgment.

[Bragi]

30. Okay, suspend your judgement

For my part, given that every major poll published since the election has shown that the Conservatives are gaining strength and are poised to form a majority, then I feel somewhat compelled to conclude that they are gaining strength and poised to form a majority.

This being the case, far far as I can tell, the only assured way to stop them is if the centre left majority in Canada doesn't, as is usual, distribute their votes among the four opposition parties that better reflect their views. Any electoral strategy that doesn't involve strategic voting to defeat Conservatives will ensure a Harper majority after the next election.

I honestly think the options are that clear. And given that partisans among the opposition parties who put party before country will actively campaign to dissaude voters from stragegic voting, then I reluctantly conclude that we are in for 6-10 years of a right-wing, Harper regime.

So buckle up, progressives. Harper is not your classic warm and fuzzy Canadian Tory by a long shot, and we are now entering what may be a quite dark chapter in our political history, a period where many of our social gains will be reversed, and where we will be embarrassingly thrust onto the international stage as a patsy for US imperialism.

- B

[daleo]

31. I do appreciate your point about the polls and about vote splitting

Although I believe there are subtle biases in these polls, I agree that we sometimes whistle in the dark about them too. At some point it doesn't matter if they are biased, if they have the effect of pushing the political spectrum a little ways to the right (incrementally).

I also agree that we may well be in for a term or so of Harper if the non-Conservative vote stays split. Strategic voting is difficult without a high level plan, though. I have tried to pick the non-Conservative candidate with the best chance in my riding in the last two elections, and guessed wrong each time (once I went NDP when the Liberal came in a fairly close second, once Liberal when the NDP came in a fairly close second).

It seems unlikely to me that the Liberals and NDP will cooperate in any formal way, though. The NDP smells blood, and wants to supplant the Liberals as the non-Conservative alternative. I think they feel that a term or two of Harper will "sharpen the contradictions" (as Rick Salutin once memorably put it), and people will eventually go NDP in response. I guess it is a remnant of Hegelian dialectics or something.

The Liberals assume things will return to "normal" (i.e. a Liberal government) after the people get a reminder of Conservative government. They will come back to mother Liberal where they feel politically comfortable after they find out how unpleasant the Conservative/American step-mother really is.

In the mean time, as you say, we could be in for some very bad times.

[AX10]

32. Just one 5 year term of a Harper majority will set in concrete....

damage to Canada that CANNOT be undone. I'm just saying. I hope the Liberals, with all of their problems can win the next election.

[HEyHEY]

5. It's only because the Libs have no front man right now

[hopeisaplace]

10. In my opinion, he's on the upswing because

1. He's getting a HUGE free ride from the media. It's a joke.
2. There isn't a Liberal Leader in the forefront at the moment
3. People "probably" liked the budget (especially the way the media presented it)
4. Many people really don't understand the fundamental differences between
Liberal and Conservative, never mind Conservative and Neo-Conservative. I've educated
a few people on what "right" and "left" means.

[HEyHEY]

18. What?

"1. He's getting a HUGE free ride from the media. It's a joke."

Are you even paying attention?

[hopeisaplace]

26. well as soon as I hear the news attempting to "justify" anything this

admin does, I do turn it off, or turn the channel..so maybe I'm not hearing the full media reports.
So in your opinion the media is all over the Harper Admin now...maybe I won't be flipping
the damn channels so fast now. Thanks.

[HEyHEY]

27. Well, it is all about hearing all sides

PLus, they aren't trying to justify what the admin is doing. THey are saying why they are doing it. You be the judge of whether it's right or wrong. It's not the media's job.
Too often the media is charged with being biased, when they are just showing what the admin says the reasons behind things are.

[hopeisaplace]

28. I'll tend to go to CBC more these days for news..they're better

..and you know it doesn't take much to set me off knowing we could
be headed to a majority con government...so I will NOT be very patient
when the news, appears IMO, to be handing it to them on a silver platter.

People have no idea who Harper really is, I wonder why that is? Oh yah,
it's because to get that info, it may require reading. Oh my gawd!!!!!!
reading!!!!!!!!!!, we can't have that.

Anyway, I know what you're saying about balanced news, but I'm not patient
after watching the disastrous Neo-con takeover unfold to the south of us.



edit: spelling

[HEyHEY]

29. Well, US news is a pit of shit, that's true

[Canuckistanian]

12. I heard Harper's polling well in Québec

In QUEBEC, fergawds sake. Arguably the most liberal province in the country.
:wtf:

[tuvor]

13. I just posted this. You think it'll change some minds?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=190x14661

[Canuckistanian]

14. Yes, I do

Once Harper reveals his true colours, they'll run screaming from him, especially if he pulls any 'social conservatism' crap.

[LibertyorDeath]

19. honeymoon's Over!!

CHIMO (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Wed May-24-06 05:34 PM
Original message
Harper says he's finished with Ottawa press corps

Harper says he's finished with Ottawa press corps
Last Updated Wed, 24 May 2006 18:12:22 EDT
CBC News

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he'll no longer give news conferences for the national media, after a dispute led a number of journalists to walk away from an event when he refused to take their questions.

Speaking to A-Channel in London, Ont., Harper said "unfortunately the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government."

"They don't ask questions at my press conferences now. We'll just take the message out on the road. There's lots of media who do want to ask questions and hear what the government is doing."

Since becoming prime minister in January, Harper has had a testy relationship with the national media in Ottawa. His staff has tried to manage news conferences by saying they will decide which reporters get to ask questions.

[Pierre Trudeau]

22. it's performance over policy

My theories on why the Cons are doing well in the polls:

- a perception that they are accomplishing more in government than the previous govt. (for example, no matter how you rate the softwood deal, the fact remains, they achieved some sort of resolution whereas the Liberals let the matter drag on for years)
- no major scandals (yet)
- Harper's dictatorial control of the overall message means we only hear the more reasonable statements (from him and selected ministers), the wingnuts are kept under wraps for now
- the PM's very boringness has become an asset: he puts forth an unambitious agenda, and people feel confident he will deliver on what he says, which for now is relatively modest (a contrast to Paul Martin who promised ambitious agendas but failed to deliver)... also "Stephen the Square" might be somehwat preferable to "Lyin' Brian" for some people
- the party has been increasing its support in Quebec (not so much in Ontario I suspect)
- the lack of leadership, and general disarray, in the Liberal party
- with no prior experience in government, all Harper has to do is appear adequately competent and focused, and it'll seem like he's doing a good job. Once again, in contrast to Martin. Even I reluctantly have to admit that Harper has conducted himself reasonably well. As much as I disagree with him on policy and style, he at least seems to take his job seriously.


If a poll were taken on Conservative policies however, I think we'd see lower support levels in some cases. So perhaps some people think, "maybe an effective government with disagreeable policies is still better than an ineffective government with agreeable policies".

Consequently, if the Cons start to stumble badly in terms of their management skills, their lead will evaporate because most Canadians still don't share their vision. Not that I'm overstating their abilities, but in the current context, expectations were so low for them that they can easily exceed them.

[MrPrax]

23. ROLF...

too much...we're in trouble...

I wonder if the folks in the Ottawa Press Gallery are have any regrets handing the Tories poll points when they asked, "Do you love this country? "

...and then handing them a few more points when they defended their ethics by suggesting that it was a fair question and the type of questions the average Canadian would ask...ROLF

Do not confuse the media's interests with your own and don't confuse partisanship for political analysis...you'll be continued to be confused to the FACT I keep 'harping' on and that is the Liberals and NDP are not popular and Harper isn't scary.<--The world's stupidiest campaign tactic EVER>

The libs/dems have done nothing but 'astro-turf' issues for the last 10 years and it was even more obvious under Martin...they left themselves with absolutely nothing except the grim hope that one of the libs candidates might ignite a fire and desparate appeals to motherhood, social 'wedge' issues and 'trust us'. The big problem is such a strategy is fine when your in power, but sucks the big one when your not.

They should be going back to their roots and renewing their 'base', but instead both parties have hid with their consultants trying to get traction on whatever 'mistake' the Tories make. Well after awhile this ONLY makes them look petty as NOT everyone is going to see it the same way.

Take the Gwyn Morgan episode? Shit Morgan didn't say anything that most of southern Ontario isn't saying. Was it that bad? Funny Wally Oppal and Ujjal Dosjani said basically the same thing about the Indian community here...??

So what ended up happening? Well the press and the libs/dems spoke with one voice: knee-jerk PCism. How did Harper respond? Like the average Canadian would--go fuck yourself.

We're dead... :-(