Gimbol's diatribe and screed

Strategic Council screed

I suppose every political watcher has seen this poll.

If you read the headline and nothing else you would get the impression the liberals have made steady gains against the conservatives.
Hey you read it, you decide.

But I would like to point out something that you would see if you looked at the whole article.

quote:

CANADA

Assuming Michael Ignatieff won the Liberal leadership race, who would be the best prime minister?
Stephen Harper: 37%
Michael Ignatieff: 23%
Jack Layton: 17%
Gilles Duceppe: 7%
Don't know: 17%

Assuming Bob Rae won the Liberal leadership race, who would be the best prime minister?Stephen Harper: 36%
Bob Rae: 26%
Jack Layton: 15%
Gilles Duceppe: 6%
Don't know: 16%

Assuming Stephane Dion won the Liberal leadership race, who would be the best prime minister?
Stephen Harper: 38%
Stephane Dion: 21%
Jack Layton: 17%
Gilles Duceppe: 6%
Don't know: 18%

Assuming Gerard Kennedy won the Liberal leadership race, who would be the best prime minister?
Stephen Harper: 38%
Gerard Kennedy: 17%
Jack Layton: 18%
Gilles Duceppe: 7%
Don't know: 20%

*****
ONTARIO

Assuming Michael Ignatieff won the Liberal leadership race, who would be the best prime minister?
Stephen Harper: 39%
Michael Ignatieff: 22%
Jack Layton: 21%
Gilles Duceppe: 2%
Don't know: 17%

Assuming Bob Rae won the Liberal leadership race, who would be the best prime minister?Stephen Harper: 37%
Bob Rae: 29%
Jack Layton: 17%
Gilles Duceppe: 2%
Don't know: 16%

Assuming Stephane Dion won the Liberal leadership race, who would be the best prime minister?
Stephen Harper: 39%
Stephane Dion: 21%
Jack Layton: 21%
Gilles Duceppe: 2%
Don't know: 18%

Assuming Gerard Kennedy won the Liberal leadership race, who would be the best prime minister?
Stephen Harper: 41%
Gerard Kennedy: 20%
Jack Layton: 20%
Gilles Duceppe: 2%
Don't know: 18%


Now what stands out most out of those statistics?

That Stephen Harper is consistently the first choice by close to 40% in the rest of Canada.
This doesn't apply to the Quebec data, but I'm about to throw in a monkey wench that indicates the respondents didn't really consider their answers.

-1- Any time a poll shows the undecideds within the percentage of error of at least one of the selections, that indicates the poll is too biased.
-2- When one of those selections cannot achieve the outcome, in this case the Bloc cannot ever form government, the poll will inherently be biased in that it asks for an approval rating of how good a PM Mr Duceppe would be.
-3- That only in Quebec does any of the liberal contenders come out ahead of Mr Harper.

But its a poll, not actual outcome.

So what was the purpose then?

Could it be to influence how liberal delegates would vote at the convention....nah couldn't be. Iwould however point out the questions specified the names of the four leadership contenders instead of just referring to the party names.

So here's my read.

Right now there are some that would prefer the liberals in power, with the caveat that their guy wins the leadership. Should their guy not win they will less inclined to vote liberal.
With that in mind go back and review the statistics and pay particular attention to Quebec.

Sucks to be them.

posted by gimbol @ 3:51 AM