Monday, August 15, 2005

Summer Fix For Political Junkies

From SES:

Canada - Ballot
LIB - 39% (+3)
CP - 25% (-5)
NDP -19% (+1)
BQ - 13% (+1)
GP - 5% (+1)
*14% were undecided (+2)


Best PM
Martin - 31% (-1)
Layton - 15% (0)
Harper - 14% (-13)
Duceppe - 8% (+2)
None - 19% (+11)
Undecided - 13% (+4)


Government Performance
Very good - 6% (0)
Somewhat good - 21% (+4)
Average - 39% (+8)
Somewhat poor - 17% (-1)
Very poor - 16% (-9)
Unsure - 2% (-1)


Based on this, I think we can officially call the Glad as Hell tour a complete and miserable failure. It's mind boggling to see a politician's personal approval ratings plunger over the summer. Sure, Harper could still conceivably win the next election but if I were Bernard Lord, I'd start planning out my exit strategy from New Brunswick now.

For the Liberals, the approval ratings are up at a time when they have done absolutely nothing. This could either be because:
1) The less people see of the Liberals, the higher they think of them
2) Sponsorship is becoming more and more a distant memory
3) People liked the way Martin handled gay marriage
4) Compared to Harper, the Martin Liberals are looking better and better
It's probably a bit of all four.

It's also interesting to see that fewer Canadians see the sitting Prime Minister as the "best PM" than the number who would vote for his party. And this at a time when no one wants to the opposition leader as PM and the third party leader wants to destroy the country. I'm sure Martin never thought it would get to the point where people would vote Liberal in spite of him, but I'm sure he'll take it.

All of this paints a picture of a disgruntled electorate who aren't very happy with anyone but are quickly beginning to view Harper as nothing more than Stockwell Day v 2.0.


UPDATE: Allan Gregg's latest poll is slightly better for the Tories on voting intention, with them only down 36-28. However, it shows that only 2% of Canadians rate the sponsorship scandal as their major concern.

7 Comments:

  • I don't think that these poll results mean a whole lot. It's the summer! Nothing is really happening. And there isn't much movement in these polls; they are irrelivant until Gomery reports. It's then that we will know for sure whether or not the public is done with hearing about sponsorship or if right now, they're just having a little nap. I suspect a jittery degree of the latter with a little twinge of the former.

    By Blogger Bruce Lyth, at 3:05 p.m.  

  • Let the liberal media work and lefties soon forgot all the bad things the Lieberals do. I mean, Stephen Harper is ANGRY. And he has a HIDDEN AGENDA. And he DRESSES DORKY.

    Who would want a PM like that when you can have a lying, dithering, rich, but socialist guy on top?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:13 p.m.  

  • Excellent. Harper is a failure. Call an election, Grits.

    If you are confident of victory, engineer your defeat and lets go to the polls.

    (Oh, said like that, you get a little nervous, don't you?)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:18 a.m.  

  • Oh pulease ( he said in his best Roger Rabbit) of course Harper is Harpers problem. For Matt and the other pro Harper bloggers, who go by anon my ass, get a life.

    He is the fuerher of the party its his policy wonking or lack thereof that is making his image the issue. And he has fired another staffer for his screw ups.

    Thats six in as many weeks. What's that tell you? Hmmmm.

    Yep Harper Fans yer screwed.

    And it fits you so well.

    See my blog comment on this:
    Harper Fires Chief of Staff

    By Blogger EUGENE PLAWIUK, at 3:16 a.m.  

  • Harper fans can whine and moan all they want about a 'biased' media, but since Canada has one of the highest proportions of secondary educated citizens in the world I can tell you that the population isn't stupid. Everything that comes out of Harpers mouth is mildly to wildly disagreeable to the majority of Canadians. Anyone remember when he went to speak to the Sikh community and told them that gay marriage is hurting multiculturalism? Like come on. Harper has only himself (and his (lack of) policies) to blame.

    By Blogger Paladiea, at 12:49 p.m.  

  • Err meant to say post secondary educated

    By Blogger Paladiea, at 12:50 p.m.  

  • If you want to know what NB people think of Bernard Lord go to http://oldmaison.blogspot.com/.
    More recent posts are not that good but check out August and September.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:04 p.m.  

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