The forgotten war

Posted by padams under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy

Paul Adams

Take a look at Chris Cobb’s excellent piece on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen today (which I mention despite not because of the interview it includes with my EKOS colleague, Frank Graves).

In the 2005-6 election campaign, there was virtually no discussion of the Afghanistan mission, although it very quickly became a dominant issue in our politics afterwards — and rightly so, given the Canadian blood and treasure involved. There was not a single question posed on Afghanistan in any of the leaders’ debates in the ’05-’06 election campaign, and, unprompted, the leaders generally gave the issue wide berth. The media, with a few noble exceptions, did little to fill the gap.

Whatever the virtue of the subsequent parliamentary resolution, which the Liberals supported, to pull out of Kandahar in 2011, it had the consequence of removing the issue of our commitment in Afghanistan from debate, at least so far as the government and official opposition were concerned. Stephen Harper’s apparent pledge this week to pull out of Afghanistan entirely in 2001 was clearly aimed not at provoking a fuller discussion but at further dampening the issue.

There is something wrong with our politics, including the role of the media, that we haven’t had the national discussion we should on our role in Afghanistan. Cobb’s piece is an excellent place to start fixing that.

Paul Adams is a former political reporter with the CBC and the Globe and Mail, and is now a member of Carleton’s journalism faculty, and executive director of EKOS Research Associates.

Vote parking or not?

Posted by cwaddell under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy

Christopher Waddell

A combination of Paul Adams’ comments about Green Party strength among young voters and today’s Ipsos-Reid poll in the National Post showing the Greens at 11 per cent creates the possibility for some interesting dynamics in the coming weeks.

The Green Party won 4.3 percent of the vote in 2004 and 4.5 per cent in 2006 so that is probably its base level of support for this campaign as well. Perhaps the Greens at 10-11 per cent or even higher just reflects people parking their votes there for the moment, as they can’t decide among or don’t like the other parties and leaders.

But the longer in the campaign the Greens stay there or move higher, the more problematic it becomes to make seat projections. Those projections are based on the relationship between past election results and current opinion poll standings. No one knows who these new Greens used to support so it is very difficult to factor that into calculations.

Even more interesting, if the Green Party gets 10 per cent of the vote or more nationally on October 14, the Greens will have had a major impact on the election results even if they don’t win a seat. They will turn many ridings into four party races, making some people MPs who never thought they had a chance to win. That’s because the winner could have no more than 30-35 per cent of the votes cast in the riding.

If that happens in enough ridings, look for a revival of talk about electoral reform and proportional representation that died after the crushing the issue took in last year’s Ontario referendum.

Christopher Waddell is associate director of the school and a former Globe and Mail Ottawa bureau chief, former CBC-TV parliamentary bureau chief and election night executive producer for CBC TV News.

More on gender gap

Posted by padams under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy, Election 2008 Media commentary

Paul Adams

David Akin sent this after my earlier blogs on gender gap:

Ipsos Reid, as you may know, is the pollster retained (hired) by Canwest News Service, which is my employer. More than 1.5 million Canadians subscribe to a Canwest daily paper. The day before you posted this, those 1.5 million subscribers read a poll, taken by a competitor of the firm you work for, which addressed gender issues. I wrote the story. I don’t get paid by Ipsos or have any financial in any polling company but I thought you’d like to know that at least one other pollster has been surveying on this issue.

Here’s the Victoria Times-Colonist’s pick-up of the Ipsos gender poll.

Paul Adams is a former political reporter with CBC and the Globe and Mail, and is now a member of Carleton’s journalism faculty, and executive director of EKOS Research Associates.

Green tease

Posted by padams under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy

Paul Adams

EKOS will be reporting on large samples in the three major metropolitan areas tomorrow (Saturday) morning. One interesting finding is that the Greens are running in first place among Generation Y (25 and younger) in Toronto and Vancouver and first among Generation X (26-44) in Montreal.

Now, if people that age would only come out to vote….

Paul Adams is a former political reporter with CBC and the Globe and Mail, and is now a member of Carleton’s journalism faculty, and executive director of EKOS Research Associates.

Tories in a slump…or not

Posted by padams under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy

Paul Adams

I am deep in the middle of today’s polling muddle, which is why I haven’t blogged yet today. On very large nightly samples, at EKOS, we have the Tories slumping this week, but others disagree, as Paul Wells points out in this recent post.

Paul Adams is a former political reporter with the CBC and the Globe and Mail, now a member of Carleton’s journalism faculty and executive director of EKOS Research Associates.

Libs losing Green Shift battle in the media

Posted by padams under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy, Election 2008 Media commentary

Paul Adams

The Liberals are losing their battle to define their own Green Shift plan in the media. The plan aims at cutting greenhouse gas emissions through carbon taxes, but a critical element in the architecture of the plan is the offsetting tax cuts to individuals and businesses. The Liberals even promise the Auditor-General will be brought in to certify that the Green Shift is “revenue neutral” — i.e., gives every cent it takes in carbon taxes back in tax relief of some kind.

On CBC’s World Report this morning, the Green Shift was twice described as a “carbon tax” — once in the intro and once more in the item. Although the story dealt with a “calculator” on the Liberals’ website that supposedly allows an individual to figure out how the tax and offsets would affect them, the plan was never clearly explained. If you didn’t already know about the offsets, this item would not have enlightened you.

The Ottawa Citizen ran a story today about Stephen Harper’s attack on the plan that, although sympathetic in tone to the Green Shift, refers to it as “Mr. Dion’s proposal for a carbon tax”. Nowhere in the story is there any mention of the tax offsets.

In its front page story today,Dion’s Green Plan Would “Wreak Havoc”, the Globe does a better job. The offsets are mentioned only in the last few graphs (after the turn), but there is a large graphic that clearly spells out the taxes as well as the offsets.

One supposes that the Liberals hoped the name “Green Shift” name itself would convey the message, but it doesn’t. A “tax” is a tax — everyone understands that. A “shift” can mean anything. The “Green Shift” name will only convey the full meaning of the plan once people already understand it, which most still do not do. 

There are, of course, examples of reporters struggling to be fair to a complex plan, but Green Shift is falling foul of three intersecting forces:

• The media’s desire for a “shorthand” reference to the plan 
• The Conservatives’ attempt to define the Green Shift as a tax pure and simple
• And the Liberals’ inability to communicate the features of the plan simply and clearly  

In a survey last week, EKOS found that 63% of Canadians supported the carbon-tax-plus-offsets plan when it was clearly explained to them. But so far it hasn’t been, by the Liberals — or by the media. 

Paul Adams is a former political reporter with CBC and the Globe and Mail, and is now a member of Carleton’s journalism faculty, and executive director of EKOS Research Associates.

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

Posted by padams under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy

Paul Adams

Harper, like Jean Chrétien before him, used to be firmly in the apology-means-weakness school of politics.

Remember the  Conservative press release in 2004 that was headlined “Paul Martin Supports Child Pornography”? He pulled the release but wouldn’t apologize. “I’m not going to, in any way, give the Liberal Party any break in its record on child pornography,” he told reporters when he was asked whether he would apologize. “It is disgraceful, they have had multiple opportunities to do something about it [child pornography], and they have refused.”

Since his election in 2006, though, his government has issued a series of apologies to historically aggrieved groups, and this apologetic spirit has survived into the campaign.

After the puffin poop outrage, Harper said: “My apologies for it having been up.” (Odd choice of words, but the thought is there).

And today, a campaign aide who took a swipe at the father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan, was both suspended and ordered to apologize by Harper. (I guess it must have been in the reverse order, come to think of it).

It must be that sweater vest.

Paul Adams was a political reporter with CBC and the Globe and Mail. He is now a member of Carleton’s journalism faculty and executive director of EKOS Research Associates.

Reality TV

Posted by padams under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy, Election 2008 Media commentary

Actual puffin pooping

As the debate dust settles . . .

Posted by cwaddell under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy, Election 2008 Media commentary

Christopher Waddell

Following the comments of my colleague Ira Wagman, three observations from the “Greens in the debate” controversy.

For Canadians, it’s a little example of the impact of media concentration – what can happen when the same people own TV networks and newspapers. While enough Canadians were clearly sufficiently upset to force the NDP and Conservatives to back down in their stand against having the Greens in the televised debates, surprisingly the issue didn’t capture the imagination of the two national newspapers. The Globe and Mail (ctvglobemedia) walked an editorial tightrope to avoid criticizing the networks for agreeing to keep the Greens out while the National Post (CanWest Global) so far is missing in action on the issue. Wonder why?

For the NDP, it is a sign the party is feeling the pressure on the environment. That issue used to be the NDP’s preserve but the Layton campaign realized that it can’t afford to alienate environmentalists (and others for that matter) by keeping Elizabeth May out of the debates. That just gives more reasons for them to jump either to the Greens or the Liberals. It’s particularly important as the Liberals are the main rivals in many of the seats the NDP currently hold as well as the ones it wants to win.

For the Conservatives, while they are running a campaign designed to highlight Mr. Harper as a family man, even they get concerned when he starts to look too much like Father Knows Best.

Christopher Waddell is associate director of the school and a former Globe and Mail Ottawa bureau chief, former CBC-TV parliamentary bureau chief and election night executive producer for CBC TV News.

Tories on the brink of majority…really on the brink

Posted by padams under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy, Election 2008 Media commentary

Paul Adams

Doing seat projections from polling data can be a bit risky. Polls are estimates of public opinion, even if usually quite accurate ones. Figuring out how these figures will translate into the distribution of seats in our first-past-the-post system is a tricky and imprecise business.

However, pollsters and journalists have spent the last two weeks implicitly making seat projections every time they have spoken of the Conservatives “being in majority territory” or “on the brink of a majority”. They just never show their work.

So here is what they are talking about. Taking EKOS’ national sample of over 2000 Canadians from Monday and Tuesday, and running them through a model that takes into account both the special arithmetic of our first-past-the-post system, and the parties’ historical patterns of support, when we say the Tories are “on the brink” we really mean it.

A majority is 155 seats.

The model gives the Tories 156 seats, Liberals 82, NDP 37, BQ 33.

Paul Adams is a former political reporter with the CBC and Globe and Mail, now a member of Carleton’s journalism faculty and executive director of EKOS Research Associates.