Making sense of contradictory polls

Posted by padams under All

Paul Adams

Two pieces worth reading on the recent batch of seemingly contradictory polls, and what they might mean:

The mysterious (and always instructive) tcnorris compares the implications of two groupings of polls — those with the Tories running strong, and those with them running in traditional low-to-mid 30s territory.

On the Globe website, Eric Grenier of 308, goes at similar issues in a slightly different way.

Paul Adams is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton. He is a former Parliament Hill reporter and worked in the polling industry. You can follow him on Twitter @padams29

Iggy Coalition Climbdown Watch: Ding!

Posted by padams under Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Media commentary, Media Commentary, Political Strategy

Paul Adams

That didn’t take long: just one day longer that it should have. As I predicted yesterday, Ignatieff’s views on a coalition have “evolved” under withering pressure from the media, some Liberal commentators, and the government. There was no reason why this shouldn’t have happened yesterday other than political naivete.

As Stephen Harper walked into Rideau Hall this morning, Michael Ignatieff issued a release saying that, “We will not enter a coalition with other federalist parties”. (Before you panic, the statement also says, “We categorically rule out a coalition or formal arrangement with the Bloc Quebecois.”)

Ignatieff and his advisors have made the tactical judgement that his continued obscurantism was going to dog him through the campaign, and help the Harper Conservatives to fully realize the coalition bogeyman. They cleverly released the statement just moments before Harper’s prepared remarks that went heavily on the coalition that Ignatieff has now flatly disavowed.

So they think this is what is best for the Liberal campaign.

Read more…

New book on the way

Posted by jpammett under All

Jon Pammett

Chris Dornan and I have finalized plans for the “Carleton book” on the 2011 election.

THE CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION OF 2011

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Chris Dornan

CHAPTER TWO THE CONSERVATIVES Faron Ellis and Peter Woolstencroft

CHAPTER THREE THE LIBERALS Brooke Jeffrey

Read more…

Iggy Coalition Climbdown Watch: Day One

Posted by padams under Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Media commentary, Media Commentary, Political Strategy

Paul Adams

Moments after the government fell this afternoon, Michael Ignatieff gave his first press conference in full election mode.

When he had been asked about the possibility of forming a coalition government earlier this week, he parried the question, saying that there is only a Red Door and a Blue Door in this election.

The issue is important because the Liberals want to argue, as Ignatieff did today, that a vote for any party but them is a vote for the continuation of Stephen Harper’s government. If Ignatieff allows that he might form a coalition with the NDP after the next election, then that seems obviously untrue. In that case, the election of NDP members could also contribute to the cause of ousting Harper.

If Ignatieff admits he might entertain a coalition, he undermines this central appeal. If he flatly denies he would consider one, however, he will discourage some of his own supporters, alienate potential Green and NDP switchers, and most importantly limit his strategic options after the election.

Read more…

Election a bad idea? Ask a Libyan about that

Posted by jsallot under Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links, Election 2011 Media commentary

We’re into a federal election, a campaign that the governing Conservatives say is unnecessary and unwanted.

This will be the third federal election in five years, a fact the Conservatives hope can be used as a cudgel against the opposition parties.
Some news organizations are picking up on this theme.

“With a federal election almost certain, Canadian taxpayers will once again be footing the bill for their right to vote,” began a Postmedia news report this week. The report estimated the cost of this year’s election will come in at more than $288-million.

That’s not chump change for most of us working stiffs.

But it pales in comparison to the price being paid in blood by people in Libya, Yeman, Syria and elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East to win the right to vote for their governments and leaders. Read more…

Canada’s Silent Near-Majority: How Our Parties Are Failing The Future

Posted by padams under Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Political Strategy

Paul Adams

The genial former Tory minister, Monte Solberg, tweeted this week that he thought he had election fever, only to realize it was actually cholera. I don’t remember an election that inspired so much dread right from the outset, even from the political and media classes for whom elections are normally the equivalent of the Stanley Cup final. And no wonder. The last few weeks have seen a barrage of unpleasantries intruding into our evening viewing pleasure. In the House of Commons, the economy turned up briefly — for about 48 hours this week — and then receded as the opposition raged about the government’s moral failings. In question period yesterday, Ralph Goodale went after John Baird, who went at everybody else, as the snarling dogs of war strained at their leashes.

And of course, many people believe that the election result is already close to a foregone conclusion: a return of the Harper government, whether as a minority or a majority.

It probably isn’t too soon to say that Canadians’ dismal record in turning out at the polls will likely be matched or even exceeded in this election. In 2008, the turnout was just 59%. The number had been 75% as recently as 1993. If something doesn’t happen, it seems perfectly possible that before too long a majority of Canadians will be sitting on their hands at election time.

Read more…

Campaign preparations

Posted by cwaddell under Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Student articles, Political Strategy

Watch a March 18 story from Carleton’s student-run web publication Capital News on candidates preparing for the election.

Then listen to a Capital News discussion with Carleton political science professor Jonathan Malloy on political scandals in Canadian history.

Reprising the coalition

Posted by cwaddell under Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Political Strategy

Christopher Waddell

With a federal election campaign about to begin, the post-2008 election three-party Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition talk is already back with the Conservatives likely to be bringing it up as often as possible. Before anyone pays much attention to all that though,  it is worth remembering that the environment is much different than in 2008.

There will be a provincial election in Quebec probably before the end of 2012 and the Parti Quebecois stands a reasonable chance of winning that vote. With that could come renewed talk of separation and even another referendum. As long as that remains a possibility, it would take a political world far stranger than even the one we have seen in recent months to have a federal coalition government in Ottawa include the Bloc but in an election campaign that’s unlikely to stop the Conservatives claiming it could happen.

Christopher Waddell is director of the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. He is a former reporter, Ottawa bureau chief for the Globe and Mail and a former CBC-TV parliamentary bureau chief and executive producer-news specials for CBC TV News. You can follow him on Twitter @cwaddell27

Bits and Pieces

Posted by ealboim under All

Elly Alboim

The CRTC

The CRTC decision to launch a federal court reference in the value for signal dispute is dilatory and curious. The stated reason is ambiguity about its jurisdiction, particularly as it relates to copyright. But the CRTC presumably has a view about its own sphere of competence and it knows the courts are loathe to second-guess regulators. It could have proceeded and waited for the cable and satellite providers to challenge it in court – a more normal way to proceed. But these are not normal times and relations with government are not normal either. The current government has overturned CRTC decisions and issued policy directives to it. It has elevated consumer protection to a higher purpose than the CRTC’s normal preoccupation with industry promotion and cultural protection. The reference buys the CRTC time until after a probable election to reduce the likelihood of government overturning its decision. And if a court finds the policy intra vires, government will find it harder to overturn the decision. It also gets to blame the courts and wash its hands of the whole dispute if its solution is found ultra vires.

With regards to the CBC and its angry reaction. The Corp needed the cover and combined clout of the broadcasters to open a new stream of revenue. Now it stands alone. Whatever the CRTC decides about it in the next round (which could be two years away), that solution will have to get by a government that is hardly a strong supporter. With this decision, the CBC watched the best window of opportunity it had shut down.

The politics of maternal health

It’s not often that an opposition party launches an Opposition Day motion over which its own caucus splits. Actually, it’s rarer than rare. While there is no distracting from the curiously inept Liberal performance yesterday, it apparently did not go easily on the government side either. Initial instructions to the Conservative caucus were to not fall for the Liberal “trap” and to vote for the motion. One by one, apparently including from two ministers, the Centre heard demands from MP’s that they be allowed to vote against. A special caucus was called to air the issue but was pre-empted when a change of heart prevailed and instructions were issued for a vote against the Liberal motion.

Government advertising

Has anyone not noticed the Government of Canada television ads for its budget, tax cuts and until last month, the home renovation program? Night after night, I’ve seen a half dozen or more and I don’t watch all that much TV. Today there were full page print ads. The ads, of course, are not about providing significant information to citizens. They are designed to show a government hard at work that cares and provides significant benefits. At a minimum, these ads push the boundaries of what the public should be paying for. Anecdotally, I’ve never seen this weight in a government advertising buy. I hear internal bureaucratic rumblings that the flight of ads is the largest government ad buy in history, by a significant factor. There are some in the ad business who think it may be approaching triple digit millions. An indirect subsidy to broadcasters? Another bit of stimulus? Or maybe that’s why government was so quick to agree to stop sending the ten percenters – these have wider reach and are paid for by the public purse as well. 

Elly Alboim is an Associate Professor of Journalism and former CBC TV News Parliamentary Bureau Chief

Coalition back? Seat projections raise the question

Posted by padams under All

Paul Adams

The talk of a possible coalition government died last year under the weight of two enormous obstacles.

The first was that the proposed coalition was going to be led by Stéphane Dion. If Canadians thought that one thing had been decided in the 2008 election, it was that Dion was not going to be prime minister. By the time that Michael Ignatieff acceded to the Liberal leadership a few weeks after the coalition proposal, the idea had been thoroughly tarnished, and was quickly abandoned.

But that decision may have been influenced by the second great obstacle to the coalition idea: although the proposed government would have consisted of NDP and Liberal ministers only, it was crucially dependent on the Bloc Québécois to remain in office. Stephen Harper and the Conservatives made hay of the fact that the proposed coalition would be dependent on a separatist party to stay in office. That was a reasonable political concern, and possibly even a potential constitutional concern. It certainly became a public concern as well.

The Tories’ recent three-month slide in the polls and the Liberals recent bump up potentially create a new scenario, however.

Look at the seat projection below. It is based on today’s poll results released to the CBC by EKOS Research. (Conflict alert: I work for EKOS on the CBC surveys). What the seat projection suggests is that if an election were held today, the Liberals and NDP would be almost within reach of forming a majority without the votes of the Bloc Québécois. Just two seats short, in fact, at the moment, if the projection were correct.

Given the history of the coalition idea, neither opposition party is likely to resurrect it before an election. But if the results of the next election were anything like what you see below, it is hard to imagine that at least some people in each party would not be tempted to consider a coalition once again. And expect the Conservatives to raise exactly that spectre if the race stay this tight into the next election campaign — whenever that might be.