Post your comments at the end of this article(Click here for Part II of this article) Are the wheels about to come off the Paul Martin campaign? If one reads between the lines in the polling results there actually is the makings for a pronounced decline in Liberal support.
First to Quebec. According to the SES Research polling data for December 17, 2005 - which would be the first day of polling following the english debates - the Bloc Quebecois now hold more than a two-to-one lead over the Liberals. The research company's latest regional breakouts show that the Liberals are in a neck-and-neck race with the Bloc even in Montreal. But hints of an impending disaster lurk behind other numbers. More Quebecers now see Gilles Duceppe as being a better Prime Minister than Martin! You have to be really bad when a separatist is seen as a better choice for Prime Minister of Canada. In fact, Paul Martin is no longer seen as being the best choice for Prime Minister in both regions of Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec). Martin only holds first place in that category in Western Canada and Atlantic Canada. (Stop the presses! Now I am convinced that western Canadians deliberately take the opposite view of central Canadians just to annoy them. I mean really, how can westerners like Martin more than those 'bastards' out east?)
If you look at the rest of the numbers it only gets worse. In Ontario, Stephen Harper is now seen as the best choice for Prime Minister! According to Ipsos polling data on the english debate (which I lifted from a babe-a-holic's Web site), of the three 'national' leaders (sorry, Duceppe just doesn't cut it for me as a national leader), Martin was the least visually attractive. As ugly as Jean Chretien was even he use to poll better than that in this category. Sticking with these three leaders, Martin was also the only leader whose performance caused more people's opinion of him to decline than improve. The best performance in that category was from Jack Layton, with Harper trailing closely behind in second place; those two leaders switch places on the formerly referred to question of attractiveness (which only proves Layton has to get rid of his moustache).
I could explain my analysis on a few other key numbers, but instead I encourage you to check out the data for yourself. At this point I am not predicting that the Liberal trouble will amount to a collapse. However, I am predicting that NDP support will hit 20 percent before the next debate (in the SES Research polls) and the gap between the Liberals and Conservatives will continually narrow. My prediction flies in the face of what The Strategic Counsel analysis concludes, which is that the Liberals are developing momentum. But I would contend that is an over simplified view of what is actually happening. I believe that many of the elements for a Liberal collapse on election day are there. What is still necessary for a complete collapse, however, is a breakdown in support for the Liberals in some of their safer ridings across the country, and that does not seem to have happened ... yet. If it does, it may only mean a small drop in the national polling numbers, but it will mean a big drop in the number of seats the Liberals win on election day - a collapse if you will. Either way, I do not believe for a moment that the Liberal campaign has any momentum behind it. Having said all that, Harper may yet again be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The Truth Hurts: Canadian Political Blog
(The image to the upper left is from the Wikimedia Web site.)
