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BC polls, thread #2
February 3, 2012 - 12:15pm
Continued from here http://rabble.ca/babble/alberta-and-british-columbia/new-bc-public-opini...
It's a combination of factors. In the 2009 election, Carole James took a mystifying "Axe The (Carbon) Tax" stance which alienated many environmentalists. The right-and-some-centre-green voters were happy with the BC Liberals. The left-green voters were upset with the NDP and either stayed home or voted Green. Today the NDP has recanted on the carbon tax and now they promise to use the revenues for pro-enviro aims rather than the BC Libs' revenue-neutral tax cuts. The Libs are looking a lot less green as they hem and haw over what to do about Northern Gateway. So I think we could see the 2009 left-Greens and stay-at-homers coming back into the fold for 2013, while right-Greens are the ones who will either stay home or vote Green.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/bc-liberals-would-face-thra...
NDP 48%
Lib 23%
BCCon 19%. The NDP is 6 points ahead of the sum total of the dear old "free-enterprise coalition".
Christy can rename this year's model as many times as she wants, and install as many replacement parts as she'd like... but it's still going to be an old rustbucket that won't take her anywhere without falling apart.
It seems that it will be a landslide for NDP if things keep going this way.
And what a "free enterprise coalition" it would be:
So in other words, according to these numbers, this "Free Enterprise Coalition" party would have 18.55% of the vote? Sure, go for it then.
I guess I could be very generous and give the hypothetical party a few more voters who aren't crazy about the new party and have amnesia that the same group are still actually in charge of it. So... in that scenario let's give this "Free Enterprise Coalition" party 27.8% of the vote. That's still a massive butt kicking.
Last Angus Reid Poll:
NDP 50%
Lib 23%
Cons 19%
Green 6%
Beautiful.
One thing I do have to wonder - do they just cut undecided voters out of the count?
Because I wonder, if there are Lib-Con minded voters who are disenchanted with both, they may be responding "undecided" which comparatively pumps up the NDP numbers.
There are always undecided voters that are removed from the count and typically the reported number is the decided voters number, isn't it? In this poll it was somewhere around 15% of the respondents who are undecided. Is this an unreasonable number?
What I find odd is the reporting on this poll saying the undecided jump up to 35% or so if a "Free Enterprise" coalition is on offer, with an NDP number around 35% and the "Free Enterprise" Party is around 20%, really meaning the NDP is at about 54% of decided voters, yet somehow a huge chunk of the NDP's former supporters are considering voting for a Clark or Falcon like party even if it just changes it's name? (At least this is what I remember reading). It kind of makes me question the 'art' of polling and think that all I know is that the NDP is well ahead, but how much is debatable.
The details were posted in the Canadian Politics and if wasn't a pain in the ass to post this from my iPad (1st world problems, I know), then I'd link to it.
So this is the poll.
The media spin and Ipsos-Reid's spin was to compare apples and oranges. When it comes to the political scene right now they reported the decided/leaners number (as per normal practice), but when it came to the political scene as it would be they reported the raw numbers without accounting for decided/leaners.
This is deceptive and intentionally tries to make the case for a merged party, because it isn't comparing similar things at all and makes a 2:1 advantage look like a lead that is potentially shaky. Now it's true, the votes aren't counted until they're counted, but the durability of the lead shouldn't be scoffed at by allegedly neutral news reporters or polling companies (I know they're not neutral, I'm not deluded).
I also find it odd that people who are considering voting for the NDP now would all the sudden vote for the Liberals under a new name, which is what a "Free Enterprise Coalition" would be. I mean come on, Kevin Falcon and Christy Clark have been in the government for years. A new name for the Liberals wouldn't change shit and the spin wouldn't hold up during the scrutiny of a campaign. While it's something that would need to be addressed when (okay, if) the NDP wins next year, because the right will likely re-unite ASAP after a year or two of "socialist" government, I think the numbers of people considering the Liberals in all but name only are hard to believe right now.
So, what would've been a more equivlent comparison would be to report the following. Note I've rounded to the nearest number so not all numbers add up to 100%.
With Christy Clark leading the right decided voters (Undecided 35%)
NDP 51% (33%)
"Free Enterprise Coalition" 31% (20%)
Green 6% (4%)
Other/Independent 11% (7%)
With Kevin Falcon leading the right decided voters (Undecided 34%)
NDP 50% (33%)
"Free Enterprise Coalition" 32% (21%)
Green 6% (4%)
Other/Independent 12% (8%)
With John Cummins leading the right decided voters (Undecided 38%)
NDP 52% (32%)
"Free Enterprise Coalition" 27% (17%)
Green 8% (5%)
Other/Independent 15% (9%)
Situation Right Now decided voters (Undecided 16%)
NDP 50% (42%)
Liberal 23% (19%)
Conservative 19% (16%)
Green 6% (5%)
Other/Independent 2% (2%)
So in other words:
- Under the present situation, if all undecided voters flock to one of the Libs or Cons, the NDP still wins.
- Under a "new coalition" situation, just under a quarter of the NDP's votes slip into undecided, and about half each of Liberal and Conservative voters become undecided. The vast majority of the now-total undecided voters would have to go to the new coalition for them to come out ahead.
To compare this to the other two once-in-a-lifetime political earthquakes I've seen in my lifetime:
1991:
NDP - 41% (51 seats)
LIB - 33% (17 seats)
SC - 24% (7 seats)
2001:
LIB - 57% (77 seats)
NDP - 22% (2 seats)
GRN - 12%
Worth pointing out that the BC Liberals were polling even stronger numbers than this both before and after the election. One Mustel poll in April 2001 had the BC Liberals ahead of the NDP and Greens 72-18-7, one right after in October gave a score of 68-18-8. Not saying the Liberals are going to win. They aren't. But there may be a number of people who vote Liberal next election just to make sure there's some kind of political opposition in the province. Just something to be aware of once we see the gulf between the two parties crest above 25%.
As for the whole name-change/merger idea, all I have to say is: lol.
I remember those polls from back in your day too. I went to a high school on Vancouver's west side and we did a secret poll of my Social Studies 10 class to see who would vote for whom. Anyhow, the Liberals won handily and some people maybe 7 or 8 said they'd vote Green. I was one of two of my class of 25-ish who said they'd vote NDP. I wasn't really willing to admit it at the time though.
it'll be a real help to mulcair to have dix as premier in the run-up to the 2015 federal election. a trifecta of dix, selinger and dexter, nicely distributed across the country, along with neutral ontario/quebec/maritimes leaves only the premiers of sask and alta in the openly hostile camps. not too shabby.
I think the fact that I started getting involved in politics around 2001-2002 was probably a large reason why I was a partisan in favour of the Greens and against the NDP for as long as I was. Glen Clark was horrible, Ujjal Dosanjh wasn't really much better, and even progressives were asking themselves how much worse Gordon Campbell could possibly be. We probably shouldn't have.
We're at that point, more or less now, with the Liberals, except they have a somewhat larger and more diverse base to work with. "How much worse can Adrian Dix be?" They ask. He was just the chief of staff to Glen Clark who resigned over his involvement in the casinogate scandal in 1999.
...
Man this province's politics are fucked. What's Sterk up to these days?
"What's Sterk up to these days?"
Hiding and not running candidates in byelections?
BC is screwed because of our housing bubble. No matter who we choose it will be a nasty few years. I'm just hoping an NDP government will put up a fight on the pipelines.
You mean the "scandal" that a judge found to be legal. In fact the judge found that Clark had at best received an 11% discount on his deck. Where I come from that is how tradespeople treat their kid's friends families.
What I find interesting is that of the right wing political hacks that leave politics for "business" none of them have been as successful as Glen. Most of them get paid to be on Boards and go to meetings not run a major company.
Yes, I remember after they smeared Glen Clark and destroyed his political career, it was found that he didn't scam anything and it was a "setup" for political assasination. Nobody would touch him because of the "smear" ( I am so saddened by this) and he went to work for Patterson, worked his way up and now running the company. Thanks K1951 for defending Clark and again, setting the record straight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Clark
Thanks for that jftb & krop
Glen remains a committed BC NDPer, and could end being a huge ally to Dix once Dix becomes Premier.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ndps-dix-reaches-for-the-to...
More related to Glen Clark where redemption comes to the fro and where NDP need to learn that throwing their leaders under the bridge is just bad politics - luckily Glen became a bright orange phoenix.
Kruegerants, Lit Colemans and Screeching Falcons?: Are They All Just Bad Bloys? “The Communists are at the Gates”, and Other Pathetic LIESWith this concrete reference, "ITEM: Rich Coleman, channeling Senator Joe McCarthy (geezus they even look alike!) went on a tirade yesterday about “the socialist hordes (and communists) at the gate” also channeling WAC Bennett (geezus, they even look alike). When confronted about his explosion by ‘Iron Mike’ Smyth, Coleman repeated his assertions and implied that we need to start thinking about what terrible things socialists might end up doing to the province. Okay Rich, let’s start with here; go to the second row, middle picture.
Happy 24 day all@!
I am both proud to defend him from scurrilous accusations and proud to have voted for Corky because I thought Glen was to young and brash for the big job.
personally, i can't wait for the socialists to be running bc.
I meant Dix's resignation over backdating a memo in an attempt to cover up the affair. That strikes me as pretty seriously dishonest. Dix is still a somewhat better option than Christine Clark, but I can afford to cast a protest vote.
I kind of like the fact that Dix played dirty and I think he's learnt from that incident not to be so blatently dumb again. I think he's gone from dirty to hard-ball. Too many progressives are so eager to please that they fold in the name of finding "common ground", which he doesn't automatically default to for it's own sake. And though his actions in that case aren't defensible in themselves, the fact that he's effectively neutralized the attacks so far probably means that the ends do justify the means as I don't recall many left-leaning leaders who have been as effective as him in attacking right-wing orthodoxy. Definitely not Carole James. Basically I think he's learnt from that. So the way I see it, yeah he lied on a memo when I was 13 or 14 or something. Who cares? Campbell personally cost me (tens of) thousands of dollars (and more should I do graduate study in BC), in addition to my generally disagreeing with his party, his successor and all of their policies.
That memo thingy - I think Dix fell on his sword to protect his boss.
He has had the same answer for many years. He backdated a memo to go with a conversation he claims he had with Glen. The backdating was wrong but IMO was not seriously dishonest. Stupid and underhanded would be my assessment. He was young and trying to save his boss's ass from the alligators trying to drag him into the swamp. He made a very bad decision to try and save what he knew was, and has since been proven to be, An Innocent Man.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/04/20/MemoMistake/
Yeah, in 1999 I was 17 years old and living under the Mike Harris regime in Ontario. So the past of the BCNDP is not a significant reference point for me.
I do appreciate Dix's candour, and he makes a good point that the BCLibs are not owning up to their own shit.
Candour is something that I find to be particularly lost on a premier who is desperately trying to announce whatever last-ditch policies will keep both flanks of her party together before it implodes.
And that's why provincial(and eventually federal)NDP governments, British Labour governments, French Socialist governments, or those of any other "center-left" party should NEVER be nonchalant about moving to the right after getting elected. Blurring the differences and relying on a "they're still worse than us" arguement will pretty much ALWAYS produce results like the election of people like Thatcher, Reagan, Mike Harris, Gordon Campbell, and Brad Wall. You can only get a center-left government re-elected if that government perpetually engages the base and remembers that it owes any victory TO the base.
Latest Forum Poll.
NDP 50%
LIBS 20%
CONS 19%