Friday, May 18, 2007

Opinion Poll Caught "Lying"

I normally have little time for "the latest poll" but this one is simply too funny to pass:

OTTAWA — As Parliament broke for a week Friday amid speculation it will soon be shut down until fall, a new poll shows that none of the federal parties has made substantial progress with voters since the election 16 months ago.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority Conservatives regained a tenuous lead of 36 per cent, a five-point increase over last week, but just kept pace with their 2006 election result, the Ipsos Reid poll found.

Since when is a poll immune to all the political turmoil at the Hill? If we take this poll seriously then we have to conclude that this week was a good week for the Conservatives, right?

Canada's political parties should finally get over their polling fetishes and start basing their policies on content, not on marketing strategies. The numbers do sometimes lie, fortunately I would like to add.

- whole story: Support for federal parties stalled, poll finds
- opinion poll

2 comments:

Psychols said...

Canada's political parties should finally get over their polling fetishes and start basing their policies on content, not on marketing strategies

The old saying that a politician's first priority is to get elected will probably always be true. The current house of commons is the perfect example of it. There is a lot more posturing going on than governing.

Erik said...

"There is a lot more posturing going on than governing."

There's a lot more posturing in FPTP (N-America, UK) countries than in countries with PR (most other democracies).

Let's hope some progress will be made in the next few years.

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