The NDP numbers: some random thoughts

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

Elly Alboim

The startling NDP Quebec (and resultant national) numbers have set off a whole new set of discussions about the campaign and what happens on May third. While it is early days and not clear whether these numbers are real, will hold or spread elsewhere, they may represent what sometimes happens in election campaign: a sudden break out by one of the parties. After covering 44 federal and provincial election campaigns from the staid to the dramatic, allow me to offer some random and perhaps premature thoughts.

More often than not, these sorts of break outs cannot be reversed. They represent a collective decision making process that sometimes builds on mounting evidence or sometimes catches media by surprise after events or debates — although this would represent a very slow reaction to a debate. There are notable exceptions like the PC’s beating back the resurgent Liberals in 1988 but they are rare.

Often, the final results overshoot the initial wave. Momentum builds and begins to sweep into ridings that most think are not in play. I’ve been involved in dozens of CBC projection meetings where seasoned political reporters said that it was inconceivable that certain ridings and personalities were lost. And yet they were. Canada is littered with former cabinet ministers who never should have lost. Some examples: Roy Romanow fell to a gas station attendant in her 2os. In the same election, the CBC did not put a mobile in Grant Devine’s riding in order to save money because his Tories could not possibly win. Richard Hatfield was speechless the night he lost 58 -0 to Frank McKenna– there were ridings that turned for the first time ever. In some elections, there are ridings parties don’t think are winnable which elect people who are not entirely prepared to win (Chris Waddell’s point below). For instance, the Tory MP elected in 1984 who could speak neither English nor French. Or the two MP’s who first showed up for work at the National Assembly

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Who are these guys?

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

Christopher Waddell

In every election the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP know there are ridings that each has no hope of winning but at least in media eyes there is credibility attached to running candidates in all 308 constituencies. So they all nominate candidates everywhere but not necessarily with the same degree of scrutiny as in ridings they know they can win.

Sometimes that means candidate backgrounds aren’t checked all that closely. Neither are their beliefs, past comments on the record or past activities. The only qualification in some cases is that the individual is willing to have his or her name put forward when there is no one else around – secure in the knowledge they will never have to worry about winning.

That may mean the candidate doesn’t live in the riding or even have much connection to it. No one looks that closely when everyone knows the person will be an election night afterthought.

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Confusing election polls

Posted by padams under Election 2011, Election 2011 Media commentary, Media Commentary

Paul Adams

My contribution to the confusion can be found here:

Confusing election polls — Canadian Press

Endless scenarios

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

Christopher Waddell

As Elly has noted, coalitions and minorities are back on the table with reporters tossing out scenarios to party leaders and demanding they respond even though no one knows what the parliament will look like after May 2.

So here’s a couple more scenarios to throw into the mix.

First, let’s say Mr Harper and the Conservatives end up on May 2 with the most number of seats (which almost everyone concedes at the moment is the most likely result) but are still in a minority having lost most if not all of their 11 MPs from Quebec.

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Heads I win, tails you lose

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

Elly Alboim

Virtually every political operative, communications consultant and journalist watching last night’s Mansbridge/Ignatieff interview would have known immediately what would come next. And it did.

The news story flashed out on the wires and all-news TV; the Conservative war room response was immediate; the next morning’s front page headlines were large and blaring. More inferential than literal, the news stories and political attacks focused on what Mr. Ignatieff might do if the Conservatives won a minority on May 2. Most reports (and certainly the Conservatives) elevated it to a working plan to topple Mr. Harper and cobble together a government supported by other opposition parties. Mind you, not a formal coalition but something that looks like it.

As predictable as all that was the likelihood that Mansbridge would ask the question and press it home. Not as predictable was Mr. Ignatieff’s choosing to respond the way he did. It is the stuff of which election “gaffes” are made.

Or is it? And should it be?

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The NDP and online polls – some cautions

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

Christopher Waddell

So the week begins with a “surge” in NDP support in two online public opinion polls. That certainly fits the media’s need to find a narrative for the campaign’s final two weeks. If there isn’t going to be a race for first place, a race for second is more entertaining than no race at all.

However precedent suggests it is worth being cautious and asking some questions about NDP performance in online polls.

In the 2006 election, Decima Research conducted a series of experiments comparing polling results from an online panel it had assembled with those obtained from traditional telephone polling. The goal was to see how accurately online polls could match telephone results and to try to figure out how online polls should be weighted compared to the traditional demographic weighting done for phone polls to ensure the pool of respondents matched the demographics of the country.

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The search for narrative: Part Two

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

Elly Alboim

Among media, week three began with a sense of pregnant expectation. This was the week that the campaign would really begin, when things might start to shift and the campaign take off. By week’s end we would know a lot more and the narrative of the election would become clearer – and hopefully more dramatic.

Well, by week’s end, we did know a lot more. Things were pretty much where they’d been. The polls moved a bit but only within their margins of error. The Conservatives were still a bit shy of majority and there was no perceived Liberal momentum. News developments – the AG report, the misleading quote, the Afghan detainee file –had bubbled up and dissipated. You could almost hear the air come out of a number of narrative balloons.

The quest for compelling campaign narrative is a powerful media instinct – the search for the Holy Grail of politics. There are still two weeks left and few yet want to write the outcome most synchronous with current evidence – a virtual rerun of 2008 with minor seat swings. The more powerful story of a dogged prime minister finally winning his majority is not in the cards (at least not yet) under the current numbers. The fall from grace story line of an utter collapse (Circa 1984) of the Harvard dream isn’t either.

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A counter-intuitive thought

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

Christopher Waddell

This is the week, according to the way campaigns are usually covered, media attention should focus on post-debate public opinion polls. The search is on for any movement in the polls and every move is accentuated as the media looks for evidence to build a narrative of a closing race heading into second half of the campaign.

The problem this time is that so far the polls really aren’t moving. There are differences between the results reported by individual polling companies but within each poll there has been little change since the campaign started, a trend the debate didn’t change.

So the search for news means the media campaign spotlight turns to other issues – Helena Guergis, G20 spending, Afghan detainee documents – reprises of stories from the last parliament that opposition parties played hard today.  That was done despite the fact that there’s no evidence that there was a significant public response that hurt the Conservative government the first time these issues came around.

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Political image and the English-language debate

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

Josh Greenberg

Although we are now fully into the third week of the federal election campaign, a majority of Canadians will not have begun to take full notice until last night’s English-language leaders’ debate. Sparring on a set that looked like a throwback to a 1970s game show, the leaders of Canada’s three federalist parties, plus separatist leader Gilles Duceppe, exchanged barbs on a range of issues: crime control, multiculturalism, the economy and tax cuts, health care and governance.

Following the debate, each party’s war room went into full spin mode in an effort to declare their leader the winner and to set the post-debate news agenda; news networks provided nonstop analysis and reporting; and the social mediascape was abuzz, with voters, pundits and journalists offering up their favourite quotes, commentary and predictions about the next day’s headlines.

Despite the range of issues which animated the event, voters who tuned in looking for a thoughtful debate about policy will have come away disappointed. Although each party’s general position on the aforementioned issues were on display, these were mostly reduced to well-rehearsed sound-bytes designed to influence the post-debate news cycle. What’s more, several major issues were virtually ignored: climate change, telecommunications reform and Canada’s digital strategy, the aging workforce, and crumbling public infrastructure, to name just a few.

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So what now?

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

Elly Alboim

Last night’s English language debate clarified some campaign variables while others remain uncertain and speculative.

Let’s start with media, the first and influential intermediary for those who didn’t watch and for many who did.

It seems clear that no matter how you assess individual performance, there is no immediate momentum or “buzz” around Mr. Ignatieff. There is a clear media consensus about that. Post debate commentary displayed an almost tangible wistfulness for what many of them see as the end of the possible Cinderella story of a strongly competitive campaign outcome. The first polls of the morning will underscore that. They show, at least initially, no significant change and where asked, a sense that Mr. Harper did very well.

Barring some reversal in the polling data, emphasis will now switch remorselessly to the prospects of a majority government for Mr. Harper and whether strategic voting will coalesce to stop it.

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