Invention #nlpoli

The provincial election campaign is barely a week old and already we have seen certain themes and interpretations emerging that are the product not of fact and observation but of invention.

The most striking one is the imagined explanation for the massive Liberal lead revealed through two polls released at the start of the campaign.  Already we have  commentators in local media connect the Liberal lead to the recent federal election.  They call it the “Trudeau Effect.”

Political scientist Amanda Bittner told a CBC audience on Tuesday night that because the poll came on the heels of the federal election “it’s hard to say what is going on there.”  She then talked in the abstract about what potential impacts the poll results might have on voters.

This is a bizarre comment on several levels.

Remembrance Day 2015 #nlpoli

 

- srbp -

Polls and Projections #nlpoli

If you want to get a sense of how accurate polls were in the last federal election take a look at the ones we have in public and compare those to the actual result on polling day.

In each of the tables below,  we are using the official vote for each party as a share of eligible vote.  Basically, that’s what the pollsters surveyed.  They asked people who were eligible to vote what they would do.

The polls must be wrong #nlpoli

Over the past couple of weeks,  some people have been questioning the accuracy of public opinion polls.

People have questioned the polls in the federal election, especially after the defeat of two candidates in metro St. John’s a lot of people thought would win.  The two polls released last week show the Liberals with such a commanding lead that some people – especially Conservative and New Democrat supporters are doubting the accuracy of the polls.

If you are a Conservative and think the Conservatives should be doing better, then you may be disappointed by what follows.  But if you are interested in a better understanding of polls and what you are seeing in public, then read on. You should always look closely at public opinion polls to make sure you understand what you are looking at.

Downfall #nlpoli

On Day Two of the official provincial general election campaign, a new poll by a different polling method lines up with the Abacus Data poll. In both Abacus and Forum Research, results are shown for decideds and leanings.

Forum goes farther than others, though, by showing demographic breakdowns of the responses. The Telegram had the poll first.

In the party choice question, Liberals dominate ever age category.  The narrowest gap is in the 65+ group where the Liberals have 55% of support compared to the Conservatives 33%.  In the 18-34 cohort,  Liberals hold a commanding lead with the support of 70% of respondents.  The Conservatives and New Democrats have the support of 16% and 14% of respondents respectively.

The sex split is equally stark (L/C/N):  62/24/12 for males and 68/19/13 for females.

Abacus – First poll 2015 #nlpoli

No surprise that the Liberals are way ahead in the latest Abacus horse race poll.

No surprise the NDP have fallen and the Tories have held steady.

What you need to look at to understand what this means are the results for three Abacus questions.

Setting fire to your own ass is never a good idea #nlpoli

While Paul Davis and the Conservatives were launching their official election campaign,  Ryan Cleary turned up in a recorded interview on NTV to talk about the controversy he embodies.

The single biggest thing Cleary did was confirm that his answer to David Cochrane last week was a lie.

Did you discuss running in Virginia Waters-Pleasantville, David Cochrane asked Cleary for the second time.

“Absolutely not,” said Cleary clearly.

Yet there was Cleary not even a week later telling NTV’s Lyn  Burry that – in fact – Cleary had talked to NDP leader Earle McCurdy about Cleary running in Virginia Waters instead of the current candidate Bob Buckingham. Cleary brought up the idea by questioning whether Buckingham could run a law practice and be a candidate at the same time.

Media Training 101: Truth and Credibility #nlpoli

Last Friday, CBC’s David Cochrane asked Ryan Cleary about information Cochrane had – apparently from NDP sources  - that Cleary had tried to run in a district where the New Democrats already had a candidate.

They asked him specifically about Virginia Park-Pleasantville, where the NDP had already announced lawyer Bob Buckingham would be the star candidate for the party.

Cleary replied:  “Absolutely not.”

That wasn’t true, as CBC’s Terry Roberts confirmed on Wednesday.

Admission of failure: Conservative offshore negotiations #nlpoli

The news release on the government’s generic offshore royalty  wasn’t exactly a model of clarity and accuracy.

The headline and first sentence referred to the announcement of a “framework.”

The first quote claimed that “establishing the enhanced generic offshore oil royalty regime” was an achievement for the current administration. 

The problem is that none of it is true.

Rumpole and the Noble Judge #nlpoli

The provincial justice ministry had to increase spending to put a new judge in the Provincial Court in Clarenville even though the caseload in the court didn’t justify the decision, government documents reveal.

Director of Public Prosecutions Donovan Molloy e-mailed then-deputy justice minister Paul Noble on September 6, 2014 about a news story in the Telegram.  Finance minister Ross Wiseman told the Telegram that plans were in the works to appoint a judge in Clarenville. 

Noble replied that he “literally and figuratively” had no idea what Wiseman was talking about. 

But in another e-mail sent on August 28,  Noble had asked assistant deputy minister Heather Jacobs and departmental controller Deborah Dunphy to “trace the evolution” of the issue.  Specifically,  Noble said he was trying “to unravel the details” about how many judge positions the department had and how much funding went with them.  

“It boils down to why we cannot appoint a judge in Clarenville, which in turn is connected to” an issue the departmental censors blacked out. 

Blue balls #nlpoli

Ryan Cleary didn’t become the punchline to any New Yorker cartoon at 3:00 PM last Friday afternoon.

Peg Norman and other local New Democrats may want to believe he did.  But he didn't.’t

Norman laced into Cleary on Facebook Friday afternoon, calling Cleary’s decision to join the Tories “an indictment of Ryan's dishonesty and disloyalty.”  and “the actions of a person who has absolutely no understanding of political ideology and is solely motivated by a narcissistic attempt to be on top."

All true, no doubt, but it was just as true when – as Norman acknowledges – she decided not to contest the NDP nomination in 2008 in favour of the NDP’s then-new star candidate. It isn’t Ryan Cleary’s fault that Peg and a bunch of others decided to welcome him with open arms as their asshole and are now feeling a bit like Richard Nixon in another joke.*.After all, Cleary is – as he truthfully said standing next to Paul Davis – exactly the same guy he was as a New Democrat.

Ryan Cleary’s score on the Determination of Arseholic Narcissism scale is entirely irrelevant to what is going on right now in provincial politics. To appreciate the political developments last week, look beyond the superficial.

Party Finance, 2010 to 2014 #nlpoli

Elections Newfoundland and Labrador released the 2014 party financial reports recently.  That let’s us take a look at trends over the past five years.

The Conservatives have consistently been able to raise more money than both of their competitors.

That changed in 2013.

In 2014, the year of the Great Tory Leadership  Disaster Part One and Part Two,  cash deserted the Conservatives.  They aren’t destitute, but their annual cash haul dropped by half in 2014 what it had been in 2013.  And if you look at 2013, you can see it as lower than it had been for the previous three years..

Money is the fuel all political parties need. When the Tories talk bravely about a 21 seat strategy they know they are blowing smoke up a reporter’s ass when they know they have the sort of annual cash haul the Liberals had in 2011.

-srbp-

The United Newfoundland and Labrador Party #nlpoli

In preparation for the coming general election battle, the provincial Conservatives are digging in their headquarters within sight of the head waters of Shit Creek.

They are frustrated, as David Cochrane reports.  They cannot lay a glove on Dwight Ball and the Liberals. As a result, “[w]e are going to be very aggressive,”  a big Tory told Cochrane.

Like the Conservatives have been push-overs and pansies until now.  Since 2001,  the provincial Conservatives have been the most harshly partisan bunch of politicians Newfoundland and Labrador has seen since Confederation.  Go back to the Bill 29 racket or the Muskrat Falls fight. 

Heck, go back to the way they treated Tom Osborne.  Ostracised within caucus and then when he left them,  brutally abused by Steve Kent, Joan Burke,  Kathy Dunderdale and the rest of the Conservative goon squad.

Real change #nlpoli

“A positive, optimistic, hopeful vision of public life isn’t a naive dream,”  Justin Trudeau told Canadians after he won a truly historic victory in the October 19th federal general election.  That victory, said Trudeau,  “is what positive politic can do.”

“We beat fear with hope, we beat cynicism with hard work. We beat negative, divisive politics with a positive vision that brings Canadians together.”

Premier Paul Davis spoke to the St. John’s Board of Trade on Tuesday.  Earlier in the day he released another letter he’d written to Trudeau listing off Davis’ demands,  things he wanted Trudeau to give the province as soon as possible.

The provincial government had problems dealing with the federal government, wrote Davis, as if he and his colleagues had absolutely nothing to do with creating those problems.

Davis complained about not having a federal cabinet minister from the province, as if Davis and his colleagues had absolutely nothing to do with creating that situation either.

“But with your election,  we now have change,”  wrote Davis.

And just to prove how Davis himself had nothing to do with change, he then proceeded to rattle off a list of demands.

Blackmail and the Conservative dysfunction #nlpoli

Paul Davis and his cabinet were all smiles and chuckles last week at the election of a new administration in Ottawa.

Optimistic for the future.

Looking forward to a new relationship and all that.

Then came the issue if the tariff on ships of a certain size built outside Canada.  The Conservatives are holding it out as a test of Justin Trudeau and his fellow Liberals.  Forgiving the tariff would be a sign that things had changed in Ottawa.

The Conservative NDP Merger we need #nlpoli

The province’s largest public sector union met last week in St. John’s for its annual convention.  They started out their first day with a speech from recently-elected boss Jerry Earle. The militant guy promised the union would militantly oppose any plan to turn public sector services over to the private sector.

The province’s NDP leader – Earle McCurdy - spoke to delegates on Thursday.  McCurdy said for umpteen thousandth time this year, that he and his friends in the union party would also steadfastly resist any effort to privatize public services. 

Friday was the day the union let the other two provincial party leaders say a few words.  What happened next was amazing..

Polls, St. John’s East, and the coming provincial election #nlpoli

SRBP told you on Tuesday morning that the federal election did not bode well for the New Democrats and Conservatives in the province.

The Liberals are just better organized than the other parties.  They can identify their voters,  keep in touch with them, and get them to the polls far better than the New Democrats or the Conservatives.  That’s how you win elections.  And when you are that much better at it than all the others, the odds go up exponentially that you will get more and more seats than people might expect. 

There’s way more to it than just the idea that the Liberals have a computer program that does today what we used to do on index cards.  Campaigns converted to Excel and other spreadsheet programs back when personal computers first appeared.

Organization is also about how the parties collect information and what they do with it. The Liberals are light years ahead of the competition, as Monday’s results showed.

Scary words #nlpoli

From Newfoundland Power’s rate application to the Public Utilities Board.

Uncertainty:

The interconnection to the North American grid is a transformative event for the electrical system that currently serves the island of Newfoundland. It also creates significant uncertainties for Newfoundland Power and the customers it serves.

How the costs of the Muskrat Falls development and the transmission systems necessary to create the interconnection will be recovered from Newfoundland Power’s customers is part of that uncertainty. The reliability of wholesale supply for the Company and, indirectly, Newfoundland Power’s customers after interconnection, is another part of that uncertainty. These matters will likely be considered by the Board over the next 2 to 4 years. It is already clear, however, that the interconnection as currently proposed will have significant potential consequences for the future cost and reliability of electrical service for Newfoundland Power’s customers. (pp. 1-6 to 1-7)

The lessons from Monday night #nlpoli

Nick Whalen killed a giant.

That’s the story of the 2015 federal election in Newfoundland and Labrador, bar none. 

People told Whalen he was crazy to run against the popular NDP incumbent.  No one gave him a chance.  But Whalen wound up defeating the NDP heavyweight.

An opportunity to feel like we’re part of the country again #nlpoli #cdnpoli

This is Craig Westcott’s editorial from The Pearl newspaper, reproduced with permission.. 

This is a tough column to write. Taking an editorial position in favour of one candidate over another when both have worked so hard in this election isn’t as easy as some partisans on either side might think.

My opinion is tempered by the experience of having run myself, back in 2008, when I didn’t stand a snot of a chance as the Conservative candidate in the federal election against the NDP’s Jack Harris, who had the full weight and force of Danny Williams’ popularity and provincial PC machine behind him.

As I said at the time, I ran not so much for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives as against Danny Williams’ ABC campaign and his bid to isolate Newfoundland even farther from the political mainstream of this country.