Without going into too much detail, it is worth taking a closer look at the actual news release issued by Corporate Research Associates on its recent survey of voter opinion.
If you accept the proposition that all CRA surveys are done the same way and the results are generally consistent for CRA over time, then it is easy to see that the provincial political parties have slipped back to the relative positions they occupied about six to eight months ago.
Certainly, no one will be panicking in the Premier's Office about these figures; at least they shouldn't be panicking. If they have other polling data that gives a much better picture of voter moods, then I'd be willing to change by view. On the basis of this stuff, though I wouldn't get too alarmed.
For the provincial Liberals, the simple conclusion to take from CRA's polling is that their popularity rests entirely in Danny Williams' hands. When he screws up, Liberal numbers climb. When he soars, the Liberals plummet. That's hardly a comforting position to be in and it is one that the current leader and any future leader will have to address.
Just flip down to some of the little details at the end of the release, though and here are a couple of reasons to be somewhat cautious of these results.
First of all, the survey data was collected from May 12 to June 6. Check your calendars and you'll see that this covers almost three full weeks. For political purposes, that's way too long to tell anything with certainty. Some people will change their answers, even if marginally, based on current issues.
Second of all, the margin of error at +/- 3.4% is a tad high. It's not so far off as to be unusable, but coupled with the possibility of variation coming from the length of time the survey was conducted, I'd be leery of using CRA's polling for anything other than entertainment and coffee table chat.
For a political party wanting to accomplish anything, solid research is the start of solid planning.
Information coming free from any research company is worth what you pay for it.