Nanos Research produces polls that are usually deadly accurate for the entire country.
But…
If you look at the regional breakdowns it rapidly becomes obvious that the regional numbers are useless for anything but wanking material for the twitterati.
You’ve likely seen a lot of references to “statistical ties” when people talk about polling during this election. Well, at the regional level, the margins of error have been so wide sometimes that all parties have been in a “statistical tie” for most of the campaign.
For example, Nanos’ April 28 Atlantic results at an MoE of about 10 percentage points. Basically, that means it is possible the actual result is somewhere within a 20 point spread. In BC the range is about 16 or 17 points.
You’ll find that Ipsos’ April 29 poll has exactly the same basic problem.
And speaking of wank material, your humble e-scribbler could not pass up the opportunity to point out that Jack Layton’s over-the-top performance with reporter’s about a Sun media report suggests there is something here the guy is definitely up-tight about.
And it isn’t the pain of having to face unfounded accusations.
Obviously this pales in comparison to the persistent smear job at least one NDP candidate has been mounting against an opponent. That’s just hypocrisy, the NDP stock-in-trade.
More importantly, though, Jack’s grumpiness and use of bizarro third person references with passive voice sentences sounds like an attempt to mentally distance himself from something he finds difficult to address:
"Absolutely nothing wrong was done; there's no wrongdoing here…”
People don’t speak about nothing at all in this way. The story deserved a contemptuous sneer. Instead it got treated to a swooning counter-attack but not a personal one.
Who did absolutely nothing wrong? Hard to tell. And that’s an odd counterpoint to a TV spot in which Layton promises he personally won’t stop until the job is done.
Imagine how Jack will handle it if he starts reading Gilles Duceppe talking points in Question Period as leader of the Bloc NDP.
- srbp -