Regular readers of these e-scribbles will know that the quarterly Corporate Research Associates poll is cause for nothing if not a fair bit of derision.
They aren’t polls anyone should use to judge anything serious. They are just a marketing device for CRA.
Nonetheless and despite seven years of solid evidence they are crap, the local media eat them up. The local pols put great stock in them too.
Anyway, those who lived by the bullshit are now getting sliced up by it. CBC, in particular, is pushing hard at the idea that Kathy Dunderdale’s numbers have taken some sort of meaningful drop in the most recent CRA marketing exercise.
“Premier’s popularity drops” says the headline. Down 16 percentage points since this time last year. Sounds bad, except that the CRA poll numbers went from 64% in February 2011 to 51% three months later. Since then, Dunderdale’s popularity numbers have basically hovered around there ever since.
So what’s the big deal?
There isn’t one.
Just like there hasn’t been a really big deal about these things for a long while.
But if you do want to notice something interesting, follow the link that CBC’s David Cochrane tweeted and look at the CRA poll from June 2004. Danny Williams’ popularity was at 39%, just five points above Roger Grimes.
That’s when the last round of public sector restraint and “program review” came to a quiet end without any results. Danny, Kathy and the rest of cabinet ran from sound fiscal management like scalded cats. They started a spending spree that created the fiscal mess the current Premier likes to talk about but without any sign she actually will do anything about it.
And, dear readers, if Danny Williams didn’t have the balls to be fiscally responsible because it made him unpopular, you can understand why Kathy Dunderdale isn’t planning to change the government’s unsustainable spending either.
She will just talk about it.
- srbp -