Poll numbers not very comforting #nlpoli

A little over a month ago,  only about 16 or 17 percent of respondents told pollsters they thought Dwight Ball was the best choice for Premier.

In November, 27% of respondents picked Ball above Paul Davis and Earle McCurdy in Corporate Research Associate's quarterly survey.

That's a big jump in 30 days.

The only thing that changed in those 30 days is that folks finally got the message Ball has been sending since July:  all those layoffs and cuts we had planned for the fall are off. If public perception of Ball is that closely tied to whether or not he carries an axe,  his political fortunes will rise or fall with the provincial government's financial state.

Budget ignorance abounds #nlpoli

The provincial government’s own economics and statistics agency conducted a telephone survey for the budget consultations this year. 

They released the results along with the questions and some details about how they conducted the poll. Let’s just look at the answers to some of the questions, as presented by the provincial government.

The October 2014 NTV/MQO Poll Numbers #nlpoli

NTV commissioned NTV to poll opinion about the provincial Conservatives a month after Paul Davis took over as Premier.

The party choice numbers are simple enough:  Liberals at 37,  Conservatives at 16,  the NDP at just six percent, and undecided at 40.

Leadership numbers Put Dwight Ball of the Liberals slightly ahead of Paul Davis (31 to 27) with Lorraine at 10 and undecided at 33.

The Conservatives who have been clinging to the belief that “satisfaction” with government is the great hope will be dashed to find the most recent “sat” number is 48%, down from 60% just a short while ago for MQO.

So what does it mean?

Voter Choice #nlpoli

When Kathy Dunderdale jumped or was flicked out of office in the first part of 2014,  CRA boss Don Mills issued a release covering his company’s February 2014 self-promotion poll that claimed that Tom Marshall was doing wonders for the Conservative party because public satisfaction with the government was up in the poll.

“NL government satisfaction improves with new leader” said the headline. Unfortunately for Mills and CRA,  that headline connected up two things  - government satisfaction and new leader – in a way the poll data didn’t support.  You see, satisfaction went up the quarter before that as well, with the old leader.

There’s just no connection between “satisfaction” and the public choice for best party to form government or for best premier.  The Conservatives have strong satisfaction numbers and yet a clear majority of respondents want to vote for some other party to run the government and someone other than Tom to be Premier.

Skip ahead six months and Mills is at it again.

Liberals gain from NDP crisis. Tories no change. #nlpoli

The headline is as dramatic as NTV could make it:

Leadership crisis sends NDP tumbling to third place in NTV/MQO poll

The numbers looked bad for the Dippers:  Grits at 52% of decideds.  Tories at 29% and the NDP in the basement at 18%.

Then you take a closer look and you see something else entirely.

The Importance of Appearing Earnest #nlpoli

Once upon a time, not so very long ago,  your humble e-scribbler noted the importance the provincial Conservatives placed on the appearance of things.

The idea came together neatly in a celebrity interview not by someone in the private sector media but by a representative of the state-run broadcaster.  “Government by Fernando” it’s called and it is worth going to read even if you read it back in 2006.

It will be worth your while since a front page column by Telegram editor Russell Wangersky this Saturday is likely to have the local chattering class chattering up a storm for the next few days.  You see Russell uses the column to tell Kathy Dunderdale that it is time she resigned. 

Stalwart Tories won’t care about Wangersky’s opinion anyway.  After all he is not one of “us” in whatever way they want to define “us”.  While everyone else in the province is likely to be taken up with the fact he called for her resignation, it’s far more revealing to look at why Russell thinks she ought to go and go now.

Montana Time #nlpoli

Both CBC provincial affairs reporter David Cochrane and Telegram editor Russell Wangersky had opinion pieces this weekend telling the provincial Conservatives that they have a big political problem now that they are in third place in a CRA poll. 

The Conservatives need to change what they are doing.

Wangersky had some specific suggestions on changes.  Cochrane added the tidbit of news that there is a cabal  inside the Tory caucus that is growing increasingly frustrated with the inaction of people running the cabinet and caucus.  They live inside The Bubble apparently.

This is pretty much the same thing SRBP has been on about for the past year or so.  The Tories are in a hole.  They need to stop digging.

Great minds think alike, eventually.

The fools differ.

Self Skew-ered #nlpoli

Two thirds of tax filers in Newfoundland and Labrador report incomes of less than $35,000 per year.

The Harris-Decima poll released by the Newfoundland and labrador Association of Public Employees on Wednesday has only 27% of the sample with an income less than $40,000 per year.

Still, the results show that the provincial government either didn’t have a communications strategy or whatever strategy they had failed miserably.

In fact, it was a stunning, utter, complete, abject failure of their entire communications effort.

Tories at 30% #nlpoli

Local pollster MQO released some previously confidential polling data on Thursday that showed the ruling Conservatives were getting about 25% of public support in July and August and only slightly better than that until November.

The Tories got a bump up in December to about 35%, likely from the Muskrat Falls announcement.

But that vanished the next month.  Current Tory support is around 30% of all respondents. 

Your Future is in Their Hands: impacted poller #nlpoli

David Brazil,  member for Conception Bay East-Bell Island, on how he and his political colleagues approach the task of governing:

Mr. Speaker, we do not govern by polls. We want to know what the people really think.

Someone forgot to tell Brazil that public opinion polls do exactly that:  they tell you what people really think.

Maybe Brazil just doesn’t like what the polls have been saying lately.

-srbp-

New Politics, Polls and the Media #nlpoli

Given that the local media missed the single major story of the 2011 provincial general election until after it was over,  the editors and journalists in the province might want to think about how they can better cover the next provincial election.

The sum of all fears #nlpoli

Kathy Dunderdale says that it is gratifying to have the support of the majority of the people of the province, as recent polls show, according to the Premier.

In another corner, former natural resources minister Shawn Skinner thinks it is great that the Conservatives have the support of six in 10 of the people surveyed.  He was referring to the responses in a recent Corporate Research Associates poll asking people whether they were satisfied or dissatisfied with the current government’s performance.

Shawn and Kathy missed some rather important things.

Who wants to play Brutus? #nlpoli

Just as they ate up the Corporate Research Associates’ quarterly poll when the numbers favoured the local Conservatives,  the local media have reported the latest CRA numbers with equal enthusiasm now that the Tory numbers are lousy.

To put it simply, the numbers confirmed the general thrust of two recent polls and the local media have reported them faithfully. As CBC put it:

Kathy Dunderdale and Newfoundland and Labrador's Progressive Conservatives continue to lose ground among voters, a new tracking poll suggests.

The Permanent Echo Chamber of Horrors #nlpoli

To borrow a phrase from Quebec Premier Jean Charest the other day, Twitter is a conversation between apparatchiks and journalists.  That’s pretty much it, although in Newfoundland and Labrador as elsewhere a few other people weigh into the exchanges.

The political Twitter world is a variation of the echo chamber.  That’s what Charest meant:  a small group of people discuss or argue among themselves, sometimes without much concern for the outside world. 

You can really see how that plays out in Newfoundland and Labrador again this week in the aftermath of the Tories’  orchestrated attack on the five lawyers who went public  - again – with their criticisms of Muskrat Falls.

The politics of gas price fixing #nlpoli

Gas prices used to be a hot political topic in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

A lot of people thought that the provincial government could do a lot about them and, in the process, protect consumers.  Others thought that the government should do something about prices and make it easier for people to get cheap gas.

Yeah, well it didn’t quite work out that way.