Who knows the mind of a squid? #nlpoli

[Almost Immediate Update at the bottom]

Why do they do it?

People keep asking why the provincial Conservatives spend so much time and tons of public money goosing the VOCM question of the day in the way that supports whatever the Tories are supporting at the moment.

It is a mystery, gentle readers.

It is inscrutable.

Like the ways of the Lord, it passeth all understanding by those of us who have not touched the hem of Hisself’s garment or who don’t hang around churches chowing down on breakfast, lunch or dinner, like current poll goosing ring-master Paul Lane apparently does.

Gander at the goosing #nlpoli

Apparently, your humble e-scribbler got on Steve Kent’s nerves.

The Conservative politician and his friends have been bombarding Twitter and Open Line shows since the middle of July will all sorts of their old poll-goosing tactics.  So yours truly has been re-tweeting some of the little comments with an added remark like “Gee, you’d swear a poll was coming.”

Small stuff.

But apparently enough to go right up Kent’s nose in a bad way.

Poll goosing harder than ever

The provincial government's pollster released the results of its most recent work on Tuesday. The graph with the orange line shows the party support numbers for the Provincial Conservatives for the past year and a bit as reported by Corporate Research Associates.

Interestingly enough the polling period included a bunch of hype at the front end about aluminum smelters in Labrador in addition to the usual poll goosing goodies.

The Premier rushed out the story of "Have" province status a couple of days before the surveying started.  There was more than a bit of media coverage for that and the associated video and the great party he was planning.

Of course, he knew at the time that the province might opt for the O'Brien Equalization formula and thereby become a "have Not" province again before the fiscal year was out, but that never stood in the way of a good goose.

Odd that he rushed that story out there wasn't it?  Almost like he knew the pollster was about to start calling people.

The polling period cut off before AbitibiBowater made its announcement.

In any event, it's interest to look at the party support numbers, adjusted as a percentage of all respondents.

That's very different from giving it as a percentage of decideds.  That number fluctuates a bit.  When you report as a percentage of decideds you inflate the apparent level of support for one option or another.  Like in this case:  the Provincial Conservatives have these wildly stratospheric numbers which feed into the myth of political infallibility and invincibility.

So hang on a second now.  In the blue graph, we have the same figures adjusted to take into account the undecideds. 

You still wind up with the climb at the front and the drop in the past quarter.  In between, though, you don't have the same steady state.  Instead you get a gradual decline.

But then there's that bit at the end.  A drop of 11 points since this time last year, six of which came in the past three months. That's an oil-price-like decline.

The numbers themselves aren't all that stratospheric.  In fact,  one suspects that people might have an easier time accepting the blue numbers these days given the state of the economy and the recent troubles in public sector bargaining.

Either way there's a precipitous decline over the last quarter that is surely causing a few people to sit up and take notice.  Consider the amount of fairly obviously orchestrated poll goosing that went on - including the smelter and the "Have" province crap - all of which still added up to a decline.

Now given the huge gap between the Conservatives and the other two parties, it's not like people around here are going to start seizing airports or anything.  They aren't migrating across the border to find water and medical care. 

Still, though, if local media are going to report poll results - even as sparsely as some did on Tuesday - they should apply a little analysis.  Episodes like the "Have province" should be put in a context that is, to be brutally frank about it, so damned obvious after four years of relentless poll goosing that it's pretty hard to miss it.

The government may have put has happy a face on the financial situation as possible but it certainly looks like something is changing in the political landscape.  Let's see what the next couple of quarters bring.

-srbp-

Dead Robots in Heat

So the old poll goosing habit dies hard.

There’s the robot poll goosing of the Question of the Day at Voice of the Cabinet Minister. Think about it:  such a habit, they’ve now automated the process.

And in its editorial on the last Monday in August, the Telegram editorialist reminds us all of another old poll goosing habit the provincial Conservatives have:

Cheers: to numbers and money. Maybe you like Lotto 6-49 or LottoMax. Here’s a set of monied numbers for you to choose from: 29, 30, 39, 23, 19, 32 and 43. Those are the weekly numbers of funding announcements (and announcements of pending funding announcements) made by the provincial government as it staggers along under the weight of its campaign cash backpack. This past week has marked the heaviest handouts to date, with money for everything from turbot to rock-climbing to airline subsidies. Premier Kathy Dunderdale pointed out recently that past governments made announcements right up to the start of the official campaign. “I’m not going to do that,” Dunderdale told reporters. “By the end of the month, these announcements will conclude.” Nice to know there is a scheduled end to the non-pre-election spending program.

Yes, friends, the government’s pollster is in the field in August and so it is time for the quarterly gush of money announcements all in an effort to ensure the governing Tories’ polling numbers stay up.

The intensity of the activity this summer, though, stands out.  It stands out because they Tories seem to be trying to prop up the last media poll before the fall election.  The party has been having an especially bad time since Danny Williams left them unexpectedly – and rather hurriedly – last December.

Kathy Dunderdale’s popularity numbers are low. They are slow low and the trending is such that any further drop would really start to shift public perceptions of the election outcome in October.  They might not be quite so willing to accept that the ruling Tories are guaranteed of a majority if Dunderdale’s numbers in August continue the downward slide.

The media might not be able to ignore the trending.

You see, even aside from the year long trending downward for the Tory polling numbers, the change in Liberal leader, the disastrous Muskrat Falls review report and/or or the orgy of coverage of Jack Layton’s funeral might cause a shift of its own.

Get that story  - that Dunderale is in trouble - running around in September and see what happens. That prospect likely frightens the living crap out of the Tory party campaign managers.

Heck, it would frighten any political insider no matter what the party.

And it will definitely scare the crap out of Kathy Dunderdale.  Her length of time as Premier is inversely proportional to the number of seats she loses in October.  The fewer she loses, the longer she can stay.

If she drops below 34 seats in total  – the magic number for some local politicos – you can expect Dunderdale to go within 18 months.

With that on the line, there’s no wonder that the Tory party poll goosing efforts are in some sort of manic overdrive this month.

- srbp -

Poll goosing: Can you say fire truck?

There are two bits of humour in the same post.

The first is this video of a child having some interesting trouble saying the words fire and truck together. 

It’s a wee bit predictable but still funny and cute.

Also predictable, funny and cute is the fact that the provincial government likes to announce and deliver fire trucks in a particular season of the year that just coincidentally is also the time the official provincial government pollster is on the go collecting his latest data for a government-sponsored poll.

Since 2007, the provincial government has consistently started announcing fire trucks with the bulk of the announcements coming just before and during Government Polling period.

July 11, 2007:  $108,000 dropped on the association representing firefighters.  Don’t forget that was also part of the pre-election Summer of Love spending frenzy.

August 9, 2007:  Government pollster Corporate Research Associates starts collecting data.

August 16, 2007:  A new fire truck for Conception Bay South,  “presented” by municipal affairs minister Jack Byrne with incumbents/candidates Terry French and Beth Marshall in tow.

August 16, 2007:  A news release listing off $1.7 million in emergency services spending, including a list of nine new fire trucks and other emergency vehicles for communities across the province.

August 17, 2007:  As if the announcement of the presentation on the 16th wasn’t enough, there’s a second news release on the fire truck in CBS. It includes three photos of people posing with the fire truck.

August 31, 2007:  CRA stops polling.

Other than one lone fire truck presentation in October, there’s no other fire truck activity in 2007.  By the way, that one in October was the presentation of a truck included in the August 16 release and it was presented in a town in the minister’s district.  He didn’t “present” any other trucks, at least with a news release going with it.

Skip ahead one year and you will find the next Fire Truck Season that – just by coincidence  - matches up to Government Polling Season.

July 15, 2008:  $130,000 in government cash for the firefighters association.

July 25, 2008:  New fire trucks for Badger and Whitbourne.

August 5, 2008:  New fire truck for St. Anthony

August 7, 2008:  New fire truck for Irishtown-Summerside.

Government pollster CRA polled from August 12 to 30, 2008.

There were three more vehicle presentations extending into October last year. Of course by the time the last one was done, the government pollster was getting ready to go back to the field in November for the last poll goosing foray of the year in November.  Lo and behold there was even the announcement of a new fire hall in that month, as well. 

Fire and polls really do go together.

The pattern has continued in 2009.

An announcement in January – covering a raft of new fire trucks -  in advance of the February poll goosing season and with plenty of time for the weekly newspapers to cover the stories.  Even more funding for the firefighters association in July 2009 and of course the August announcement. CRA’s been in the field since last week.

Now some of you might protest that these announcements don’t match up with polling time.

But if you think that you might be forgetting what no less an authority than the Premier himself said about the whole idea of poll-stacking when he was asked about it last year.   If he was going to poll goose, he’d be out there a week or two before polling started.

Oh, he knew exactly when CRA started polling, by the way.  Not exactly the sort of information you’d expect a busy Premier to have at his finger-tips.

Well, not unless he needed to be aware of it for some reason.

-srbp-

Hibernia South: the buried news

So the final legal agreements are signed.  Nothing has changed since the announcement of almost exactly the same details in June 2009.

So why the second announcement?

Poll-goosing, of course.

The only twist is that the provincial government is claiming they’ll make more money  - $3.0 billion - now than before.  There’s more money, though, simply because they changed the assumed price of a barrel of oil. 

Now anyone with a brain could tell you that isn’t news, nor is it any more reliable and factual than claiming the amount of money would be double the projection from last year.

CBC is reporting the $3.0 billion as if it was true/real.  VOCM attributed the cash – making their statement doubly false - to the equity stake.

As noted here last year, the bulk of the revenue – no matter what assumed price of oil you use – comes from one place and one place alone:  the 1990 Hibernia deal. You can see that pretty clearly when you look at the supporting documents.

Meanwhile, the two bits of real news in this have been lost.  Settling the transportation dispute will bring the provincial treasury about $120 million in one-time oil cash this year.  That will help with revenues that are still running below forecast.  Oil production in December was 2.0 billion barrels below production in the same time last year.

And in the other bit of real news: no oil from the extension until the third or fourth quarter of 2012.  The offshore board got the development application on 01 February.

Now if that wasn’t enough poll goosing, there’s also the announcement from the provincial government’s oil and gas company that drilling is starting on yet another parcel NALCOR bought on the Great Northern Peninsula.  Real oil companies tend not to make such a huge deal out of every exploration hole they spud.  Political ones do, though, especially when they have to help goose a poll for The Boss.

And on a related bit of poll goosing, former Peckford-era policy advisor Cabot Martin is all smiles as his company continues exploring for oil, too.

-srbp-

Something's off: Newfoundland and Labrador political polls

[Update and correction:  1230 hrs.  CRA has still not posted the news release and tables for the regional poll as of the update time.]

A new poll from Corporate Research Associates is making the rounds.  This time, there's supposedly a report on how Newfoundlanders and Labradorians feel about the Harper Conservatives. The Conservatives and the Liberals are in a dead heat, according to the CRA poll.

You can find a story at vocm.com - although the thing is virtually incomprehensible  - as well as coverage in the Telegram (not online) and CBC News. Let's just take the CBC version, though, as typical of what the poll purportedly contains:

Corporate Research Associates reported Thursday that 39 per cent of decided voters in the province would choose the Conservatives, if an election were held now. That's up from 31 per cent recorded in an August poll.

Right off the bat, there's cause to be a little curious if not downright suspicious.

The undecided, refused or won't vote categories combined apparently showed up as being 45%.  Basically, even if the results are perfectly accurate, we are talking about relatively small movement in the electorate here. With numbers like that, even a party showing at 40% in a CRA poll is actually dealing with numbers less than 25% of the total electorate.  CRA gives it results as a percentage of "decideds", incidentally and not all news reports noted the "undecideds".

But there's something else.

CBC and the Telegram are reporting provincial numbers that are part of the quarterly omnibus survey taken in November, with a sample size of around 400 and a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%, 19 times out of 20.  But vocm.com is reporting a poll of over 1500 people across Atlantic Canada with a margin of error at 2.5%.

The answer to your wonderment is that CRA is reporting both regional and provincial results simultaneously.

But wait a moment, sez you.  Which margin of error do we take?  For the numbers presented, they'd by the higher one if the numbers are actually for the province alone.  For the region, they'd be the lower number.

Go back and look again. There seems to be some confusion among the news outlets over which numbers are which. Both vocm and CBC, for example, purport that Conservative support is on the rise in the province. 

Okay.

The numbers - 31% moving to 39% don't add up to the reported poll results.

Neither of the last two CRA polls are available on the company website, but the earlier one for May is.  Take a look at the numbers for Newfoundland and Labrador on the party support question The Conservatives sure weren't at 31% in this province according to CRA, that is unless their political fortunes were tied to the proverbial dog's stomach. They were at 17% in May and the poll before that  - in February - they were at 49%. 

Hmmm!

They reported regional figures as provincial ones. And if the news organizations had access to the tables of results or had taken the time to search them, they see something else.

[Update, my bad and other observations.  First, the my bad. The numbers are provincial numbers reported accurately by local media in Nova Scotia and in this province.

Second, though, that means the Conservatives have indeed been up and down radically according to CRA numbers.  That's a story in itself.

Third, here's a new point to note:  the provincial numbers have a huge margin of error at plus or minus 4.9%. While CRA is reporting party support in this province at a near dead heat, the actual breakout could have the Liberals 11 points ahead of the Conservatives or the Conservatives could be eight points ahead!]

Look at the regional numbers - the ones reported by the media - and you can see the Conservatives are up where they were in May.  The Liberals are slightly down.   But for the February result, notice that the Liberals have actually gained while the Harper Conservatives?  Well, they're up and down.

But wait.

It gets better, still.

Look at those sample sizes again. Quarterly omnibus.  Newfoundland and Labrador.  Sample size 402.

The quarterly omnibus results for questions on political parties for Newfoundland and Labrador had a sample size of over 800 when it was released last week.

Double hmmm.

That's odd.

Well, it is odd.  It looks like those polls of 800 plus are actually two trips to the field with two separate samples, in essence two separate surveys with the results provincially glued together mathematically for the final tally.  We'll leave it to the mathematicians in the audience to discuss the usefulness of that.

Triple hmmm.

Basically we have a poll here that news rooms are reporting with a jumble of numbers, mixing results for the province and margins of error.  [Correction:  as noted above the media are reporting the provincial numbers as provincial numbers.]

Then we have margins of error which, in the provincial results are high enough to make them of dubious value. Face it, even if you take the Newfoundland and Labrador numbers, the range of variation is 10 percentage points.  That's a wide enough gap you could completely miss real changes in the electorate over time if there's enough systematic error in the polling.

Then we have - apparently - some question about how big the sample is for the omnibus.  Is there one or are there several omnibi?

That gets really important if you're one of those people who follows the news and who accepts the CRA poll results for provincial political support. Tories, Liberals and New Democrat politicians all treat the polls results as gospel.  media commentators and party supporters cite the Premier's overwhelming popularity as having something to do with what they are talking about at the time. CRA poll results have achieved an unprecedented level of currency and validity in local political discussion.

The problem is, you see, the CRA polls might not be accurate. The news reports usually describe the poll results accurately in and of themselves, however, they do not delve into whether or not the polls themselves are accurate.

	CRA (Aug 07)	Telelink (Sept 07)	Poll (Oct 07)	CRA (Nov 07)
PC	62	42	43	67
LIB	13	7.6	13.6	9.8
NDP	5.7	3.7	5	6.6
UND	18	31.7	38	18
Ref	-	14.7	-	-

The table above compares the most recent Corporate Research Associates polls on provincial politics with voting results in the October general election and the only other poll publicly available. That poll was conducted by Telelink for NTV during the election campaign.

The results in this table are presented to ensure that, as much as possible, comparisons are being made to the same sorts of numbers. For the polls, the results are given as a percentage of respondents not, as is usually the case, as a percentage of what are often erroneously called "decided voters".  For the October election, the results are presented as a percentage of all eligible voters, not of voter turnout.

Notice in the table above that the CRA numbers for Liberal and New Democrat party support are almost dead on the actual results in the October general election. Likewise, the Telelink Progressive Conservative number is one percentage point off the actual result. [Note:  as in the original post on the Telelink poll, we've dropped about 4% of the survey, being those who indicated they would not vote, and adjusted the remainder. The PC number from the results as reported by NTV had the PCs at 40.3%, which slightly more than the margin of error reported for that poll.]

As noted here in an October post, the Progressive Conservative voter support in the 2003 general election was 42% of eligible voters.

However, the CRA Progressive Conservative number is 19 percentage points off the actual result. Likewise, the category in the CRA poll that encompasses "undecided", "will not vote", and "no answer/refused" is 18% of those polled while the non-voter population on polling day (roughly analogous) is 38%.

Even if we look at the results as reported, that is, as percentages of decided voters, the results are no more comforting.  CRA's August poll results showed the Progressive Conservative Party support at 76%.  It came in at 70% during the general election, a variation of more than twice the margin of error reported for the poll.

In pollster terms, that's gigantic.  in recent provincial and federal elections, it's not unusual to see polling firms report results of surveys with comparable error margins hitting the real popular vote number within one one percentage point or even one half of a point. Sure, they poll far more close to election day than the CRA or Telelink polls. 

But think about it.

There wasn't anything that occurred between early September and early October that might have caused such a dramatic shift in local Progressive Conservative fortunes.  If anything, the dismal performance by the Liberals and New Democrats should have boosted the Tory numbers.

Don't think the October vote isn't an anomaly either, compared to the CRA poll.  CRA's numbers have been so consistent for so long that it is hard to imagine a CRA poll taken in October would have revealed such a dramatic shift of Tory popularity. 

Nor would it be reasonable to think that there is some greater variation in voter choice between polling periods.  Frankly, even allowing for the goosing, the CRA results have been too consistent with each other to think they peak up some sorts of freakish super-support for the Tories at the most convenient time.

Nope.

There's something amiss.  Obviously.

The most likely explanation are issues in the survey design or in data collection. As good and professional as a firm is, errors do occur.

Given the consistency of the CRA results, it looks like something more than people in the call centre fudging results, guiding answers or falsely filling out forms. Those days are largely gone, given that most call centres are highly automated. Monitoring is strict and even things like question order can be varied by the computer, not the telephone operator. 

It's more likely a structural problem in the way the survey is conducted or some aspect of the sample that skews results.

Something's off in the poll results and it isn't just the reporting of them.

-srbp-

Alberta poll in question

Ye, verily, lo and behold, good citizens:

There are problems with reports coming from Alberta about the Wild Rose party and polling.

Sounds very familiar.

One thing leaped out in particular and this had to do with the reliability of online surveys:

Unbeknownst to most Albertans – even many politically savvy ones and apparently to most political journalists, too – was the import of this statement.

First, this is an on-line survey, based on interviews with a group of Albertans, obviously interested in politics and quite possibly committed to a political party, who selected themselves for the job.

The advantage of on-line panels of this type is that they’re inexpensive to conduct. The disadvantage is that their results cannot be called scientific and they are not particularly credible.

Also unknown to most Albertans following this story is the fact that the phrase “margin of error is 3 per cent” is highly controversial in professional polling circles when applied to this kind of survey.

The implication is that the survey was based on sound scientific methodology and can be counted on to be accurate within a margin of 3 per cent.

The fact is the survey is based on the opinions of people who selected themselves to join the panel and answered questions on-line. In other words, this is not necessarily a particularly trustworthy poll.

That probably refers to issues like the ones raised in this businessweek.com article in 2008.

And it points out again why reporters need to ask more questions about polls and pollsters before they report the results.

Lie say this little gem from an American association of polling firms giving 20 questions journalists should ask about polls:

6. Are the results based on the answers of all the people interviewed?

One of the easiest ways to misrepresent the results of a poll is to report the answers of only a subgroup. For example, there is usually a substantial difference between the opinions of Democrats and Republicans on campaign-related matters. Reporting the opinions of only Democrats in a poll purported to be of all adults would substantially misrepresent the results.

Poll results based on Democrats must be identified as such and should be reported as representing only Democratic opinions.

Of course, reporting on just one subgroup can be exactly the right course. In polling on a primary contest, it is the opinions of those who can vote in the primary that count – not those who cannot vote in that contest. Primary polls should include only eligible primary voters.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, reporting poll results as a percentage of “decideds“ is “one of the easiest ways to misrepresent the results of a poll…”. Some people won’t be shocked by that nugget.

If you scroll down you’ll also find a good section that points out methodological problems with online poll results.

And that’s before people misread news reports that seemed to suggest Danny Williams scored a 70% approval rating with all Canadians surveyed by Angus Reid last fall during the local poll goosing month of November.

At some points, local news organizations will either stop reporting obviously unreliable poll results or hold off until they get answers to some tough questions from the people flogging the polling fodder.

-srbp-

What you can see at the horse race…

Horse race polls are the heights of political journalism* in some circles despite the fact they tell very little about what is happening in voters’ heads.

But since this is all there is, let’s look at the latest Corporate Research Associates poll and see what it tells us.

The provincial Conservatives are at 40% of respondents down from 44% in May.  The New Democrats are at 18%, up from 15% and the Liberals remain at 16%.  Undecideds are up to 26% from 23% in May.

The Liberals and NDP have swapped places but all of the changes are well within the polls horrendous margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%.

For those unfamiliar with the numbers, what you just got was the CRA numbers adjusted as a percentage of poll respondents, not as the very misleading percentage of decideds that CRA uses.

Let’s try some observations:

• All that Tory poll goosing – unprecedented in volume and timed to match CRA’s polling exactly – was a complete waste of time.
• You can also put the jack boots to any suggestion that the NDP had a Jack Boost and are on their way to replacing the Liberals as the official opposition. The Dipper torque machine will be in hyper drive but this is really nothing to write home about…yet.  The local NDP still have not produced the kinds of polling numbers you’d need to see in order to confirm any switching to the Orange as the leading opposition party.
• The Liberals experienced no change despite having a new leader for the entire polling period and attracting consistent news coverage for a week or so beforehand.  This poll should be a massive wake-up call for them. The only question at this point is whether or not they will hit the snooze button.

Now let’s try something a bit more complicated.

Even if you accept CRA polls, we know that there’s been a fairly steady slide away from the Tories for most of past 18 months.  Since Danny left, the slide stopped, reversed course and carried on downward again. 

We also know that CRA polling seems to pick up about 15 to 20 percentage points for the Tories that doesn’t show up at the polls.  Their Liberal and NDP numbers seem to be spot on or close enough for government work.

So here’s where the fun can start.  Shave 15 to 20 points off the stated Conservative number in the adjusted CRA poll results and you start to see Tory support down around 25% in May and 20% in August.

You can tell the Conservatives are edgy because of the orgy of politicking with public money they’ve all been doing.  Kathy Dunderdale has been campaigning already in areas where the Tories are perceived as being weak, namely the Burin Peninsula and central Newfoundland.  The Tories don’t have a lock on things in several places in the province and they know it.

So just for the heck of it, let’s imagine what might happen if the CRA results we see in August are pretty much what turns out in October.

Here’s one scenario run through an amazing, colossal supercomputing vote-a-tron machine kept hidden at a secret location, and offered here purely for entertainment purposes.

Using these most recent, corrected CRA results, you could still have the Tories forming a comfortable majority of more than 34 seats and as many as 37.  The Liberals would pick up seven or eight and the NDP could win as many as three or four.

Bay of Islands, Humber Valley, Isles of Notre Dame and Torngat Mountains would swing Liberal in that scenario.  The NDP could pick up Burin-Placentia West and Labrador West.

There could be close races in Grand Falls/Windsor-Buchans, Lake Melville, Placentia and St. Mary’s, St. Barbe and St. John’s East.

There’s still a long way to go before polling day and lots can change between now and then.  Voters appear to be ripe for a significant change.  Too bad none of the parties are offering one.

Just remember:  in the scenario we just walked through, the number of people staying home rather than voting would be at a historic high level.  No political party in Newfoundland and Labrador could crow about that.

Horse race polls - as they are normally used -  are no fun.

But if you look beyond the normal, all sorts of amusing things suddenly appear.

- srbp -

Ya gotta chuckle update: CBC’s lede is classic:

The governing Tories are holding a strong lead heading into October's election, while the NDP is challenging the Liberals for second place, a new poll shows.

Gal-o-war is way out in front and Townie Pride is nose and nose with Western Boy for second.

Total crap, of course.

Like this line later on that adds more turds to the total crap offered up front:

The fact that the NDP, not the Liberals, are in second place appears to set the stage for a competition for the Opposition.

That would be true if it wasn’t for the fact that it is false.  The only way such a proposition floats is if having the second biggest number of decided respondents to a CRA poll question actually translates into seats.

It doesn’t, but that obviously isn’t important.  Twenty-four is bigger than 22 so the NDP must be in second and challenging for official opposition status.

To make matters much worse, CBC misrepresents CRA’s quarterly advertising poll as a tracking poll.  It isn’t. Tracking polls are repeated much more frequently than once every three months.  They are averaged over time to give a moving picture of trends.  As that 1998 link to a CNN piece notes, a daily tracker will show fluctuations for specific events on a daily basis.  A weekly tracking poll will wipe out some of those daily blips to show longer trending.

CRA’s poll once every three months, with only three questions and with a margin of error that borders on the laughable tells you very little worthwhile. In 2007, CRA missed the vote result for the Conservatives by more than 20 percentage points.

- srbp -

The quarterly advertising poll

Bond Papers has raised questions before about CRA's quarterly omnibus polls.

At the time of writing, there's no link to the official release.

The graph at left is a reminder of the gap between the actual vote result last fall and CRA poll results.

The blue line is the CRA PC support for "decided" voters". 

The red line is the CRA result as a percent of all respondents.

The orange line is the CRA category for "undecided", "no answer", and "will not vote."

The election results are represented by dots.  The brownish one is the PC popular, that is the share of people who actually voted.  The blue triangle is the share of all eligible voters and the green circle is the actual percentage of eligible voters who didn't vote.

Take a hard look at the image.

Get a ruler if you have to and measure the gaps.

They're big. The gap between CRA's Tory vote, as a share of all respondents, matched to its correct October comparison - the actual vote as a percentage of all voters - and you'll find a different of 20 percentage points.

CRA consistently inflates the level of Tory support in the province and, while the figures aren't shown here, they consistent deflate the support for the other two political parties.  It doesn't matter why; the most likely reason is the way CRA conducts the poll.  The fact that the numbers are off by a wide margin is undeniable.

-srbp-

 

Related posts: (Some links may not work due to URL changes at source.)

• Shaggin' polls - a discussion of poll results and the New Brunswick election.
• Playing the numbers - part of a series on poll goosing.
• Polls and the stuff they tell you - discusses poll results in 2005 with a reference to party support over time. be wary of the statements about records you may read in news accounts.  They sometimes confuse poll questions.
• Pull the other one - from September 2007 and comments by CRA president Don Mills about the timing of certain government announcements.
• Williams PCs only 3 points ahead of Rideout's PCs 17 years later - From 2006, comparing CRA and Telelink poll results.
• The secret of their success:  Roger Grimes - an interpretation of CRA polling data that might surprise some people.
• The answer is simple: it's polling time - the most likely reason for the sudden resurgence of the ABC campaign.
• Andy, Danny, the PUB and the polls - why did Danny Williams suddenly change his mind about Andy Wells? As we know now and the Premier knew at the time, CRA started polling on 12 February.  Check the date of the post.
• Something's off:  Newfoundland and Labrador political polls.
• The projections, the polls and the political reporters.
• First poll results.  From the 2007 general election campaign.

Influence and Manipulation #nlpoli

Public opinion changes.

Individuals don’t hold exactly the same attitudes about things throughout their entire lives.

That’s true of how the typical man or woman feels about clothing styles, cars, movies, books, politics, or just about anything else.

Not surprisingly in a society like ours, there are people who want to try and change opinions and attitudes.  They want to persuade people to buy a product, support a political decision or stop doing something like smoking.

Also not surprisingly, we have some basic ideas about how people should do that.

Lower Churchill opinion: and then, like magic…

[Note:  This was originally written on Saturday night and time-delayed until Sunday morning.  However, as events overnight changed the story, here it is with a new post to update is on the way.]

______________________________________________

The poll goosing army got its act together.

A little over 12 hours after your humble e-scribbler pointed out that the Old Man’s retirement scheme wasn’t polling too well at voice of the cabinet minister, things changed.

From a little over 7200 votes on Saturday morning there were an astonishing 25,413 votes later on.  Suddenly 70% of the universe is loving the retirement idea.

Here’s what the results were at about 10:30 Saturday morning:

This is a just a reminder that someone in the province’s reform-based Conservative Party pays way to much attention to this sort of trivial stuff. 

No one has documented the whole foolish business as consistently as labradore.   In January 2008, for example, labradore noted the gigantic number of votes on question of the day polls that were important to the Premier (or mentioned him by name) versus some other topics.

In October 2009, he noted the same trend with the new VOCM website even though some technical changes made it harder for some dork to sit at a computer and mouse click his way to premature carpal tunnel all to make the Old Man look better.

Now that one is interesting because it makes it pretty clear that the vote total earlier on Saturday was actually higher than the average already.  The late night total was more in line with the ludicrous numbers from the old-style VOCM website.

Meeker on Media has also done a few posts on it.  One titled “Vote fixing” appeared in 2008.  It’s been re-dated as a result of the recent switch to a new layout at the Telegram website.

After Meeker blogged about one technique for rigging the poll, someone must have tried it.  The resulting click duel wound up crashing the VOCM poll system. Meeker’s comments at the time are worth repeating because they show a similar pattern of insane click counts as we’ve seen so far on November 20:

I saw some irony in the question. I also noticed that, at the time (about 12:30 pm), there were almost 2,000 votes at the site, with 63 per cent disagreeing.

My prediction was that, if the Yes votes made a sudden resurgence, the Trained Monkeys would immediately start clicking No and the voting numbers would go into the tens of thousands (they usually like to maintain a 70 per cent share of the vote).

And my prediction was correct. People did want to play this game. Within an hour, the number of votes had doubled, and the Yes side was out in front. At 2:30 pm, I had to go to a meeting, and at that point the Yes side was still leading, with 55 per cent of 10,000 votes cast.

That's right, ten thousand! It was wild.

When I got home later in the evening, the No side was winning. Votes at that point were around 25,000, and they were back around 60 per cent.

While I was talking live on the radio with Linda Swain, the number of votes was actually increasing by the thousand, as the minutes went by. The last tally I saw was 53,000 votes, with No holding at about 60 per cent.

This poll question will be up all weekend. It’s going to be fun watching to see what happens by Monday morning when the VOCM will likely change the question.

In the meantime, as you look at this an laugh, just recall that someone has obviously been organizing this intense idiocy for the past seven years. 

And then Danny Williams complains about what he could get done if he wasn’t distracted.  Well some of us have been saying that for years. 

When this sort of foolishness turns up again, you have to wonder how much could have been accomplished if all the rest of his Fan Club actually did real work instead of obsessing with this sort of trivia to the point they spend an unhealthy chunk of a November Saturday making sure VOCM  news told the right story in its QOTD report on Monday

Incidentally, just for fun watch and see if the comments section of this post starts turning into a laundry basket full of Conservative sock puppets (right, not exactly as illustrated).

Odds are good it will happen just like they all turned up on the earlier one about poll goosing.

- srbp -

CBC torques poll coverage #nlpoli #nlvotes

Think of it as another form of poll goosing.

As an example of how news media can take a piece of information and make a false statement out it, consider CBC’s online version of the story about a poll released Friday by the same company that polls for the provincial government’s energy corporation.

“Liberal support in free fall” screams the headline.

The first sentence is less dramatic:

A public opinion poll released Friday suggests that Newfoundland and Labrador's Liberals have lost even more ground leading into the last half of the Oct. 11 election campaign.

There’s even a graphic that uses the numbers from the news release.  They show a drop of five percentage points in decided Liberal support, according to the poll.

The only problem for CBC is that the headline and the lede are false.

The combined margin of error for this poll and the one before it is more than the five point drop shown in the report numbers in the two polls..  Therefore, the actual numbers for the Liberals fall within a range of 4.5 or 5 points above or below the figures given.

This is why polls with such large margins of error tend to be useless for most meaningful purposes.  And for detecting trends, you’d have to see a huge drop between polls – like more than 10 points -  in order to get something that could conceivably be called a significant change.

What would free fall look like? 

Well, certainly a hell of a lot more than what is shown.  10 points or more would be a likely candidate for such dramatic language, especially over the course of a mere 10 days or so.

It’s also interesting that while CBC mentioned a relationship between MQO and advertising company M5, they didn’t mention that MQO is also Nalcor’s pollster because it is owned by M5. The advertising company is Nalcor’s agency of record.

CBC also said MQO was “affiliated” with M5.  That’s not even close to correct either. 

According to the provincial registry of companies, the same three men are the only directors of M5 (above), MQO (right)and all the companies within the M5 Group.

MQO is owned by M5. 

That’s factually correct.

“Affiliated”? 

That would be misleading bordering on deceptive.

- srbp -

Related:

• cbcnl using Nalcor lobbyist as election commentator
• Taking your brain out of neutral

The perils of polling

[This is the third and final instalment of a three part series looking at public opinion polling and provincial government media relations. In the first installment - Playing the numbers - we looked at the broad issue of news releases output and content. In the second - The media and the message - we looked at the media relations activity of the Williams administration. In the last installment, we'll pull the whole thing together and take a look at why government does what it does.]

The grass isn't always greener; sometimes it isn't even grass

In politics, astroturfing is the use of orchestrated activities designed to create the illusion of popular support for or opposition to a candidate, a political party or a government program.

The word is a play on grassroots - genuinely spontaneous political action - and derives from the artificial cover used on sportsfields around the world.

Danny Williams' administration, like the two Liberal administrations before it, uses astroturfing to plant letters to the editor but more typically callers to radio talk shows. The plants get e-mails or telephone calls giving them the approved comments for the day or for the topic. More often than not they turn up alongside a raft of cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants and backbench members of the provincial legislature extolling the virtues of their party and condemning its critics.

What makes this type of astroturfing effective is a combination of several factors. First, call-in radio shows are all found on a single outlet and occupy eight and half hours - that's right, a full workday - from Sunday to Friday.

Second that outlet - VOCM - has a perfectly valid approach to its news programming that simply presents what it is given without much filtering.

Third, VOCM has such an audience that its news and current affairs programming is heard by one of the largest radio audiences in the province.

Fourth - and no less important - is the near complete absence of an effective opposition. The New Democrats under former leader Jack Harris spent more time agreeing with Danny Williams than disagreeing despite the fact that theoretically a conservative party and a social democratic party should be ideological polar opposites.

The Liberals under both Roger Grimes and now Gerry Reid have been consistently unable to mount a coherent and sustained round of political attacks that would be normal for the party with the second largest standings in the legislature. Even though the Liberals under first Tobin and then Grimes used the astroturfing technique extensively in government, the Liberals now on the opposition benches seem unable to grasp the simple notion that they can influence public opinion just as easily as the government party can.

Managing the information flow

In the second part of this series, we looked at the Williams administration's approach to media relations. It encompasses astroturfing the radio shows and newspapers' letters pages. It also includes orienting their interviews to isolate news organizations one from the other. There is nothing illegal or unethical about it, but there is no question that on some issues - as in the Ruelokke matter - Williams will give special attention to the other major news outlet in the province, NTV, that also follows the approach of presenting its news with little filter or interpretation.

Make no mistake, the major news organizations in the province are universally professional, competent and ethical. There is absolutely nothing improper about the way NTV and VOCM report news, nor is there any explicit or implicit value judgment in the difference between the way NTV and CBC, for example, or NTV and The Telegram handle the news.

That said, sophisticated news consumers should be aware that the provincial government can and does vary its approach to certain media outlets. They show a marked preference for the two outlets with the largest audiences which also tend not to generate news on their own.

The provincial government also goes to considerable lengths to frustrate efforts to find out things that the public has every right to know but which government - for whatever reason - doesn't think it should have. The Telegram, for example, submits so-called access to information requests for government information that is supposed to be readily available under the province's Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Consider the number of times however, The Telegram has had to resort to every possible avenue of appeal to squeeze information from the current administration. One of the most infamous examples was a request in 2005 for polls commissioned by the Williams administration in 2004. Government did relent - six months after the privacy commissioner ruled against it, but it did its very best to stonewall and flat-out refuse to release information that would have given The Telegram something other than news on government generated by the government itself.

The perils of polling

One of the reasons Danny Williams tried to hang onto those polls is that they are extremely important clues as to how he governs. There wouldn't be any secret information in them but knowing what was researched and when might just provide some clues as to how Williams goes about his business. There were quite a few of them - almost one a month for a while - and they were all conducted by Ryan Research, the Premier's favourite pollster.

Bond Papers already discussed one of Williams' early polls, during the flag-flap in late December and early January 2005. Having pulled down Canadian flags, Williams was keen to know if he had made the right move especially after he started to receive tons of e-mails and letters in a genuine grassroots campaign aimed at expressing displeasure at his use of a national symbol for a political purpose.

Ryan's questionnaire was laid out in a way that would tend to produce support for Williams. But interestingly enough, despite what appear to be best efforts at skewing the results on the key question - about pulling down the Maple Leaf - respondents took the extreme negative choice. By the way, Williams likely got the results late on the 9th of January or early on the 10th before he went into a news conference on the Lower Churchill. In the newser Williams suddenly and unexpectedly announced the flags were headed back to the top of the flagpoles on government buildings.

As this series has demonstrated, polls are at the heart of much of Danny Williams' political communications. The poll in this case is the quarterly omnibus by Corporate Research Associates (CRA). There is simply no doubt that the current administration plays to the polls in an effort to goose the results. Those results - reported publicly by CRA as part of its own marketing - and covered throughout the province have become a well-established sign of political health for a government. It looks like the results are scientific and devoid of any undue influence, but the amount of energy Danny Williams expends in goosing the numbers suggests that they aren't.

CRA isn't doing anything wrong here any more than NTV or VOCM. In fact, CRA has no control over how its publicly-released results are used. CRA uses the results of their data collection as a marketing tool, nothing more.

That said, it should be understood that these polling results - like most publicly available polling results - don't necessarily reflect the actual mood in the province. Not only is the reported margin of error sometimes appallingly high - pushing 5% in some instances - we simply don't know how the data was collected or how the sample broke down with respect to age, geographical location, sex and other demographics all of which can influence results. Since there isn't another set of publicly-available polling with which to compare it, the CRA results are, in some respects, nothing more than a bunch of numbers.

All that is solid becomes air

The Williams administration plays to the CRA polls in order to use the polling results as evidence that Williams is politically unassailable. Not only is he politically unassailable, but his supporters often use his supposed popularity as a means of stifling dissent within the province and foreclosing any debate of substantive public policy issues. It doesn't matter if you don't agree with his policy, so the line goes, everyone else does: "See the poll results?"

The Williams administration supports its poll goosing by controlling the flow of information to the extent that it can. This makes informed public debate - and genuine informed consent - almost impossible to obtain. It also means that government is, on many levels, fundamentally unaccountable

As in the case of the recent release from finance minister Loyola Sullivan, information on something as fundamental as the province's financial health can be presented in a misleading way as part of the poll goosing efforts. So effective is the effort that even the opposition finance critic will swallow Sullivan's claim from the news release that he wound up with an extra $68 million in the bank last year. The reality - buried in an attachment to the release - shows that government actually wound up with over $700 million in surplus on current account and a net surplus of over $500 million for government operations as a whole.

Beyond the implications for the health of democracy in the province, playing to the polls puts the Williams administration in a precarious position. So much of its energy is devoted to poll playing that it seems unable to make difficult decisions for fear of the impact on the poll results. Promises are made, in Harbour Breton, on the fishery, in Stephenville that are popular in the short-term but which are not kept. The Premier's fiscal plan based on supposedly reliable financial information and announced on January 5 2004 is abandoned less than six months after it is announced simply because his polling numbers suffered too drastic a decline.

This failure to adopt a course for good reasons and stick to it is abandoned on public opinion polls which themselves are subject to statistical variation anyway and which are measuring something which is inherently variable from moment to moment. The result is a government which can develop a politically deadly credibility problem and which, in the minds of potential financial investors in the province - for example becomes simply too unpredictable and unreliable.

For the politicians, their problem is masked by attention to the polls. The polls become a self- imposed delusion.

Ultimately, the Williams administration's addiction to good poll results makes it vulnerable to any slipping of the numbers. A slip in the next poll can easily become the crack in the dyke that simply continues to spill in the months leading up to the next election.

The story for many will become the implications of a decline when it occurs. If it is a 10% decline, Williams will likely find himself dealing not only with the real issues of economic slowdowns themselves the result of government decisions, a scandal in the legislature which is far from over and a general lack of progress on any major economic files. He will also be facing the very real implications as the illusions he has worked to create vanish before his eyes.

The poll numbers – first quarter 2009

We’ve bashed the Corporate Research Associates polling around in these parts for quite some time. 

Since since it’s the only game in town, however, it’s what we have to work with.

Here are some quickie observations on the most recent poll:

1.  The margin of error for the most recent poll is plus or minus 4.9%.  For November, 2008, the MoE was 2.8% and for the ones before that, it was 3.5%. Bear that in mind as you go through media coverage that talks about things being where they were.

2.  The chart at left adjusts the CRA numbers to present them as a percentage of respondents rather than adjusting  them as a percentage of decideds.

3.  If we accept that the undecideds dropped seven percentage points from November, note that both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives picked up equally from that.  The extra point came from the New Democrats.

4.  The most accurate of all CRA polls  - measured in terms of the margin of error - was the one in November.  The MoE was plus or minus 2.8%.

5.  There’s something slightly counter-intuitive about these numbers. At a time of growing economic uncertainty – including some sharp blows in this province – one wouldn’t expect party choice for the governing party to go up. Ditto for the satisfaction numbers which remain at astronomical levels. Look at the satisfaction numbers and it doesn’t get any less curious; you just wouldn’t expect 88% of people in the province to be mostly or completely satisfied with government giving all that’s gone on.

Doesn’t matter the party.  Doesn’t matter the leader.  When things are bad or going bad, there just isn’t as much generosity toward government. 10,000 ticked off  nurses and their families should amount for something, shouldn’t they?  How about a 1,000 paper workers?  Apparently not.

6. Poll goosing.  CRA was in the field beginning on February 9.  They stopped polling on February 28th. Oddly enough, when asked about it by a talk show host on February 19, the premier knew CRA had started polling the week before.

He also offered the view that if he was going to goose the poll he would have started goosing the week before polling started.

Interesting.

The Equalization racket started in late January even though by all indications the provincial government had the numbers on Equalization and offsets from early November onwards.  Anyone else find that news conference in the middle of the night thing odd, especially since government had already planned to scrum the finance minister the day after the federal budget came down?

Notice all the feisty, fighting talk running into that first week of February.  Take that as sort of the background noise to the month.  Nothing like a racket with Ottawa to get the juices flowing in polling season.

Then there’s the Lower Churchill project.  The infeed to Soldier’s Pond – an integral part of the project – is shaved off for some inexplicable reason and submitted to its own environmental review process starting on January 30. On top of that there were two more major Lower Churchill announcements in February, one of which was merely to say the Crown corporation had solicited six expressions of interest;  not received:  asked for.

Government decided to try playing nice with the nurses.  They did it very publicly in February a week into polling.

Let’s not forget the “historic” infrastructure announcement made – you guessed it – right smack in the middle of polling. That was followed by a few speeches to give the thing a few legs.

Overall, though, February was a very busy month for the provincial cabinet.  Lots of good news and happy talk.  Marinas, fur farms, air ambulances, all announced in February.

7.  Rolling Stones Update:  Can’t get no satisfaction? We’ve had some issues with CRA polling before and the tendency to generate results that leaving you scratching your head.

One of those would be “satisfaction”.

Let’s leave aside entirely the problem with the question -   what exactly is the difference between “mostly” and completely”? – and look at the relationship between the satisfaction number on the one hand and the party support number on the other.

Without any prompting one might suspect that satisfaction goes with support.  If you are mostly or completely satisfied with government performance, then you’d be inclined to support the government party.

Not so, according to CRA.  In Nova Scotia, for example, people are very happy with Rodney’s government but they plan to vote for the Grits or Dippers.

We are not talking small numbers.  The Liberal and NDP vote numbers here are running fairly steadily at a combined 64% of decideds for the past three quarters.  The satisfaction numbers have been running in the 50s.  So if you believe CRA, a majority of Nova Scotians like their Tory government but a larger number wants them out of office.

Huh?

It gets fruitier when you look at the Tories coming in second or – in the latest poll – third place among parties.  People are happy with the job government is doing but they don’t want to vote for the government party.

Those odd numbers don’t just apply to Nova Scotia.  Satisfaction with Roger Grimes was decently in the 50s pretty much right up until the end.  Take a gander at CRA’s polling and there’s a good likelihood you’ll find lots of examples of this completely incomprehensible correlation.  According to CRA, Nova Scotians like the job a government is doing but want to throw the bums out.

Doesn’t make sense.

-srbp-

Fernando 2: Liberals start Tory-style poll goosing #nlpoli

It's August and Corporate Research Associates is in the field.

On Tuesday, Ed Joyce told the people of Holyrood, Isles aux Morts, and Jackson's Arm that they would each be getting new fire trucks.

No, Ed didn't deliver a new fire truck to each community.  He held a news conference to announce that the three communities fire trucks were on order.

Hmmm.

Why would anyone hold a big announcement to say that government had put money aside for a new fire truck for three towns?

Go back and read that first sentence again.

Yes folks.  The Liberals - tanking in the polls - are going to try and goose that CRA poll with some happy news.

The Summer of Love 2011

Five years after your humble e-scribbler first wrote about it, the world pretty much accepts the notion that the governing Conservatives time their communications to coincide with polling done by their contract pollster. A couple of university professors have taken up the task of documenting the extent of the poll goosing and talk radio stacking activities.

Well, labradore posted a couple of reminders last week about just exactly how intense this can get.

First, he show a chart comparing the number of releases issued in the middle of summer.  Not surprisingly, 2011 showed the heaviest news release output on record.  That’s not surprising because it is an election year and the the incumbent Tories apparently are having some problems with popular support.

Second, labradore charted the number of media advisories issued by the provincial government, by month from 1996 onward. No one ever said this poll goosing thing was something the Tories invented.  It’s just that they do it more aggressively than the gang that went before.

- srbp -

Looking beyond normal

labradore wasted no time in converting the numbers from Friday’s editorial in the Telegram into a chart to show the number of money announcements issued by the provincial government in each week in August for the past four years.

The Telegram editorial uses these numbers to refute Premier Kathy Dunderdale’s claim that:

“There’s nothing going on here now that hasn’t gone on every year since we’ve brought down a budget, no matter who formed the government,..”

She made the comment.  They counted the news releases.  Way more, finds the Telegram, so therefore “liar, liar pants on fire.”

Or words to that effect.

In defence of Kathy Dunderdale, there is nothing that her provincial Conservatives did in August 2011 that is different in kind from anything the provincial Conservatives did in any other one of the four polling months each year since 2004..

The fact that there are more money announcements in 2011 is really much ado about nothing.  Sure the whole thing is so outrageous in August 2011 that the local media couldn’t ignore it any more, but other than that this is just another Tory poll-goosing month.

And the fact this is an election year doesn’t really make the Dunderdale version stand out.  Scroll back through the archives list of these e-scribblers for the summer of 2007.

Summer of Love.  On August 18, your humble e-scribbler note that the Tories seemed to be inventing excuses to issue happy-news releases.  25 additional campsites at a provincial park, for example.

Toward the end of July 2007, you’ll find a post about the spate of announcements comparing July to previous Julys:

Note, however, that cash announcement in the 25 days of July 2007 already done are already at the same level of 2004 and they are double those of 2005 and almost quadruple those of 2006.

The post starts off with a quote from Danny Williams that will look awfully familiar:

Flanked by two Progressive Conservative candidates in Bay Roberts, Premier Danny Williams told reporters on Wednesday that what government has been doing over the past couple of weeks is just government "carrying on business."

What really stands out in the Telegram figures is the big jump in 2010 and the larger jump in 2011. Poll goosing and the pre-election impetus – the Telegram’s point – are just penetrating insights into the stunningly obvious. Something else is going on.

It’s the trending that shows up when you look beyond the polls as most people misinterpret them. In May this year, your humble e-scribbler pointed out that the Tory polling numbers have been slipping pretty significantly.

This chart shows CRA polling as a percentage of actual respondents not of “decideds”.  That second hard point from the right shows the results of last August’s jump in cash announcements.  And the reason for it is the slide the quarter before.

But then look what happened over the next three months before Danny Williams left abruptly.

Big slide.

And in the months since then, the Tories have continued to slide downward.

They were at a point in May where losing a raft of seats in October looked like a very real possibility.  As noted around these parts last May, if the trends continued the Tories would be even weaker in August.  The leader numbers could also continue their downward trend to the point where all three party leaders shared the same distinct lack of interest from voters.

So if you were the incumbent party headed into an election with public support apparently weakening,  you’d pretty much be guaranteed to do the only political thing you know how to do:  take as many spending announcements as you can type up and e-mail them out to try desperately to stop the spiral in the polls.

As far as Kathy Dunderdale and her crowd are concerned this is normal.  For the rest of us, though, you have to look a little beyond the obvious to figure out why their “normal”  is even more “normal” than usual.

- srbp -

Turf War: did Danny give Steve the secret of fake popularity in exchange for future billions?

Isn't it odd that across the country a whole raft of people spontaneously wrote letters to the editor wanting an end to the Schreiber mess without any further inquiry?

And they all use very similar language.

Almost like they were getting messages from the same central hub.

"Charade". "Waste of money". "Dragging up" things from the distant past. "Going back 15 years". "Send Schrieber back."

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Even in the winter, Conservative astroturf still springs up looking real but still being as fake as fake can be.

You know astroturf. It's the stuff that turns nature on it's head: manure that looks like grassroots but still smells really bad.

Hey,maybe this is what Danny and Steve traded during their meeting: the secrets of faking public opinion. You'd swear these same comments have turned up on local open line shows whenever there's been a whiff of local political scandal involving their team.

The war is over and as a token of good faith, Danny gave Steve a taste of what the poll goosing machine looks like in full operation.

Sounds silly doesn't it? 

Poll goosing and astroturfing are silly ideas, but the local Tories still devote huge amounts of energy to the campaign, don't they?

Anyway, take this letter as a starting point:

I have a comment about the Schreiber hearings going on in Ottawa over the last two weeks. Can it be that our elected officials are so out of it (P. Martin, A. Nevil, J. Washalesalies?) that they cannot see this man has nothing on his mind other than making a mockery of the Canadian government and staying in Canada as long as possible to avoid prosecution in Germany?

I am amazed that they are not giving him a kiss on the cheek every morning. It's pathetic. It shows the average person how much the opposition parties will drag things on to try to get something on the current government. They are going back 15 to 20 years in hopes something sticks to Harper. What a waste of time and money.

I say send him back to Germany as quickly as possible to face his bribery and fraud charges, so the government can get back to the business at hand.

Doug Cowlthorp

Winnipeg

Then there are the rest:

The Telegram 08 Dec 2007

Enough with the Schreiber charade I am wondering if anyone can explain to me why millions and millions of our tax dollars are being spent on this Karlheinz Schreiber charade. It was more than 15 years ago. How far back do we want to go?

Why aren't we investigating any of the multitude of Chretien scandals or his tax-sheltered, morally questionable follower, Paul Martin? It's history.

Ninety-nine per cent of the evidence is the testimony of an aging, foreign man who specializes in creating scandals and, by his own admission, has made an entire career of shadowy payments and nebulous affairs, and is forever extending his stay in Canada to avoid his impending criminal trial in Germany.

Extradite him already, and stop wasting my money and pre-empting more intellectual TV like "The Simpsons." This is simply misuse of our tax dollars by the opposition to grab more votes.

Brendan Hynes

Salvage

****

Re "No cash for PM" (Dec. 5):

Federal politicians are particularly brilliant at making our entire government look like fools. And the Canadian media repeatedly fall over themselves to wallow in any whiff of scandal on Parliament Hill, no matter how far-fetched. Karlheinz Schreiber, on stage for his 15 minutes of fame, should be awarded a theatrical performance medal for making both institutions look like total jugheads.

Jim McDonald

Caledon East

****

The Daily Gleaner

05 Dec 07

Schreiber inquiry not needed

Karlheinz Schreiber has avoided extradition to Germany for more than eight years, so delaying and denying justice. His competent lawyers were skilled in the appeal process. Mud slinging, character assassinations and a circus atmosphere in Ottawa are evident.

Canadians realize that the thousands of pages in the upcoming inquiry report could cost taxpayers more than a million dollars. It will conclude that our former successful and competent PM behaved in a bizarre, secretive, desperate, greedy, unsavoury, reckless and unprincipled manner.

We have serious economic issues in forestry, manufacturing, health, etc. where our focus and ingenuity are needed. Is spending money wisely important in our Parliament? Police should be responsible for resolving this issue.

Harold Phalen

Fredericton

****

The Telegram 05 Dec 07

Axe the inquest

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has appointed Prof. David Johnston to decide how the public inquiry into the financial dealings between Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber should be conducted.

Prof. Johnston would, after careful consideration of all the facts, do the country a great service by recommending that a commission of inquiry is unnecessary and a scandalous waste of taxpayers' money.

Burford Ploughman

St. John's

****

 Edmonton Journal

 04 Dec 07

Schreiber saga a waste of time, money

Re: "Schreiber starts paper shuttle between home and jail:  Will resume testifying before Commons committee on Tuesday," The Journal, Dec. 1.

Am I the only one who is tired of reading about Karlheinz Schreiber complaining that he did not have time to peruse the 35,000 pages of personal documents -- the equivalent of 50 700- page novels -- to refresh his memory about the $300,000 or $500,000 he allegedly gave former prime minister Brian Mulroney for doing, as Schreiber alleges, absolutely nothing?

How much is this hearing by the Commons ethics committee costing taxpayers? Schreiber had been ordered deported to Germany, where he is wanted on tax evasion, fraud and other corruption-related charges. I say put him on a plane and let him go. Our courts are backlogged with cases while Schreiber not only ties up valuable court time, but also wastes taxpayers' money.

You and I are paying for this indirectly through government lawyers, etc. Good riddance.

Don Marcus, Edmonton

[No, Don, you aren't alone. The rest of the Connie plants are moaning too]

****

Times & Transcript

 03 Dec 07

Inquiry just a waste of money

To The Editor:

A large number of Canadians will be disappointed in the prime minister if he allows the Schreiber inquiry to go forward. Nothing definitive can possibly come from people like Schreiber and Mulroney. Parliament should not be interfering in the judicial system.

The German system wants Schreiber behind bars. Let them have him and save Canadians the expense. As for Brian Mulroney, the public made up their mind on him some time ago.

The country did quite well while he was PM, but he does have a darker side to him. Old news.

I submit that most people are hoping that Mr. Harper cancels this whole inquiry and saves taxpayers $30 million. The Opposition will howl, but so what! It is Christmas; let's spend the money on another convention centre for the country or, better yet, a dozen new curling rinks.

Robert MacDiarmid, Moncton

****

National Post

03 Dec 07

Send Schreiber back to Germany

Re: Lawyer Claims Case Is 'Purely Political,' Dec. 1.

From my point of view, the "utter waste of time," as Karlheinz Schreiber's lawyer Edward Greenspan put it, is that Mr. Schreiber is still in Canada at all. He should have been back in Germany in 2000 at the latest. The eight years of haggling has been a gross waste of everyone's time.

If Mr. Greenspan is so concerned about losing his client and the attached fees he represents, perhaps he should apply to the German bar so he can represent Mr. Schreiber at his trial in Germany. Note to the Canadian government: phone Lufthansa, book a seat on the next available flight and send Mr. Schreiber home.

Enough of this charade.

Jim Anderson, Victoria.

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The London Free Press

01 Dec 07

SCHREIBER'S STRATEGY SHOULD END IN A WEEK

Karlheinz Schreiber's game plan is obvious -- an attempt to extend the meeting of the ethics committee and avoid extradition to Germany to face the justice that he so richly deserves.

How can one believe, in such circumstances, anything that he has to say?

My recommendation to the committee is that Schreiber be given a maximum of one week to provide his testimony, starting Monday, following which he would be placed on an airplane for return to Germany.

At present Schreiber is in the driver's seat, playing his game with MPs. Let us resume control of the matter in hand.

Michael Cornell London

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National Post

01 Dec 07

'The gods must be shaking their heads'

Re: A Man Eager For An Encore, John Ivison, Nov. 30.

The only "political point" that the ethics committee members scored with me is to reaffirm that our politicians continue to waste our valuable tax dollars. What a joke they make of themselves, what a waste of time and money, and what a shame when you think of all the serious problems in our country that they should be working on.

Lynn Clark, Grimsby, Ont.

-srbp-

Whadidwetellya?

On Wednesday we warned the government was putting on the push to slam the House closed.

It’s twoo, It’s twoo, as Lily von Schtup would say. Even voice of the cabinet minister is covering it.

The reason:  nurses strike.

If the House is open on Wednesday, nurses will be filling the galleries and the opposition will be hammering away at the provincial government asking all sorts of difficult questions.

Hardly likely the provincial government would want that when their pollster is in the field collecting the quarterly harvest of poll goosing results.

Very embarrassing would it be to have nurses doing even one tenth what the crab crowd did to government in the spring of 2005. 

Not only that but with cracks opening within the government caucus there could be a sorry-assed repeat of the whole Fabian Manning fiasco.  Seriously, people.  If Ray Hunter has to get up from his uncomfortable new pew to refute an accusation he’s been muzzled – and thereby confirm the accusation – then you know there are others who are feeling a tad unsettled trapped between the wishes of their constituents and the diktats that come via blackberry from the Tower.

Ray’s on edge.  Who else? Sullivan maybe and the pressure she must be under from people in central Newfoundland pissed off about Abitibi.

Jim Baker and the crowd in Labrador west?  More bad news coming on Friday, if rumours pan out.

Anyone feeling heat from Corner Brook and the failed Grenfell autonomy thing? Increasing uncertainty about the Kruger mill and one of its machines?

How about townie MHAs?  Or those from the Third City?  Must be hard having all those former mayors in one spot and the guy who goes in to cabinet is the one who can’t speak in whole sentences.

Close the House and let the pollster do his part in poll goosing saga free from all that “counter-spinning negativity”.  The line still brings a chuckle since it starts from the premise that there is “spinning” in the first place that is being countered.  Think of it as a round about confession, like telling Randy Simms that if one wanted to goose polls one would start the week before the pollster goes to the field.  Which of course is exactly what they do.

Anyway, it’s not like someone didn’t tell you what was going on.

-srbp-