Non-Partisan Hack: polls, Layton, sleeplessness & hamsters

Thursday, November 17, 2005

polls, Layton, sleeplessness & hamsters

- more poll data -

A pre-occupation with opinion polls is probably not the healthiest of habits. Unless you're Gregory Morrow who wears that pre-occupation so well. Mind you, as far as bad habits go, I certainly have worse vices.

Yesterday's Decima poll is worth mentioning for two reasons.

1) It re-enforces the recent trend demonstrated by other recently released polls. It shows the national preference as:

LPC: 33%
CPC: 26%
NDP: 22%
BQ: 13%

This shows a slightly lower level of support for both the Liberal Party and Conservative Party, and slightly higher level of support for the NDP compared to the Pollara and SES polls from the past few days.

2) It has made me aware of certain mental assumptions I have been operating under, that have up until now, gone unexamined. For some reason - and the source has been more huntch than product of analysis - in my mind the absolute ceiling of support for the NDP is 23%-25% and the absolute floor of support for the LPC is 30%-32%. Not ever mind you, but in the elusive stretch of hard to define time of now and near-future.

So either those mental boundaries are about to be challenged and shifted, should this trend continue, or we are seeing the Libs and NDP as low and as high, respectively, in public support as they can get.

With the NDP only 4% behind the Conservative Party, how would it change the dynamic of the election if they could close that gap and match the CPC as viable second party?

- sadistic news cycles -

There is something just cruel about CTV Newsnet making the programming choice of running their "insomnia is a serious problem. insomnia will make you very sick. an increasing amount of Canadians suffer from insomnia. hopefully there will one day be effective treatment for insomnia. but not now." report incessantly throughout the night. From midnight until 5am, whenever I flicked on the television to provide some distraction from the familiar sight of the ceiling, that is what greeted me.

- yes to common sense -

A couple of days ago, I wrote of my desire for Jack Layton to cease his use of the word "arcane", at least in the context in which he had been using it. So far - knock on wood - it appears that my wish has been granted.

Unfortunately - difficult to please man that I can be - I am going to have to add another entry to my list.

Now, I'll admit to picking on Jack a bit. But I single him out for a reason. He is the only national leader who can be helped.

Gilles "cool as a cucumber" Duceppe can hold his own just fine in either official language. Sure, he is adverse to smiling or humour, but it has served him well.

Stephen Harper is hopelessly wooden, tirelessly repetitive, and just generally comes across as incapable of any emotion but barely constrained venom.

Paul Martin seems to have gotten his incessant "let me be clear", "make no mistake", and stammering under control somewhat, but at the cost of an increased reliance on script and talking point. And he still generally comes across as rattled and as though he isn't quite sure where he is, or how in the world he got there.

Layton speaks well. He generally comes out far above the fray in such venues as Peter Mansbridge's pre-election candidate interviews. He does well in leader's debates. He is collected, generally calm, and handles questions well. I have seen him speak and interact with his audience in person, and have been impressed.

So here is what I am proposing - Jack can keep "common sense" as in "common sense solution". For those of us who have thankfully emerged from the dark days of Mike Harris' rise and fall ... well, not so much fall as sudden exit ... from Ontario political life, the phrase retains something of an ominous quality to it. The hairs raise, just a little. Visions of angry rich self-professed conservative revolutionaries find their way before the mind's eye. Yet, I'm willing to let Layton have it. Maybe he can reclaim it for all of us and make it clean again.

But make no mistake and let me be absolutely clear: it isn't a gift. It's a trade. In exchange, I want Layton to never, ever again say "blame game". I imagine that anyone with even a casual interest in American politics would understand why, and would think my compromise solution more than fair.

- hamster -

While walking down Bank St. here in Ottawa last night, I passed a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties holding a cardboard sign. Written on the sign with black marker were the words:

hung like a hamster
spare change 4 enlargement?