Yay polling numbers!

Some have the Cons and Grits in a statistical tie. Some say that Canadians think Harper is nearly 3 times a better PM than Dion, who is practically tied with Layton. Both are from the same polling firm. Some people took the first as a sign of Liberal increases. Some people look at the second as a cause for concern.

To be honest, I've gotten bored with polling numbers. It's obvious now that people change their minds wildly nowadays, and that based on what sample of people you poll, it's hard to compare. Right now, the only poll numbers I would consider trusting would be if a company came out with one poll number today, and then asked the exact same people 2 weeks or a month from now to see how they've changed. Right now, that's the only way I would consider drawing conclusions, since the margins of errors on these polls are just way too large to pick up the little differences (I mean, +/- 3.1 percentage points? That means one poll could have the Cons at 39% and a majority and another can have them dead tied with the Liberals at 33%, and both be "accurate").

Now, the leader percentages gives some trouble, and that is something that we need to look at. As much as we hate to admit it, Harper gives off the aura of being more Prime Ministerial than Dion does. We have to learn to live with it and overcome it. The numbers themselves should only tell us that Dion needs to work on his demeanor, and that we need to focus our campaigning efforts on the ideas, and not about the people. We all know our ideas and vision are the better choices, so we need to run on that. We also need to think up our retorts when Harper comes hard after Dion when Dion gets uppity to defend his record. The numbers from the poll alone mean nothing, but they will determine how the campaign will be run.

So, does this all mean that we will or won't have an election soon? At this point, these numbers are useless to figure out. Everyone has internal numbers which are a much safer indication of intentions. They'll be looking riding by riding to figure out how stuff is going. I'd still say that we will avoid an election this spring, since I don't see a good chance for the Tories to go to war on it. I obviously wouldn't be surprised to see one, but really, I think the Conservatives will probably feel that they can wait and still be fine. If they can keep their lunatics muzzled, I don't see why they wouldn't try to put in 2 decent years of government and get people used to their style. I mean, nothing serious has gone wrong to the average person so far, so another year of it and the average person won't mind letting them stay on for longer.