Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Strat vs. Surge....Which Side Are You On?

Poll-O-Rama-Llama
DingDongVille


If you are interested in what is really going on as Canada's 41st Federal Election campaign progresses and you are not stopping by Eric Grenier's place "ThreeHundredEight.com" regularly you are really missing out.

Now.

While you might have issues with Eric's methodology for analyzing and assessing polls in an effort to track things nationally, regionally and locally (i.e. riding-by-riding) you will really appreciate how comprehensive and thoughtful he is, regardless.

In addition, the comment threads contain a lot of stuff that is actually insightful and informative. This is facilitated by the fact that Eric himself often wades into the threads to clarify points of contention. This is the stuff of true blogging that is almost entirely absent from the swollen rivers of total gibberish that flow through the proMedia election sites.

Anyway, as you can imagine, Eric has been spending a lot of time this week trying to figure out if the NDP 'surge' is for real and, even more important, what it will really mean come Monday.

I found the following paragraph, from today's post, most interesting:

".....With the Conservatives around 38% and the Liberals and New Democrats spliting the vote relatively evenly between them, as Innovative and Nanos show, we can expect the Tories to pull a majority government out of the mess. But if the Conservatives are instead at 34-35% with the NDP nipping at their heels, as EKOS and Angus-Reid indicate, then we can expect a re-run of the 2006 election with the New Democrats taking the place of Paul Martin's Liberals....."


Now, here's my take.

Either way, both scenarios are within the margin of error in most National polls that have landed so far this week.

Thus, again, I don't think we way out here in Lotusland can afford not to vote strategically, regardless the 'surge', if we want to do our best to ensure that all that is really Canada is not dismantled and destroyed by an unleashed Stephen Harper over the next four years.

Which means that if you live in Saanich and the Islands and it looks like Elizabeth May has the best shot of winning come Sunday....

Well?

.

2 comments:

theo said...

If I lived in the riding I definitely would vote for Elizabeth. I’m a long-time NDPer but I would want the Leader of a Federal Party in Parliament. In my own riding I have to vote Liberal this campaign because of the small chance the Contempt Party candidate is vulnerable. If Prentice was still running I wouldn’t hesitate to vote NDP. Unfortunately this is Alberta, where potentially one-legged blind Richardson’s Ground Squirrels can run as Contempt candidates and win (see Rob Anders + Jason Kenney). Yeah, I know, a substantial portion of my neighbours are fools. Sadly, the Contempt candidate appears to be a smart capable person. However, anyone that could acquiesce to “work” with Harper is totally suspect.

Anonymous said...

keep on top of this fellas...........this is a very important election

the rise of the socialist hordes into 2nd place gives us a possibility of a left wing government when we canuckleheads finally give li'l stevie the boot

on the other side, the fascists may get a majority......leaving such a disaster that even Lenin and good ol' Tommy would have a tough time sorting out...................ABC.....preferably NDP!!!!!