Bryan

And, now we come back to reality... Nanos Research April 26, 2011 CPC: 37.8 LPC: 22.9 NDP: 27.8 BQ: 5.8 GRN: 4.7 http://www.nanosresearch.com/election2011/20110426-BallotE.pdf NDP leads in Quebec, Conservatives comfortably way ahead in the rest of the country. Jack does have a very real chance of being leader of the opposition, but he's nowhere near the 100 seat level. Conservatives are still on the edge of a majority (MOE: 3.1), and exactly where Nanos had them five days ago. Dippers still have reason to be happy, Tories can stop worrying. Liberals? Yikes! I would not want to be in that war room right now.

The EC staffer advising the voter on who to vote for, and physically helping them vote.

You think so? I thought I was witnessing some pretty serious violations.

Neither does he.

Public sector unions? I would vote for that, no matter what party it was.

I haven't seen these mythical wait times yet. I got referred for an MRI a couple of months ago, and I was able to get it done at St. Boniface Hospital the same week. Place wasn't even busy either, there was one other patient in the waiting area.

There may be more PEOPLE in Toronto, but it's a small part of Canada. To understand this nation, check out places like rural Quebec, the east coast, the prairies, and northern BC. Just stay away from Wullerton (>>pteuh!<)

You're the one cherry-picking the least accurate poll and celebrating like it is a fact. You didn't see me getting excited by Compas showing CPC at 45 earlier in the campaign. That's because I could see that was an obvious outlier, and deferred to more credible polls. If you had a shred of intelligence, you'd be tempering your enthusiasm until you saw similar numbers from someone more credible than Frank Graves.

I'm omitting EKOS because his results have a track record of being at odds with reality. Going back several years, his data consistently makes CPC support look lower than it really is. I do not disagree with the surge in NDP support, that obviously IS happening. There is just no credible evidence at this time that it's coming at the expense of the CPC. It's not an entrenched position on my part though. If someone more credible like Nanos or Ipsos confirms it, I'll gladly defer.

Hell yeah. Things are looking pretty good for both the CPC and NDP. Almost everyone other than Frank "Outlier" Graves agrees: Nanos: CPC: 39.2 NDP: 23.6 LPC: 25.6 BQ: 6.5 GRN: 3.6 http://www.nanosresearch.com/election2011/20110424-BallotE.pdf Environics: CPC: 39 NDP: 25 LPC:22 BQ: 7 GRN: 6 http://www.environics.ca/news-and-insights?news_id=76 Ipsos: CPC: 43 NDP: 24 LPC: 21 BQ: 6 GRN: 4 http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=5218 The more realistic scenario of a Conservative majority with an NDP opposition is still a significant shift that any NDP fan should be excited by. Either way, it still means greatly diminished Liberal and Bloc seat counts... good for everyone!

Milewski practically is the Liberal campaign manager. That he even still has a job has eroded what little credibility the CBC had left.

That was a huge factor for my wife and I. We were voting against that as much as we were voting for anything the CPC was selling.

I'm not talking about the seat breakdown, I already said essentially the same thing you did, more than once. I'm talking about the voter intention percentages. Why is it that Graves consistently reports CPC support as being far lower than what they really get? His final poll before last election said CPC - 34.8, they got 37.6. To be fair, yes, I'm awarre that every pollster always shows CPC support lower than it really is, and always shows left support (especially NDP and Green) as higher than it really is. EKOS is just more extreme in that regard. Like I said, TODAY, Nanos has CPC at 39.2, Environics has CPC at 39 too, but Graves has 33.7.

After seeing what I did today, I think Scrutineers are definitely needed at the advance polls. There a gentleman there to vote, but he didn't even know his name. I'm very serious. Then he showed his ID, they filled out the sheet and were getting him to sign it, when he asked who's name that was he was signing for. When they told him the name, he didn't know who that was, and didn't understand that it was him. Then he started asking who he should vote for, and the EC person at the table started advising him of the party's platforms! Then when he was at the voting "booth", he complained that he couldn't read the ballot, and asked the same EC official to come and do it for him. And she did. As for the lineups, I saw none. Me and the guy I mentioned above.

I'm asking a question. Do you have an better reason as to why Graves is consistently so wrong?

You got a better explanation as to why he's always got CPC support several points lower than what they actually get? Why he's always lower than everyone else? If it's not malice, that leaves what, incompetence? Is that any better?

Not just than the other pollsters, also compared to actual results when polling in other elections as well. EKOS always grossly under estimates the Conservative support both in absolute numbers and in relative support. On the same day, EKOS has CPC at 33.7, but Nanos has it at 39.2, and even Nanos has a consistent track record of under-reporting Conservative support. I know Frank Graves tries to claim that his connection to the Liberal Party, and his job at CBC and TorStar does not affect his objectivity as a pollster, but it's painfully obvious that he's trying to form public opinion rather than reflect it.

Not it wasn't. No it wasn't. No such thing ever happened.

That article points out something important to remember not just when predicting seats, but also when reading the daily polling. Going back several elections now, pretty much every pollster and projector has shown Conservative support as being considerably lower than what they actually get on election day. Conversely, they pretty much all over-estimate the Liberal support. This is even the case in provincial elections, as the article points out. What's most interesting to me is the BQ and NDP numbers for the most part are much closer to the actual result. That is why the NDP surge in Quebec is so interesting, because they really could be getting the support the polls show. It makes using seat projection models (which are already suspect at best) tough, because previous data of a similar NDP surge can't be factored into the model.

Absolute? The opposition was able to bring him down just by voting for it. He's repeatedly openly put himself at the will of the people to decide if they want him. Even if he gets a majority, the public gets to decide again in four years.

School Trustee perhaps.

Funny that you'd want to bring that up. Is that the plan when you don't get what you want?

And yet those other governments fared far worse whenever we've had recessions. When the US gets a cold, we get pneumonia was how it always went. Recessions that were far milder than this last one hit us especially hard before. This was one of the worst ever worldwide, and we were barely touched compared not only to other countries, but to how we were hit in the 1980's and 1990's.

Perhaps the others choices are even less appealing to him?

And that is the disconnect here. Not getting 100% compliance is what the left calls "shutting down debate". The right compromises and meets them 3/4 of the way, and the left are the one who scream about not getting their way.