After listening to wrongness guru Kathryn Schultz's TED talk on the counterintuitive blessings of making mistakes, it seems an opportune moment to get this out of the way. A quiet but astute observer of provincial and national politics writes: I meant to ask you where you get your drugs from. They are obviously very powerful. I mean, how else can you explain your federal election campaign outcome prediction? That would be this prediction: I look forward to their stories a month from now acknowledging April 12 as the turning point when a majority slipped from Harper’s grasp, and a minority Liberal Government became...

20 April, 2011

Esteemed Metro gadfly Michael Marshall, running this time for the Greens in Bill Dooks's Eastern Shore riding, agrees with fellow veridian David Croft. He writes: I am running and organizing again for the Greens, and I do for them what I did as an N-dipper: tell everybody what I think we'll actually get for votes, be it 2% or 16%. It didn't seem to hurt me among the public, other parties, or the media, but the party faithful often protested that we were going to win and should say so. But when I asked if  they were willing to sign for a...

02 June, 2009

The old saw says they should let Cape Bretoners vote the next day, so we get it right. Until now, there has been a widespread assumption that of the 10 nine Cape Breton seats, only Victoria-The Lakes, held by PC Keith Bain, is in play. Today's CRA poll gives no reason to challenge that assumption. CRA's Don Mills says the NDP are merely holding their own on the island, where they currently hold but two seats. This bears watching. If Cape Bretoners get a sniff of a majority NDP government, things could change quickly....

01 June, 2009

The latest poll from Don Mills of Corporate Research Associates shows the NDP at 44 percent. More importantly, it shows them in first place in the rural mainland. Some will say the NDP vote is highly concentrated in metro, where they will "waste" votes by winning with unnecessarily huge majorities. Elections are won by seat totals, not vote totals. Still, 44 percent is well into majority territory. In the last 14 Nova Scotia elections, no party has ever won more than 40 percent of the vote and failed to win a majority. John Hamm won a majority in 1999 with 39%...

01 June, 2009

If you believe governments get defeated, as opposed to opposition parties getting elected, then the satisfied/dissatisfied question in today's CRA poll poses an ominous portent for Rodney MacDonald. Satisfaction with MacDonald's government fell from 54% in February to 45% over the weekend. Rodney's personal popularity as leader also fell to third place at 20%, behind Dexter at 30% and McNeil at 24%. CRA was lamentably thin on details. The news release lists the leading party in each region, (Metro: NDP 44%; Rural Mainland: PC 35%; Cape Breton: Liberal 39%), but the tables give no regional  breakdown. In any case, the sample size,...

19 May, 2009

Don Mills of Corporate Research Associates has released his latest poll, one of the few that will be taken during this campaign. It shows the NDP inching up toward, but not yet reaching, majority territory. The Liberals are also gaining, while the PCs are slipping behind. Read the CRA news release or download the detailed tables....

19 May, 2009