Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Poll-axed





















Well, this is looking to be the campaign that wasn't.

The Ipsos-Reid survey a few days back that all the hopefuls thought was an outlier may not have been the "twentieth poll" after all. Strategic Counsel, in a new poll carried out for CTV and the Globe & Mail, shows a remarkably similar turnaround for the Tories, now leading the Liberals by 5%.

Indeed, all the signs are dismal for the American candidate.* Not only do we have his party at a worrying 30% nationally, but in Quebec the Bloc Québécois has surged to 49%, with the Liberals sinking to 23%.

Norman Spector passes along some other news that Peter Donolo, now a Strategic Counsel pollster but once a heavy hitter in Jean Chrétien's PMO, did not see fit to provide. Ignatieff, at least in Quebec, is the problem. He is now as unpopular there as Stephen Harper. His star isn't merely waning--it's falling.

Watch for more signs and portents, including a desperate further reversal on the asbestos issue. But in any case my prediction, uttered admittedly in the heat of the Ipsos-Reid moment, is still looking good. No Fall election--and add to that some serious rumbling in the Liberal backrooms and a possible later return to Harvard by the man who would be king.


UPDATE: Michael Ignatieff: not who you think.
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*"Whether we engage in preventive detention, targeted assassination, coercive interrogations, and preemptive war is an important issue that speaks to what we—Americans—might do in prosecuting the war." (p.11)

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