The poll reveals that the Liberals have support of 33 per cent of voters nationally, the Conservatives have 31 per cent, the NDP 17 per cent, Bloc Québécois 9 per cent and Green party 7 per cent.
Actually, that's wrong. The AR from late April scores it:
In the online survey of a representative national sample, 33 per cent of respondents (-2 since March) say they would vote for the Conservatives in the next federal election. The Liberals are also supported by 33 per cent of respondents nationwide (+2), with the New Democratic Party (NDP) in third place with 15 per cent (-1), the Bloc Québécois with 10 per cent (=), and the Green Party with six per cent (-1).
So, while we are still within the margins, I guess its fair to say that the ads have had no effect on the Tories downward drift in support.
I don't really buy the idea that the real effect of these ads is long-term, that Canadians will wake-up on election day with the notion--a notion to which they can assign no origin--that Michael Ignatieff is a dangerous alien and they should vote for whoever sounds most like a farmer. PR campaigns "work", sometimes, it seems to me, but how and why they do is still more art than science and if this is all we are seeing from the one set of ads, then I suspect that's all we'll see, period.
Now lets wait for SteveV to analyse the hell of these numbers.
3 comments:
Then came the mandarin from Manitoba [Lloyd Axworthy], the whiner from Winnipeg who now lavishes upon himself as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has begged for political pork, dined diplomats and grovelled for government goodies. Who could forget the hyena from Hamilton [Sheila Copps] who shrieked and shrilled her way under the public's skin..."
- Conservative Defence critic Rob Anders, trained to work in dirty tricks by the U.S. Republican Party, in his first ever speech to the House of Commons, Oct. 2, 1997 Hansard.
....you see, their trained work in dirty tricks by the US Republican party
I don't really buy the idea that the real effect of these ads is long-term...It's not up to you. It's up to the news media to decide what the effect will be. And this time, they're a little bored by the attack ads, so they're being a bit more critical. For some reason, the "Not Canadian Enough" theme seems more ridiculous than "Not A Leader" although substantively, they're equally stupid or equally irrelevant.
Interestingly, the shiny thing the media is now interested in is how ineffective the ads have been. They create the news then report on it and the rest of are just expected to lie back, take it, and pay for the privilege.
The media can affect the ads success, but please keep in mind that the science behind attack ads says that over time people forget the the source of these opinions, and fleeting questions over their veracity, and remember the opinion only.
That doesn't mean that this attack will work, just that we don't know their long-term effect, if any.
I've studied these ads (I'm a former PR guy, eh...). They are potentially effective. We're more sophisticated politically, and out opinions don't concern the Cons.
Even if a majority of Canadians don;t like the ads, that may not concern the Cons as long as they find a way to expand their support, in a political system which only requires a minority to be large enough to govern.
Attack ads are well known to cause voter polarization.
The best response to them is to out-attack, or out-promote.
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