{"id":428,"date":"2005-08-15T14:47:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-15T18:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=428"},"modified":"2005-08-15T14:47:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-15T18:47:00","slug":"summer-fix-for-political-junkies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=428","title":{"rendered":"Summer Fix For Political Junkies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From SES:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Canada &#8211; Ballot<\/strong><br \/>LIB &#8211; 39% (+3)<br \/>CP &#8211; 25% (-5)<br \/>NDP -19% (+1)<br \/>BQ &#8211; 13% (+1)<br \/>GP &#8211; 5% (+1)<br \/>*14% were undecided (+2)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best PM<\/strong><br \/>Martin &#8211; 31% (-1)<br \/>Layton &#8211; 15% (0)<br \/>Harper &#8211; 14% (-13)<br \/>Duceppe &#8211; 8% (+2)<br \/>None &#8211; 19% (+11)<br \/>Undecided &#8211; 13% (+4)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Government Performance<\/strong><br \/>Very good &#8211; 6% (0)<br \/>Somewhat good &#8211; 21% (+4)<br \/>Average &#8211; 39% (+8)<br \/>Somewhat poor &#8211; 17% (-1)<br \/>Very poor &#8211; 16% (-9)<br \/>Unsure &#8211; 2% (-1)<\/p>\n<p>Based on this, I think we can officially call the Glad as Hell tour a complete and miserable failure. It&#8217;s mind boggling to see a politician&#8217;s personal approval ratings plunger over the <em>summer.<\/em> Sure, Harper could still conceivably win the next election but if I were Bernard Lord, I&#8217;d start planning out my exit strategy from New Brunswick now.<\/p>\n<p>For the Liberals, the approval ratings are up at a time when they have done absolutely nothing. This could either be because:<br \/>1) The less people see of the Liberals, the higher they think of them<br \/>2) Sponsorship is becoming more and more a distant memory<br \/>3) People liked the way Martin handled gay marriage<br \/>4) Compared to Harper, the Martin Liberals are looking better and better<br \/>It&#8217;s probably a bit of all four.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also interesting to see that fewer Canadians see the sitting Prime Minister as the &#8220;best PM&#8221; than the number who would vote for his party. And this at a time when no one wants to the opposition leader as PM and the third party leader wants to destroy the country. I&#8217;m sure Martin never thought it would get to the point where people would vote Liberal <em>in spite<\/em> of him, but I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;ll take it.<\/p>\n<p>All of this paints a picture of a disgruntled electorate who aren&#8217;t very happy with anyone but are quickly beginning to view Harper as nothing more than Stockwell Day v 2.0.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>UPDATE: <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/servlet\/story\/RTGAM.20050815.wxpoll15\/BNStory\/National\/\">Allan Gregg&#8217;s latest poll <\/a>is slightly better for the Tories on voting intention, with them only down 36-28. However, it shows that only 2% of Canadians rate the sponsorship scandal as their major concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From SES: Canada &#8211; BallotLIB &#8211; 39% (+3)CP &#8211; 25% (-5)NDP -19% (+1)BQ &#8211; 13% (+1)GP &#8211; 5% (+1)*14% were undecided (+2) Best PMMartin &#8211; 31% (-1)Layton &#8211; 15% (0)Harper &#8211; 14% (-13)Duceppe &#8211; 8% (+2)None &#8211; 19% (+11)Undecided &#8211; 13% (+4) Government PerformanceVery good &#8211; 6% (0)Somewhat good &#8211; 21% (+4)Average &#8211; 39% (+8)Somewhat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}