UPDATED: EKOS Weekly – Well, it had to happen eventually: A perfect tie
By kadyomalley - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 95 Comments
Seriously — right down to the decimal point. The symmetry is almost beautiful, really, in a madness-inducing way:
Conservatives: 32.6 (-)
Liberals: 32.6 (+1.7)
NDP: 16.5 (+0.8)
Bloc Quebecois: 32.3*(-4.8)
Green: 9.9 (-1.4)
Undecided/Ineligible: 15.2 (+0.1)
… and just as ITQ was about to go off on a bitter tirade about mean-spirited, background-data-hording media companies and the polling firms that enable them, the full report popped up in her email, courtesy of EKOS. (Which still doesn’t get CBC off the hook, mind you. As far as ITQ is concerned, it’s just plain wrong to post the topline numbers without regional and demographic breakdowns. Wrong, and evil. ) (Especially the Bloc Quebecois numbers. Honestly, has anyone out there actually developed the ability to mentally convert a meaningless national number for the Bloc Quebecois into its actual standing in the only province in which it matters?)
So, EKOS President Frank Graves, what does it all mean?:
“As the last Parliament drew to a close, the public withdrew a slight but significant advantage that they had bestowed on the Liberals.”
“Irritated by the threat of another election, with little prospect of a qualitatively different parliamentary result, the public gave the Conservatives a slight but significant lead. This small lead persisted through most of the summer. Over the past few weeks the Liberals have drawn into a virtual dead heat, however. Notably the Liberals have also re-established an advantage in the crucial Ontario arena.”
“So as media interest begins to percolate, and the public inevitably and perhaps reluctantly return their attention again to politics, it appears that the race would now be handicapped as “pick ‘em” between the 2 main contenders.”
Hey, for this week — and possibly this week alone — we don’t have to call it a virtual dead heat anymore. It’s official! The heat, it could not possibly be — more deadly? That doesn’t sound right at all, although oddly appropriate, given the political climate at the moment. But if the public was “irritated by the threat of another election” over the summer, what does that auger for the Liberals as far as next week’s results? Or is the irritation meted out equally amongst all parties, on the logic that each and every party one bears some responsibility for the current state of multilaterally assured dysfunction?
