Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party are losing core support
When we look at polls, we often look at what the actual support numbers are right now. As many point out, this is a snapshot, and so can change.
They are right of course. But that does not reduce the usefulness of a poll. Indeed, it reminds us to look at the flow of opinion that led to that particular snapshot.
Presumably the flow is more stable and long-term. And the pattern of the flow right now is shattering news for the Liberal Party.
The real disaster for Stephane Dion is not the raw support numbers. If it showed a mass of NDP or undecided supporters moving to the Conservatives, that would be bad news, but perhaps not fatal.
The reality, though, is that Liberals are abandoning Stephane Dion in droves:
The poll shows that Dion has been unsuccessful in retaining the support of Canadians who voted for the Liberals in the January 2006 federal election. While 85% of voters who supported the Tories last year intend to do so again, only 66% of Liberal voters are willing to cast a ballot for the Dion-led Grits.
The numbers clearly show that an early election would be disadvantageous for the opposition parties at this stage. Dion has effectively lost the support of a third of the Canadians who voted Liberal in 2006.
Stephane Dion appears on television as the new Liberal Party leader, and one in three Liberals watching change the channel.
You know the powers-that-be that rule over the Liberal Party are looking at this (or at the two-thirds of the powers-that-be that haven't jumped ship) and asking themselves a series of questions:
- How can Stephane Dion reverse this trend? How is he going to be different tomorrow?
- Can we afford to have a leader that has not only not failed to take the party out of the pit it found itself at the end of the Paul Martin run as leader, but indeed continues to dig the pit deeper?
- Can we afford to choose a new leader if it comes to that? The sheer cost of a convention depleting our war chest on the eve of a possible election could destroy our electoral chances.
- Can we afford not to choose a new leader?
- How soon do we pull the trigger?
- Or do we write off the next dozen years, let Dion crash and burn in an election, and then truly rebuild?
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Comments
Best let the Liberal party crash and burn...it's been a disaster for Canada since Lester Pearson became Prime Minister.
Posted by: Conrad at March 2, 2007 08:36 AM
"Or do we ask Garth Turner?"
Posted by: Joanne (TB) at March 2, 2007 08:51 AM
lol, joanne!
the man has some major meglomaniac issues,huh? Has anyone told Garth that he is neither the opposition leader, an LPC strategist nor even an opposition critic?
Posted by: tori at March 2, 2007 09:06 AM
Remind me again, what were all the advantages of having a delegated convention ? Oh yeah, the increased media exposure, excitement, bounce in the polls ... How did that go Libs ? It looks good on them that they are still trapped within the straight-jacket of their constitution, unable to replace Dion, except with ANOTHER delegated convention. At which time all the brokering of blocs of delegates will occur again. And the (too many) young delegates will likely again vote against going to a one-person-one-vote selection process. After all, what's more important, picking the best leader, or partying non-stop for four days with a bunch of other hot young Liberals ... with free condoms to boot ! HA HA HA HA HA
Posted by: Calgary Junkie at March 2, 2007 09:41 AM
Let's see which party Garth and his massive ego jump to now.
Let the Libs crash and burn. Keep Dion as leader and show just how bad he can get. Canadians are beginning to smell the coffee and polls show it. Yes, they are a snapshot but snapshots like this show the Libs are is deep doo-doo.
Seeing what these polls are showing is sweet revenge for what the Liberals have done to Canada since the days of P.E. Troo-dough.
Posted by: On-Tory-O at March 2, 2007 10:31 AM
Dion is defintiely a poor messenger; but what message is he suppose to be sending to Canadians?
Liberals have campaigned on NDP and Conservative platforms for years, coupled with the fear of the evil Cons.
They rode the fence, selecting the vote getting policies of every other party. They nuanced (made no decision) foreign policy; And screwed up the implimentation of 'borrowed' social/economic policies.
Weak leader aside, Canadians are confused as to what the Liberal Party has become.
Iggy in the window, has not stopped the free fall either.
Posted by: wilson61 at March 2, 2007 10:43 AM
Riddle me this:
How long is Iggy going to stick around? Clearly he came up here to take the helm of the good ship liberal and right its course, I can't see him sticking around to much longer if he's not front and center on the bridge.
Where is Belinda? I kinda miss her.. how much longer is she going to stick around in opposition?
Ditto for Rae
Skål!
Posted by: The Hammer or Thor at March 2, 2007 11:47 AM
The Liberals are not just losing support. Just wandered over to WK's blog and by the looks of things over there the Liberals are well on their way to losing their minds. Why does anyone think that these latter day hippies, wannabe rock stars, and prima donnas have the intelligence to bring this Liberal party out of the tailspin that Dion has plunged it into.
Posted by: Antenor at March 2, 2007 12:24 PM
The Liberal problem goes much deeper than the poll results, it weakens their party grassroots and election workers, who will not be motivated to work for a Dion leadership. Let's not forget that Dion only had 17% grassroots support on the first ballot while Ignatieff had 30% and more grassroots support in Quebec than Dion.
The Liberal party executive cannot allow Dion to lead the Liberals to certain and crushing defeat in the next election, and Dion himself will have to tell Liberals and Canadians that he is unable to rally the necessary support to lead the Liberal party and for that reason he will be stepping down. There will be a struggle for the leadership and Ignatieff will win it by default because there is no other choice. A quick purge should follow as Liberal Dion backers decide to retire and allow 'new blood' to enter the Liberal party.
Ignatieff will carry the Liberals to the right to challenge the Conservatives, and the NDP will skyrocket as soft lefty Liberals flock to Layton making the NDP the Official Opposition Party!!!! Wake me up when the dream is over ... LOL
Posted by: Observer at March 2, 2007 12:31 PM
It seems to be overlooked but wasn't there some sort of deal went down
involving Navdeep Bains bringing some 210 delegates from his Sikh
'community' to Dion?
Sounds like a DEAL to me, but what was it?
Do someone already already know the answer?
Posted by: Liz J at March 2, 2007 01:05 PM
OOPS! That should read "Does"someone already know?
Geeze, starting to latch on to Dionglish.
Posted by: Liz J at March 2, 2007 01:08 PM
Well, seeing that I hate polls, I still have to admit that Dion is entering some dangerous territory. He is losing respect with observers and voters. And, as Angry points out, it's unclear if Dion has the skills necessary to pull himself and his party out.
Duffy played a clip of Dion in question period yesterday. The guy is incapable of delivering a political message professionally.
I still think Dion has some time to get things in order. However, there must be some Liberals who think he's not up to the job, and they might have some justification for such views.
The fact of the matter is that, whatever the Libs decide to do with Dion, they're screwed either way.
Do you go on with him as a punching bag, or do you bite the bullet and hope an alternative will at least stop the slide.
I still think the latter will yield minimal gains at considerable loss in public perception.
You're still probably better off doing what you can with Dion and hoping he learns enough, instead of blowing everything up and starting all over again.
And for those who thing Iggy might be the answer, I remind you that only a couple of days ago he referred to the 9/11 families as a "sideshow". There is no messiah.
Posted by: Dennis (Second Thoughts) at March 2, 2007 01:37 PM
Maybe the public CBC & Rick Mercer can build a website
to have Stephane Dion's name changed to Celine.
Posted by: Levesque at March 2, 2007 02:54 PM
I'll bet the powers-that-be are kicking themselves about not scrapping the delegated conventions.
They can't really afford another, if required, and a delegated convention can lead to the same sort of gong show that got Dion into power.
Posted by: mecheng at March 2, 2007 02:59 PM
Garth Turners gotta be craning his neck looking for another ship to jump to...there's always that sinking ship called the NDP..he might fit right in there..
Posted by: Troy at March 2, 2007 03:24 PM
maybe Garth should run for leader of the LPC...hahaha...
Posted by: Troy at March 2, 2007 03:27 PM
A few observations:
How many people have noted that Garth Turncoat in QP never addresses the chair with the obligatory "Mr. Speaker" but instead with "Speaker"?
Similarly, listen for the next time that Peter Millikan uses the term "poor member" or "unfortunate member" or such like to reference the uproar caused by a question or answer in the House. I've been watching QP on a daily basis now for over 2 years, and these terms are always directed at the CPC - never the LPC - MPs.
Last, since citoyen Dion became the leader of the opposition, why is QP now overwhelmingly conducted in French? As the Quebecois are a minority of Canada's population, why have they been able to hijack our Parliament in this way? After a decade of listening to a PM speak in Shawiniganese, now we have one with PM aspirations who uses another obscure Quebecois dialect. Mr. Dion, take some English classes please; you're incomprehensible & unelectable.
Posted by: Alienated at March 2, 2007 03:57 PM
Re Frenchified QP .... Yup I too noticed the french bias to the Liberal questions, forcing Harper to respond in French. I think that the Conservatives should start responding in English to all the French from the Dion Liberals and Duceppe BQ ... it's getting sickening ... tabarnack ...!!!
Posted by: Observer at March 2, 2007 07:14 PM
Chretien succeeded because he (and Paul Martin) didn't 'act' like Liberals. They stole Manning's Blue Book, balanced the budgets and convinced enough Canadians that they were no more small-l-liberal than the Conservatives.
Not being a bright person, Dion has thrown that playbook in the garbage and taken a hard left turn, scaring middle-of-the-road Canadians straight into Harper's waiting arms.
To compound Dion's troubles, the MSM's nightly Global Warming freak-outs have carved the left from both the Liberals and the NDP, and sent them packing to the Green Party. Who would have thought that Peter Mansbridge, Lloyd Mansbridge and their flunkie Suzuki would be Harper's best friends?
Chretien proved that being functionally illiterate (in English), arrogant, bully isn't fatal. But throw in a good dose of stupidity, and they call you Dion, the soon to be former leader of the LPC.
Posted by: gwgm at March 2, 2007 09:42 PM
I still think that much of the attraction the masses had toward the Liberals is the ability of the Liberals to portray themselves as trendy and cool to the urban metrosexual. Times have begun to change as any society can only live in dreamland for so long. After a time reality bites and la la land loses its appeal. The Conservatives now have the task of not portraying themselves not allowing themselves to have any fun.
Posted by: joe at March 2, 2007 11:53 PM
It appears the Liberal machinery has become clogged with too many
operatives with artificial intelligence which is no match for their natural
stupidity.
Those who kept the SS Liberal afloat so successfully appear to have
abandoned ship over the past few years.
The Chretien /Martin feud for power brought down the Liberals.
The Adscam, the Inquiry brought to light just how low politics can go.
Inadvertently Martin did the Canadian people a favor by calling the Inquiry,
but took himself down with the ship. His nemesis is still out there somewhere
treading water, he's got one hell of a life jacket.
Posted by: Liz J at March 3, 2007 09:41 AM
 
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