Iowa - not just a win for Obama

Here is the information I was looking for this morning post-Iowa:

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Iowa Democratic Party officials reported 234,000 caucus attendees, compared to 124,000 in 2004. With 93 percent of GOP precincts reporting, 112,349 Republicans had participated in their caucus, up from the 87,666 who participated in 2000.

I also like this comment on Kos about the turnout:

In 2000, the last time there was a caucus in both parties, Republicans turned out 87,000 voters, while Democrats produced 59,000. There are around 600,000 registered Democrats in Iowa, and about 550,000 Republicans, but when you consider that on caucus nights, Republicans just need to show up and point to a name, while Democrats are committing to two hours of public wrangling, it's not a surprise that more Republicans show up to be "first in the nation."

Except for yesterday.

When the Des Moines Register poll was predicated on a turnout of 200,000, I was scornful. And they were wrong -- but only because they were too conservative.

Last night, the Republicans produced around 115,000 voters -- an impressive 30% increase.

But the Democrats turned out 236,000. That's an increase of roughly one whole helluva lot.

Hillary is still well-financed and organized enough to carry on to February 5th so the contest will continue, but the key outcome is in the numbers just cited. I think they are a clear indicator of the year as a whole.

Iowa - Beginning and End?

The American election process begins today with the Iowa caucuses and it has been drowning in media attention. However, one key fact that defines why it is important is almost never mentioned: being the first to win has become the be all and end all partly because of the political media culture that above all celebrates success. Winning the first state in recent elections has caused instant growth in support even for transparently weak candidates such as John Kerry because the fact of success becomes the central theme of media coverage and the bandwagon effect thereby created becomes self-reinforcing.

I would prefer to see the contest this time last at least until February 5th (when there will be primaries or caucuses in 20 states) simply because that day there will be a large enough number of primaries in enough big states for the process to do a better job of finding the best candidate. It has a chance to do so on the Republican side but only because all the candidates are seen one way or another as being seriously flawed by some key Republican constituency. The Republican contest is less important to TC as in his view it is simply going to chose a loser. The incumbent party is responsible for a major war, which will be longer than Vietnam (as a major conflict if we date large scale U.S. involvement as being from early 1965 to the 1973 Paris Peace Accords) within three years. It is also a party likely to bear responsibility for an impending recession.

On the Democratic side I see John Edwards as the most realistic of the candidates in recognizing the need to deal with a highly class divided and unequal society, but it looks more and more to me like Barack Obama could sweep all before him. He has been rightly attacked by the likes of Paul Krugman for a campaign that leans too far to the right on crucial issues such as health care, although I think his early opposition to the war in Iraq is a key offset to that. But his real political cachet is an argument that he is the candidate of hope. There is no doubt that in the past political campaigns in the U.S. (Reagan 84) and in Canada (1993 Chrétien Liberal) that offered a persuasive optimistic message, no matter how loose or vague the actual commitments in the fine print, were enormously successful.

Obama appears to have the combination of qualities for that kind of political success. However, anti-black racism remains a fact of American life. While I don't think it sufficient to deny him victory in November, it is likely that his lead on election day in November will be smaller than the closing polls suggest because of this factor. However that won't matter today. His problem for Iowa is that it is a process dominated in the past by the highly active party regulars. Obama needs to transform his ability to appeal to the typically non-involved into votes at evening meetings. The premise of the Des Moines Register poll of a few days ago that gave him a significant lead was that he could do this.

2008 Federal Election

There was a new poll of federal party preferences released today by Probe Research in Manitoba. It produced numbers that are almost a replica of the 2006 Election:

C – 44% (compared to 42.8% in 2006)

Liberal – 26% (identical to 2006)

NDP – 24% (compared to 25.4% in 2006)

You get the picture. These numbers would likely produce the same 8 C, 3 L, 3 NDP result in Manitoba as in 2006.

The national polls fluctuate depending on news but I suspect there is a core of truth in the Probe poll that applies more broadly. Most likely the campaign will shape the outcome in which case the underlying reality, which appears to have changed little since January 2006 despite the ups and downs of government and opposition in 2007, will matter little.

As this CP report summarizes:

When the year began, Harper's Conservatives were sitting at 34 per cent in public opinion approval, according to Harris-Decima, just ahead of the Liberals at 31 per cent. The NDP was at 15 and the Green party at eight per cent.

As 2007 draws to a close, Harris-Decima's rolling three-week averages had the Tories hovering around 34 per cent, the Liberals at 29, the NDP at 15 and the Greens polling 11 per cent.

In Quebec, Bloc Québécois support has dropped to around 36 per cent from 43 at the start of the year.

However, the government does look to be finishing 2008 on a down. The most recent Ipsos and Angus Reid polls report weaker numbers that appear to be a result of the Brian Mulroney-Karlheinz Schreiber show. According to my forecast model, the Ipsos poll would give us a Liberal victory with 140 seats while Reid’s numbers would put the Conservatives ahead but with just 117 seats. Blending the two sets of numbers gives us a narrow Liberal win of 127 seats to 118 for the Conservatives and 16 for the NDP.

The holiday season has driven the Schreiber affair from the headlines so its influence may not persist. More ominously, for Harper and the rest of us, the government is now acknowledging that it faces serious economic pressures. However, such early warnings will not exempt it from the inevitable political fallout (which may well still be some months down the road).

On the opposition side I suspect (but can’t prove) that Dion is consulting closely with Jean Chrétien. If so he is keeping it very secret. He has appointed John Rae and David Smith, two of Chrétien’s key political operatives, to key posts. The media interpretation emphasized their 2006 leadership connections, but I think the links to the former PM are more important. This has the potential to be a real source of strength for a leader whose weak grasp of the English language remains his greatest liability.

All the polls have shown growth for the Greens compared to 2006. Even though I think this support is overstated, it is important. The Angus Reid poll numbers actually produce one Green seat (but it is not Central Nova). I feel certain that in some way, shape or form, Elizabeth May will endorse the Liberals towards the end of the next campaign and this could potentially have a significant impact (if every Green vote had gone Liberal in 2006 Paul Martin would still be Prime Minister). Most prognoses ignore her role in this regard despite the fact that she has a deal with Dion and has defended him in the media. It is completely untypical of a party leader (bizarre is one word that comes to mind) because the potential to help the Liberals is equally the potential to hurt the Greens. Its abnormality is precisely what makes it difficult to weigh its impact. Although it is generally overlooked now, it might make a great deal of difference in a campaign.

Also somewhat overlooked is that the NDP’s numbers have generally held up (despite their weakness in the last Ipsos survey). They are averaging about a point below their 2006 showing (recent Liberal and Conservative fortunes have been worse). The growth of the Greens has hurt all parties including the NDP. Although Layton continues to vastly outpoll Dion and May in the leadership stakes, TC regards leadership polling numbers as a relatively weak predictor of electoral success. The NDP enters the electoral season, however, with no obvious weaknesses: it does have good leadership, strong organization and adequate finances. It needs issue leverage to make progress (and avoid losses) but it isn’t obvious how that could be accomplished.

Bloc numbers are down somewhat but not enough yet to make a significant difference in the outcome in Quebec despite Stephen Harper’s fawning attentions.

In the U.S. the underlying poll numbers make it clear a political sea change is underway. The future in Canada is not nearly so obvious.

Mulroney-Schreiber and the Polls

As we head into Christmas week we have now heard from both Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber on the Airbus/Bear Head affairs. The key political impact TC thinks is likely a neutralizing effect on the next campaign: it takes scandal off the table as a tool the Conservatives could use against the Liberals. TC did not actually believe that running on sponsorship again was viable but the Conservatives have continued to brag about the Accountability Act and may have entertained thoughts of using the issue again. Effectively sponsorship is neutralized because if the issue arises many will start thinking of Mulroney-Schreiber. The winners then would be the NDP and the Bloc so the two major parties look like they will try to stage an electoral battle on other issues.

Where are we at in the polls? On November 20 Harris Decima declared:

A new Canadian Press Harris/Decima survey shows that the Conservatives have opened up an eight point lead over the Liberals, and are so far escaping harm from the fallout of the Mulroney-Schreiber dispute.

Then on December 8 Ipsos weighed in with a released headlined “Tory Brand Splashed As Schreiber Mud Flies” that said:

it would appear that the Harper Conservative brand has taken a hit with support dropping to 35%, mainly as a result of sagging Tory fortunes in Ontario and Quebec.

When I averaged those two polls along with the Globe and Mail Strategic Counsel poll published on December 10, I find that the national numbers for the parties are all within 2 points of their performance in January 2006 with the exception of the Greens who are up around five points. TC thinks the polls (especially Strategic Counsel) overstate Green support so it seems likely the parties are closer to the last election result than even the polls suggest.

The two issues to watch for in an election that seems certain for March or April (and which is even more likely if the Mulroney inquiry proceeds because it would occur prior to any public phase of the investigation) are climate change and the economy (the pending U.S. recession may start to loom larger and larger).

But is there more to the Mulroney story? His former Chief of Staff Norman Spector seems to think so. Here is what he said about the Bear Head project today on CTV’s Question Period (see it here:

..the reason that ministers and in particular the prime minister have staff around them is to keep dubious people and to keep dubious projects well away from them yet here you had the prime minister's first chief of staff championing this project, even after leaving government. Mr. Doucette formed a lobby firm and was championing Karlheinz Schreiber's project… I dealt with this project when I was in the prime minister's office and steered it into a deep ditch. I thought it had been killed, Mr. Mulroney said it was dead, but here's a project that kept coming back time after time after time, rising like the phoenix from the ashes… I think it's one of the reasons, along with the cash, that many Canadians believe that there's got to be more here than meets the eye.

There appears to be much more to this story and I suspect we haven't heard the last of it.

While the issue seems unlikely to touch Harper directly, it means he can’t be seen conferring or consulting Mulroney on Quebec. Harper has invested so much political capital (TC thinks this is a futile effort) to replicate Mulroney’s 1984 and 1988 results in Quebec that not being able to consult closely with Mulroney is a real handicap. Mulroney may not be the politician in Canada with the greatest integrity but he does know Quebec politics.

Australian Election and Climate Change

Australia has a single member electoral system like Canada but it uses a preferential ballot. That means that if the leading candidate has less than 50% of the vote, second (and third choices) are counted until one candidate reaches 50%.

The Australian Labour Party has won a majority but there are still some undecided seats. One is La Trobe in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. The Liberal Party (in Australia a small 'c' conservative party) was ahead on the first count but, according to Australian Broadcasting, is likely to lose it on the second choices of Australian Green voters going to Labour. Labour's commitments and the impact of the electoral system (Labour isn't likely forget the role of Green second choices in this election and the potential in the future) likely mean that Australia will go from being a climate change laggard to a leader - one Labour commitment is to immediately ratify Kyoto.

This comes on a weekend when Stephen Harper has demonstrated yet again just how little priority he gives to climate change (indeed one is left with the impression that he simply wouldn't do anything if politics did not matter). Read this analysis of Harper's behaviour by Accidental Deliberations. I think he nails it.

Australian Election, Harper & Climate Change

The Australian election takes place this Saturday, November 24 and Stephen Harper's best international friend, John Howard, is about to lose to the Australian Labour Party (ALP).

The most important aspect of this is that Australia is going to join Kyoto post-election when Labour's leader Kevin Rudd becomes Prime Minister, further isolating Canada on the climate change issue. Take a look at these ads from the ALP:





They could apply to longtime global warming denier Stephen Harper.

Saskatchewan Election Polls

There have been three polls released in the Saskatchewan election, all completed one week or more prior to the actual vote, so there is still some room for movement. One is by Insightrix Research, another by Sigma Analytics, and a third from Winnipeg-based Probe Research.

Averaged together the poll numbers are:

Saskatchewan Party - 51.7%
NDP - 34%
Liberal - 9.1%
Green and Others - 5.1%

The yields the following seat distribution:

Saskatchewan Party - 37
NDP - 21

After 16 years in office the longest-serving administration in Canada (apart from that one party state in Alberta) is going out of office.