The Liberal leadership race and the popularity of Justin Trudeau

I have been strongly influenced in my interpretation of polls and politics by a book I read about 20 years ago.  It is titled The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion and was written by UCLA political scientist John Zaller.  I want to quote a passage from Chapter 5: Making it up as you go along. After describing a polling experiment to test self-perception and awareness of political knowledge he says the following:

To state the matter more generally, most people aren't really sure what their opinions are on most political matters, including such completely personal matters are their level of interest in politics. They're not sure because their are few occasions, outside of a standard interview situation, in which they are called upon to formulate and express political opinions.  So, when confronted by rapid fire questions in a public opinion survey, they make up attitude reports as best they can as they go along. Because they are hurrying, they are heavily influenced by whatever ideas happen to be at the top of their mind.... This sort of dependence on immediately salient ideas is ubiquitous in public opinion polling....  

Zaller proceeds to argue that 'salience effects' are crucial in influencing responses including question order effects and the priming effects of TV news. A key influence of course is the influence of the words in the question.

One perception that has dominated the Liberal leadership race has been the idea that the popularity of Justin Trudeau would lead to large Liberal gains in an election. One reason for this has been several polls, including a series of surveys by Forum Research, that have asked the question: ‘If a federal election were held today, which party would you be most likely to vote for if Justin Trudeau were the Liberal leader?’ It leads Forum to describe the result in the headline in the particular poll just cited: Trudeau Liberals to Run Table.

This question does not mention the names of the other leaders that Trudeau would be competing against. Might this influence how some respondents reply to the question?  Another influence is the enduring popularity of Justin's father Pierre Trudeau who still tops polls such as this Angus Reid survey where respondents were asked to name the best PM since 1968.

TC's view on this, which I have blogged about before citing the example from 1993 of Kim Campbell, is that polls of this nature can be extremely misleading. A more recent Forum poll, released on March 8, does report an improvement in Liberal support in their standard party preference question where no leaders are mentioned.  One can make a reasonable argument that Justin Trudeau is having a modest positive impact on Liberal support but the headlines generated by the Forum poll such as this one in the National Post: "Liberals tied with Tories… but would win commanding victory with Justin Trudeau as leader: poll" are unreasonably inflating the hopes of Liberals.

Such polls capture momentary perceptions rooted in Justin Trudeau's reputation, which is influenced by memories of this father. What will matter is not how Mr. Trudeau performs against the other relatively weak Liberal candidates in debates (his most formidable potential opponent, Bob Rae, did not run), but how he carries out the job as leader once chosen as clearly he will be. When it comes to the next election due in October 2015 what will matter will be two and a half years of doing the job of party leader.To quote from a comment I made about the NDP leadership race, what matters in the end are a list of the "important aspects of leadership: the role of the party chief as motivator, cheerleader, reconciler of the inevitable party factions, lead party organizer, most important fund raiser, and chief executive officer."

The polls published during a leadership race should be viewed as of limited importance: the skills, experience and character of the person selected are what matters. Justin Trudeau has a legendary name but limited experience and a party weakened by decades of decline (see my series from 2010 on this). He faces a highly uncertain future.

New Ontario poll has good news for Wynne

Innovative Research released a poll this week headlined Early Signs Positive for Wynne.  The poll suggests all may not be lost for the Ontario Liberals now that they have changed leaders.  In particular, it is clear from the poll results that being a lesbian is not going to be a political liability for Wynne.  TC thinks this is part of a broader shift of public opinion to a positive view of homosexuality. Half of the poll sample believe that it is a "good thing" Ontario has a lesbian Premier and another 28% express neutrality on the subject. Just 9% strongly disagree. Being a woman is also an asset, as 71% agree that "It's exciting to have a woman as Premier."

From the perspective of the Liberals, the poll has another key finding.  Only 30% either strongly or somewhat agree with the statement "After the past few years, I am so angry at the Ontario Liberals, I will never vote for them again." (See page 26 for the results discussed). So, despite all the floundering of the McGuinty government, enough of the electorate is still open to voting to Liberal to give the party more than faint hope.

More interesting is the specific challenge that must be met.  When asked what was "the single most important change" hoped for from Wynne, some 17% want an end to the teachers' dispute (this was the most frequent response and the number rises to 21% if we include only those who had a response). Support for the NDP has risen significantly since the last election but if Wynne reverses the rightward drift of the Ontario Liberals some could move back.

The survey also found only 8% wanted a balanced budget/deficit reduction or control of spending.  As my previous post argued: austerity is not the path to political success.  In this survey, of those offering a response, over half wanted action on the teacher's dispute, improved health care, education, social issues or immigration.  A collection of responses I would label as reflecting a right-wing outlook commands only 17.5%.

I discovered this survey on a posting on the ThreeHundredEight.com site.  The site also aggregates recent Ontario polls.  Over the past two months while Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak has been aggressively releasing a series of very conservative policy papers, support for the party has been the following (beginning with the oldest survey): 37, 35, 35, 33, 32, 30. You get the picture.

Note that the managing director of the Innovative Research Group, Greg Lyle, is a former chief of staff to former Manitoba PC Premier Gary Filmon. The one important qualification one must make regarding this survey is that the sample size at 446 has a somewhat large ± 4.6 percentage points margin of error.

Ontario's new Premier: the poisoned chalice

The Ontario Liberals have chosen a new leader who will within days become Ontario's Premier.  She sets precedents as the first female and first gay in that post. Her victory was clearly a product of Wynne's excellent political skills.  She will need them. The weekend convention was greeted by a new Forum Research poll putting support for the Liberal party in third place.

Bob Rae once joked that he had always wanted to be Ontario's premier in the worst way and he got his wish. He was alluding to a situation that also confronts Kathleen Wynne, who politely refers to "facing challenges". Ontario's economy experienced a severe recession in the early years of the Rae NDP government in the early nineties. As a consequence the province's finances suffered a severe setback. There were political and media pressures to follow a program of  spending cuts to achieve a "balanced budget". Rae resisted at first but later became a strong convert to cutting spending. Wynne enters office facing a similar situation. However, the McGuinty government has already committed the province to make deficit reduction a priority. Rae's fate should have served as a warning. It is no accident that third place beckons.

In addition, the party has encountered a series of headline-grabbing scandals. TC's view is that the political damage from the Liberal government's program of austerity and the general sense of malaise that comes from economic stagnation are the greater problems. The confrontation with teachers whatever else it entails, ultimately stems from an effort to cut spending.

In addition, although we live in a world where many have difficulty recognizing it, austerity causes the economy to contract not expand. See this excellent post on "The Austerity Delusion" from the economics blog Not the Treasury View. It is true that Canadian provinces are subject to the international trade winds, and can see their own efforts to stimulate offset by recessionary forces from abroad. However, Ontario actually trades principally with a jurisdiction, the United States, now experiencing at least moderate growth as a consequence of the Obama stimulus - not large enough but producing far better results than the UK or Europe (see Austerity Delusion above). Getting the economy really moving again should be our top priority not deficit reduction.

Crime: real causes can get overlooked. Think lead.

Stephen Harper has made crime a key legislative and political priority.

No need to review that fact that crime rates are dropping and his solutions, which are all variants of "get tough" (with the exception of getting rid of the gun registry) are stupid, irrelevant, and a product of the over-reporting of crime by local TV news causing people to be unduly fearful of becoming victims (see here and here and here).

However, the other day I saw this tweet from blogger Matt Yglesias, which told me to stop what I was doing and read this Mother Jones article by Kevin Drum.  Titled "America's Real Criminal Element: Lead" it is about the links between lead in the environment and crime rates over time, but a lot of other bad stuff too. Yglesias was right: read it now.

Canadian Guns

In reacting to the gun issue that arose out of Newton, an old friend but non-blogger sent me the following about Canada:

In February 2012, when the Conservative government passed legislation that killed the long gun registry, I disapproved but said and did nothing. I thought: this is what Canada gets by electing a conservative and populist government dependent on rural seats.

Now, I’m very ashamed of myself and regret my silence.

When children were slaughtered in Connecticut in December, my friends and I engaged in conversations about the deplorable state of US gun regulation and the failure of morality in that society. But we also realized we cannot be smug in relation to our neighbours. Within the past year, Canada’s government had also rejected a policy of gun control. We had rejected an effort to become a more civilized society and resolutely turned backwards.

The Government of Canada should be ashamed of itself.

The only people who have had the courage to protest the regressive end to the gun registry are Quebecers, and we should thank them and give them credit for their stance.

Belatedly, I have contemplated writing to the Prime Minister to express my shame and dismay at the decision taken last year. But I realized that is a waste of paper – I live in an urban riding and my voice is irrelevant to the current government. But I think Canadians everywhere should recognize their basic humanity and the importance of striving always to form a more civilized society. Canada appears to be 12^th in the world in per capita possession of guns. What conceivable excuse have we for this status?

None I think.

Most disturbing thing I have seen about Newton

Here is my cut down version From the Talking Points Memo blog:

From TPM Reader SS

I’m a pretty left-of-center liberal. Read TPM regularly. Donated nearly $1,000 to BHO’s re-election campaign. But I was raised with guns. More to the point, my childhood was steeped in gun lore: I learned to hand-load ammunition when I was 10 and 11, and - by the time I was 14 - my dad was trusting me to prepare my own handloads. I could (and to some extent, still can) recite chapter and verse of firearms arcana, from muzzle velocities - a product of the type of gunpowder used in one’s handloads; of the weight (in grains) of a projectile; of the length of a gun’s barrel (the longer, the faster); of the temperature and elevation at which one is shooting - to impact energy (measured in footpounds), to trajectories (flatter for heavier bullets; some calibers have an innate advantage over others), and so on. I bring this up to establish my bona-fides. The gun culture that we have today in the U.S. is not the gun culture, so to speak, that I remember from my youth. It’s too simple to say that it’s “sick;” it’s more accurately an absurd fetishization. ...

The guns that I grew up with (in the late-1970’s and 1980’s) were bolt-action rifles: non-automatic weapons, with organic fixtures - i.e., stocks - and limited magazine capacities. ...

I was raised nominally to hunt, although we didn’t do much of that: once a year, at most. More frequently, we’d go to the range and shoot at targets. So I grew up practicing, and enjoying, what’s commonly called benchrest rifle shooting. I still do so (to a limited extent) today....

I can’t remember seeing a semi-automatic weapon of any kind at a shooting range until the mid-1980’s. Even through the early-1990’s, I don’t remember the idea of “personal defense” being a decisive factor in gun ownership. The reverse is true today: I have college-educated friends - all of whom, interestingly, came to guns in their adult lives - for whom gun ownership is unquestionably (and irreducibly) an issue of personal defense. For whom the semi-automatic rifle or pistol - with its matte-black finish, laser site, flashlight mount, and other “tactical” accoutrements - effectively circumscribe what’s meant by the word “gun.” ...

The “tactical” turn is what I want to flag here. It has what I take to be a very specific use-case, but it’s used - liberally - by gun owners outside of the military, outside of law enforcement, outside (if you’ll indulge me) of any conceivable reality-based community: these folks talk in terms of “tactical” weapons, “tactical” scenarios, “tactical applications,” and so on. It’s the lingua franca of gun shops, gun ranges, gun forums, and gun-oriented Youtube videos. (My god, you should see what’s out there on You Tube!) Which begs my question: in precisely which “tactical” scenarios do all of these lunatics imagine that they’re going to use their matte-black, suppressor-fitted, flashlight-ready tactical weapons? They tend to speak of the “tactical” as if it were a fait accompli; as a kind of apodeictic fact: as something that everyone - their customers, interlocutors, fellow forum members, or YouTube viewers - experiences on a regular basis, in everyday life.

They tend to speak of the tactical as reality. And I think there’s a sense in which they’ve constructed their own (batshit insane) reality.

One in which we have to live.

The federal by-elections

Quite unusually the November 26 federal by-elections produced a set of outcomes that managed to deliver bad news in one form or another for all the parties including the Green Party, which actually won large shares of the popular vote in Victoria and Calgary Centre representing large gains over 2011. However, these two constituencies previously featured the sixth and ninth best performances by the Green party in the 2011 election.  Having just three by-elections to contest therefore was as about as good an opportunity as one could ask for to break through and win another riding. But the first-past-the-post electoral system in Canada is remorseless. Big increases in popular vote in two of your strongest ridings that don't produce victories represents a setback. It is not surprising that the Greens are enthusiastic supporters of cooperation among the non-Conservative parties: they would have the most to gain.

The Conservatives won two constituencies but relatively speaking lost ground in all three provinces, although their loss in Ontario was small enough that it might be seen as satisfactory. TC takes the individual results and calculates what a provincial outcome comparable to the 2011 result would look like.  For the Conservatives that would be about 40.5% in Ontario compared to their 44.2% in 2011.  Their relative losses in BC and Alberta were much greater, and in Victoria their poor performance (14.5% compared to 23.5% in 2011) could justifiably be regarded by them with alarm about what it might say about the province as a whole.

The Liberals have been doing well in national polls recently but there was no evidence in the November 26th results of their recent gains at the national level. Perhaps there is no Trudeaumania II outside the confines of the Liberal Party. On the other hand the David McGuinty/Justin Trudeau comments about Alberta did not seem to hurt the Liberals in Calgary Centre where the outcome was not far off the pre-election polls, and a marked improvement for the Liberals over 2011. The Liberals finished in third place in 2011 and have a long way to come back.  These results cannot be seen as encouraging.

The NDP picked up some ground in Durham and finished a poor fourth in Calgary Centre and they were no doubt disappointed by their weak result in Victoria despite winning. It was the one contest that featured a debate about a local policy issue - whether or not there should be a new treatment plant for Victoria's sewage.  Only NDP candidate Murray Rankin strongly supported the plant while the others were opposed (including, remarkably, via some fairly tortured logic Green candidate Donald Galloway), and even, in the case of the Conservative candidate Dale Gann, if it meant reversing previous support.  The case for proceeding with the proposed new plant is well-argued here on the blog of Victoria City Councillor Ben Isitt (who unsuccessfully sought the Victoria NDP nomination).  It appears that most Victorians wish to avoid future local tax increases at the expense of pollution continuing to flow unabated into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. There were two good columns on this topic by Victoria Times-Colonist columnist Les Leyne here and here.

One other factor may have been the anti-Mulcair radio campaign that has been running frequently on Vancouver radio stations and likely also in Victoria, something the national NDP may need to regard with alarm.