For Whom the Poll Tells

Today’s Big Number is Thirty-Eight(38).

With the comfortable space of 2 years between them and the last election, and with the next one hovering tantalizingly on the horizon, the latest Angus Reid poll shows the CPC well ahead at 38%.  38%… I can almost hear the saliva dripping from conservative fangs across the nation… 38%… so close and yet so far.

Or maybe not.  The poll also finds the LPC in somewhat more disarray than could be considered strategically opportune at this pivotal pre-election moment.  Once again a majority of LPC voters are expressing dissatisfaction with their party’s leadership.  Only 38% would keep Iggy as leader, and the rest would presumably drop him like a dead donkey:

While large majorities of Tory and NDP supporters are content with Stephen Harper and Jack Layton, only 38 per cent of Liberal voters in 2008 would keep Michael Ignatieff at the helm.

38% of Liberal voters would keep Iggy at the helm?  38% of the Canadian electorate would vote CPC?  Coincidence?  Hmm??

But check out the “Attributes” section of the poll.  Respondents were scathing in their assessment of Ignatieff, saying he was more boring and out of touch, less intelligent, and only slightly less arrogant than Harper:

Does that mean Iggy’s 7% more boring than Stephen Harper?  That’s quite an achievement, when you think about it.

Are MC Harper’s little musical interludes working their PR magic?   Come on Iggy, time for some one-upmanship:  think Ladies’ Night at the Eldorado.  You might still lose the next election, but nobody will call you “boring”.