We've now seen three polls out in the last few days — from EKOS, Ipsos Reid, and Harris Decima — all of which show the Conservatives up by about five percentage points and the Liberals down.
So what was going on just before the polling period that caused this swing? Easy: Conservative ads attacking Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. Ask any Conservative involved in this ad buy and these poll results all seem perfectly predictable. Negative ads work and will generally produce a swing of five or six percentage points. The Conservative “ad buy”, party sources have told me, was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, ad buy the party has made outside of an election period. And, just like any advertiser, the Conservative Party wouldn't spend the money if it didn't get results.
This seems such an obvious point but it's one that I've yet to see any of the news stories explaining these poll results circle that as the factor that moved the polls. UPDATE: Pollster Frank Graves points out that, in news coverage of his firm's poll, he did indeed attribute the move to the Tory ad campaign and I am grateful for his reminder.
Does it show “momentum” for one party or the other? No, of course not. Momentum would exist if we saw two or more polls from the same organization that showed climbing numbers.
And, just as negative ads attacking the Liberals worked against the Liberals and helped the Conservatives, I think it reasonable to assume that a series of negative ads attacking the Conservatives would have a similar effect. The Liberals did roll out two 15-second spots in response to the Tory attack ads but simply did not have the money to buy as much airtime as the Conservatives did.
Negative ads for the sake of negative ads won't necessarily work for the Liberals, of course. The Conservative have done an amazing job of pinpointing weaknesses in Liberal leaders early on, and then exploiting them. It's unclear if their opponents can do the same, or if Harper has even given them enough material.
I am not enjoying the permanent American style campaiging type atmosphere that has crept into this country over the past few years. Maybe we should be considering legislation that restricts political advertising to actual election periods, once an election is called. Let the ruling party's actions and decisions, as well as those of the opposition, speak for themeselves in the interim. The constant barrage of political infomercials is really insulting. Utopian idea I know, but refreshing to think about it.
Shorter MbMan, my side is losing….more gov't NOW!
There's two kinds of “working”: whether they work for the party, and whether they work for the nation/institution. Clearly they work for the one, but they are playing Jenga with the other.