Of polls and provinces

Lots of excitement today among the mainstream media over polls showing the Conservatives in the lead. Of course you have to wade through twelve paragraphs of this CTV story to find this relevant point:

In Ontario, the three February surveys average out to marginal 37-35 lead for the Liberals over the Conservatives, with the NDP at 16 per cent and the Greens at 11.

And in Quebec, the rolling averages put Bloc support at 38 per cent, followed by the Liberals at 23, the Tories at 16, the Greens at 10 and seven per cent for the NDP.

First past the post remember folks? If the Tories have gotten a big boost in support in Alberta or Saskatchewan, it means essentially dick. Two feet past the post or two-hundred feet past the post means exactly the same thing.

These polls are bad news for the Tories, no matter how much wistful establishment journos massage the numbers. Stasis or decline in Ontario and Quebec for the Tories numbers does not bode well for holding onto their minority - much less getting a majority.

Any Tory supporters who take deceptive national poll numbers seriously without taking into account provincial breakdowns is in for an unpleasant surprise come election day in... shall we say May? June? Depends if the Tories think the Canadian people are dumb enough to fall for intensity per barrel targets that allow the oil fields to increase rather than reduce their assault on the environment.