If You Had to Choose the Next Happy Meal, Which Meal Would You Choose?

This recent Gandalf poll seems a bit dodgy. The survey talked to 1,000 random Canadians. Here is the key question: "If you had to vote for the next Liberal leader, who among the candidates would you vote for?" The response was: Dryden 19%, Rae 17%, Ignatieff 10%, Dion 8%, Bennett 6%, Kennedy 4%.

So here's an equivalent kind of question: If you had to choose the next Happy Meal at Macdonalds, what would you choose? The options are: roasted vegetables on foccaccia; bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich; deep-fried worms; or flaming bananas.

You might be a vegetarian who wouldn't be caught dead in Macdonalds but you support the concept of healthy alternatives so you choose the roasted vegetable sandwich, even though you don't plan to ever buy it. You might be an employee of Burger King and so you choose fried worms in the hopes of messing with the competition. You might not take any of this seriously and so think, Hey man, flaming bananas. Imagine all the kitchen fires! I'm going for that one.

So maybe our Macdonalds pollsters broke out the numbers for declared Macdonalds customers. Even then, the respondents might have the following thought processes: Geeze, foccaccia, never heard of it. I guess I have to choose the BLT, just because I know what it is (even though after an advertising campaign I'd realize that foccaccia is just a fancy name for white bread, and I'd prefer it). Or: This place is so stodgy, we need to shake it up. I don't care how; we just need change. And so I'm choosing flaming bananas, even though I'll never order them. Or: Wow, BLT, that would make a nice lunch; I'll pick that.

To the Gandalf question, "If you had to vote for the next Liberal leader, who among the candidates would you vote for?", people identified as Liberal voters answered: Dryden and Rae each 19%, Ignatieff 12%, Dion 8%, Kennedy 7%, Bennett 5%. Keep in mind though that only 30% of the respondents identified themselves as Liberals, so this data is based on 300 people across the country. Not enough.

Perhaps the biggest problem with "If you had to vote for the next Liberal leader, who among the candidates would you vote for?" is that it is ambiguous. Did respondents interpret it as, "If you had to choose the next Liberal leader, who would you choose?" or "If you had to vote Liberal in the next election, which leadership candidate would you rather vote for?" (Would you think it meant, "What do you think Macdonalds should put on its menu?" or "If you had to buy one of these meals, which one would you buy?")

Asking "if you had to choose..." tries to force people to come up with a response. A more meaningful question might be, "If the following items were on the menu, would you be likely to order them?" Or in the case of the Gandalf poll: "If Ken Dryden were leader of the LPC, would you vote Liberal?"

Way down at the end of the report the survey addresses this question. The question is "How likely would you be to vote for the LPC if it were led by the following candidates in the next election?" This is a fairly typical polling question that is designed to determine the pool of potential voters for each candidate (made up of respondents who say they are very likely, somewhat likely, or don't know whether they would vote Liberal if that person were leader).

In the Gandalf survey, the candidates for whom respondents said they were certain or likely to vote Liberal are: Rae 21%, Dryden 20%, Dion and Ignatieff each 16%, Bennett 13%, Kennedy 12%, Brison 11%, Findlay 10%. But the numbers also reveal the following:

* In another section of the survey, 70% of respondents said that they'd vote for a party other than the Liberals, but in response to this question, no more than 42% said they'd be unlikely to vote Liberal if any of the candidates were leader.
* In another section of the survey, 30% of the respondents said they'd vote Liberal, but in response to this question, at most 8% said they were certain to vote Liberal if a specific candidate were leader.

This shows incredible softness in opinion on both Liberal support and non-Liberal support. It might be useful data in a trend (Decima is guaging the potential voter pool on a repeating basis to show just that) but it's not clear how useful it is as a snapshot.

The report makes some claims that may be beyond its sampling. For example, it says, "In Quebec, Conservatives are now in a fight to hold their seats, and could lose up to seven of them to the BQ. BQ could come out of an election with 60 or more seats." This survey sampled 1,000 Canadians. If they made sure that the number of responses from each province was proportionate to the electorate, then about 250 of those surveyed were in Quebec. This seems like a small sample to forecast the outcome of over 60 ridings. To say anything about the outcome of any riding, I'd like to see a much better sample.

I'm very interested to see the results of the leadership convention delegate selections, which are due out in October. Until then I'd put surveys like this in the "yappa ding ding" category. Yappa ding ding is a Garifuna term meaning "something worth less than nothing".

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Rainmaker

Here are some excerpts from Keith Davey's 1986 political memoir, Rainmaker: A Passion for Politics. In case there's anyone who doesn't remember, Davey was a Liberal heavyweight: at various times party director, national campaign chairman, senator, strategist and advisor to prime ministers Pearson, Trudeau and Turner.

Some Secrets of His Success

When Davey met with his boss, he always made sure he brought a list of problems, at least half of which he had solutions for. When he attended a meeting, he brought agenda items that he was prepared to introduce and speak to.

On Party Renewal

A successive series of caretaking party administrations had gradually allowed the Liberal focus to shift away from the party and move in the direction of the Prime Minister's Office, the ministerial offices and the caucus. It was a subtle shift and the inevitable reality of a party so long in office. I, for one, had had a much easier time achieving things as party director because for much of that period we were the Opposition. - page 202 (talking about 1974)

Each new generation of Liberals seeks to alter that status quo with an enthusiasm which varies in direct ratio to the Gallup poll. In this regard, I well remember a Young Liberals Conference at Presqu'ile in 1957, not long after John Diefenbaker had defeated Louis St. Laurent. The talk was all about the "brass being out of touch with the grass," a theme which Mr. Pearson carried into his leadership campaign. A few years later when I became national director of the party and took as my watchwords, "communication and involvement," I simply represented that new generation of Liberals seeking to resolve identical problems. - page 283

On Elections

In the final analysis any campaign comes down to one major issue, whether it is personality or a policy (either a bread-and-butter issue or sometimes a placard or non-economic issue). Having determined the best issue, then that becomes the issue of the campaign. Polling is extremely useful in making this determination. ...The 1960 US election offers an early example of how and why polling works. The Democrats had to go to the seventh rated issue of concern to find the American people giving the Republican government a negative rating. That issue was the US image abroad and the Kennedys amplified it, bringing in such points of reference as Quemoy and Matsu - obscure Chinese islands unheard of before or since. - page 45

Our 1974 campaign strategy came easily. The facts were obvious. Not only was inflation the overwhelming number one issue of concern, nine out of ten Canadians thought the Liberal government was not handling it very well. However, when we compared the leadership characteristics of Pierre Trudeau with Bob Stanfield, it was an absolute rout for the prime minister. ...Our strategy was obvious. If people went in to vote thinking about prices, we had to lose; but if they were thinking about leadership, we had to win. Inflation was the problem and leadership was the issue. The Tories should have tried to make the opposite case, but instead of talking about the problem of inflation and making it their issue, they offered their solution. Any solution they offered would have been a critical strategic mistake... - page 177

I had come into politics for some very altruistic reasons, but mostly to try to help people help themselves. This would always mean broad social programs. ...In terms of practical politics, it is when the Liberal party shifts to the right that we lose elections. I have always believed that the Liberal party wins elections when we are most liberal. - page 38

An important campaign reality is not to play the Oppositions's game. Do not talk about their issues. If they say, for example, "You're fat," the response should not be, "I'm not." It should be, "You're bald." - page 339

[Re John Turner's election defeat] Essentially what had happened to the Liberal party was that after 25 successful years at centre-left, it had in only two months assumed a centre-right position. - page 346

The two most critical periods in a campaign are the first ten days and the last ten days. - page 196

On Leadership Races

Convention politics and election politics are very different games. At a leadership convention you lead to your weaknesses... To win a convention you need to satisfy the faithful about those weaknesses. - page 160

On Governing

Trudeau... endorsed as a solution [to inflation] some kind of temporary wage and price control - the very thing he had earlier rejected so strenuously. The prime minister did not blink, though he knew his critics would be out in force: a flip-flop at best, they would say, or at worst, downright deception. It was neither. Pierre Trudeau simply made a courageous decision, observing that only a fool would lock himself into any position forever. Situations change and so must solutions to problems. - page 201

Keith Davey's Ten Commandments of Canadian Liberalism (page 55)

1. Revere the leader.
2. Remember a leader is never cooked until people start to laugh at him.
3. Stay on the road to reform; keep left of centre.
4. Hang together.
5. Build a poll organization worthy of the name.
6. Lead to your strengths in campaigns; to your weakness in conventions.
7. Never negotiate through fear; never fear to negotiate.
8. Remember that in politics, perception is reality.
9. Recruit new, bright, young people.
10. Avoid public humour, but laugh a lot in private.

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