Poor Polls Indicate Approval For Dion and Bad News for Venezuela

CTV ran an article with the title 'Poll gives Dion 55% approval from Canadians' . Let me take this apart for you.

I'm not going to call liberal bias, I'm just going to call bad reporting and bad statistics. Two-thirds down the page, the article notes that "Only about 34 [sic] of Canadians say they followed the campaign closely". Now tell me this, assuming that they meant 34%, how can the other 66% of people answer the pollster's question when they didn't follow the campaign closely? There may be those who would criticize me for bringing this up, as the statement says that they followed the campaign 'closely'. It could be argued that this doesn't include people who followed the campaign to an extent that they didn't self-report to be 'closely'. Let's be clear. Dion was not a favourite. If one didn't follow the Liberal leader campaign closely, it is very likely that one would not know much at all about Dion. Heck, I consider myself to have followed the campaign very closely, and I had to scramble to find out all the information on Dion I could find when he won the race. The question assumes the person answering is competent enough to answer it, which is not the case for the large majority of Canadians.

To top it off, the article also happens to mention that "27 per cent polled either didn't know or refused to answer the Dion question". As a result, the quite small number of people who both decided to answer the question and followed the campaign closely are probably disproportionately Liberal. It's 'scientifically accurate' polling, but the results are flawed, regardless.

Disregarding this critique, there's no reason to panic in the Harper camp. Considering Dion to be a good leader doesn't necessarily translate to a vote in an election. I foresee that this next election will be one in which the campaign will seriously matter, and the campaign will probably show a lot more of Dion's weaknesses and handicaps.

Venezuela's Chavez
Dammit, despite BBC's reporting that the election would at least be close, Chavez won the Venezuelan election with 61% of the popular vote, beating challenger Rosales, who had garnered 38% of the popular vote, prompting the Globe and Mail to publish an article titled 'Chavez wins re-election by wide margin'.

This is especially horrible for Venezuela on the world stage, as Chavez has been unrelenting in calling out Bush as the devil (even during a speech in front of the UN Gen. Assembly. This marginalized Chavez on the international scene, and I suspect that the ensuing labelling of Chavez as an extremist was the biggest reason that Venezuela didn't get a spot on the UNSC just a few weeks ago. Well, he’s continuing the trend, as moments after his re-election he declared with “religious fervour” that Venezuelans have “shown that Venezuela is red” and that his election is “another defeat for the devil, who tries to dominate the world”, along with his usual condemnations of imperialism. This is a disastrous trend for Venezuelans, and now they will have to endure an international reputation that will continue to slump for 6 years to come as they move further down the road to serfdom.