Poll-axed

I'm not the first to comment on the new poll results from this morning. But while most of the focus so far has been on the main party numbers, the bigger story to me is the public's impression of PMPM. According to the poll, Martin's favourable rating has gone from a net -12 (44 favourable, 56 unfavourable) to a net -2 (49 favourable, 51 unfavourable).

I presume that the effect of a summer without a question period to keep bad news in the headlines has been to allow Martin and company to spread their future plans with very little media opposition. Now the question for the opposition parties is how to counteract that in a way that'll help the party's standing.

For the Cons, the answer is simple: nobody's ever going to like Harper, so the clear strategy is to try to bash Martin down to roughly the same level of distrust. Likewise, all of the numbers look good for the Bloc except for Martin's own popularity, so it's a natural choice to slam Martin at every available opportunity in hopes that some of the damage sticks.

For the NDP, the calculus is a lot more difficult. Not only has the party lost some of its influence in the House thanks to Desjarlais' defection (though she can probably be counted on to vote similarly to the NDP on economic matters anyway), it also can't afford to take too many shots at the government, particularly given that a majority still wants to see the NDP support the Liberals.

At this point, the Libs may yet be able to paint the NDP into a corner by going along with enough of the party's policy demands. For now, it looks like the country's most popular national leader needs to shore up support in his own region not only by pointing out that good that the party has done so far, but also by pointing out how much more the party could do given more leverage in the future...while leaving the most blunt Martin-bashing to the parties who benefit more directly from it.