Swing time

Greg Weston follows up on the latest SES poll results. And while Weston sees an opportunity for the Cons in the result, it seems like there are lots of Lib votes that could potentially be won by almost any other party depending on the content of the next campaign:

Nationally, 51% of those surveyed said they would be "comfortable" or "somewhat comfortable" with a Harper majority in the next election -- even though, remember, only 36% of the same voters said they would vote Conservative today.

About 45% said they would be queasy with the concept...

Perhaps the most intriguing of all the polling data was this: Some 19% of Liberal voters would be comfortable with Harper and his Conservatives forming a majority government. Another 20% said they would be okay with it.

Memo to Harper: There's your potential swing vote, if ever there was one.

Memo to Liberals: Your party is in bigger disarray than you can imagine.

Weston sees the potential swing being to the Cons, and it's perhaps a fair inference that PMS would have a reasonable chance of winning the votes of the nearly 40% of Lib voters who are at least "somewhat comfortable" seeing him with a majority. But it's worth noting another aspect to the discussion: the same number of Libs can equally easily be described as unwilling to be swayed by arguments based solely on the need to stop Harper at all costs (as has been the focus of the last two Lib campaigns). Which could make them a prime target for other opposition parties who offer a more substantive message than the Libs when the next campaign rolls around.

Of course, a few may be categorized as "Machiavellian Libs" who simply want to see Harper handed a majority now in hopes that the Libs will bounce back more strongly later as a result. But it doesn't seem likely that such a position extends to more than a few insiders - making the rest of the soft-Lib vote wide open for the other parties to pursue, particularly if the Libs continue in their remarkably stubborn belief that they're entitled to the vote of every Canadian who doesn't support Harper.

In fairness, the voters in question have also shown a willingness to make the Libs their first choice for now. But it's clear that a good chunk of current Lib support isn't motivated to any great degree by fear of PMS. And depending on the results of the Lib leadership race and the party's ability (or lack thereof) to present a more meaningful campaign message than "Stop Harper III: Third Time's the Charm", enough of them could well swing elsewhere either to hand Harper his majority, or to prevent it while continuing the Libs' slide.