Spin doctoring

Greg nicely dissects the willingness of mainstream pundits to spin every poll toward the "we're headed to a Con majority!" narrative even when there's no real evidence the Cons' position has improved at all.

But while the fairest interpretation of SES' data is probably that it tells us nothing we didn't know already, let's note that it would be equally accurate to read the poll as follows:

(T)he fact that a growing proportion of voters in every region except the West is "uncomfortable" with the idea of a Harper majority is terrible news for the Conservatives, and potentially good news for all other parties.

"Even though there's been no drop in the number of voters planning to vote Conservative, these numbers show that more and more voters from Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada see a Conservative majority as dangerous -- even with over a year in power Harper hasn't been able to shed the "boogeyman" label," (the pollster) notes.