Foul polls

Kady O'Malley's survey of recent federal opinion polls and focus groups is worth a look in general. But one study in particular demands some more discussion:

Participants were also asked to imagine the new government as a person and "flesh out the description" by discussing his personality, lifestyle and character traits. "Remarks varied from “healthy and strong” to “looks trim but might belie a heart condition” to “soft around the middle” to “not in the greatest shape” or “overweight." The new government was also described as "wealthy but miserly," "richer than they let on" and "Walmart shoppers." Asked what kind of neighbour it would be, one participant said he or she would “trust them so long as I had a good alarm system on my house."

Needless to say, the latter comment is particularly brilliant in what it leaves unsaid: rather than reflecting trust that the Cons will act as good neighbours of any merit of their own, it signals only that they likely won't be able to get past a reasonable set of defences to inflict much harm. And while it's perhaps not surprising that the Cons' top priority seems to be to try to disarm the alarm system presented by the opposition parties in Parliament, the participant is probably right that any "good" system is going to be beyond the Cons' ability to override.

That comment aside, it's worth highlighting the nature of the poll in general. Remember from the last Con polling scandal the rules which limit the government's ability to poll with public money:

Government guidelines only specifically prohibit polling subject matter such as voting intentions and perceptions about party leaders. Departments routinely do polls to gauge public reaction and knowledge as they move forward with their policies.

However, the auditor general reported early this year that there are still problems with departments failing to provide a rationale for the research they commission.

Presumably the Cons think they're again managing to get around the guidelines by slightly rephrasing the prohibited questions - in this case by asking about the perception of the government as a whole rather than Harper alone.

But it's hard to see how asking participants to "flesh out (a) description" of the Cons - completely detached from any policy issue - can be considered a legitimate purpose for public money, regardless of whether the current rules aren't yet tight enough to specifically prohibit such spending. And if the Cons are wasting as many resources as seems likely from what's been begrudgingly disclosed so far, it may not be long before they're on the wrong side of more polling scandals than the Libs.