No surprises

While John Ivison's post on third-quarter fund-raising has received plenty of attention, I'm at a loss as to what part is supposed to be considered surprising.

After all, based on the parties' annual fund-raising data, all of the numbers look to be entirely in keeping with typical fund-raising trends. The NDP tends to bring in about $4 million in non-election years, and raised just over $1 million the third quarter; the Cons tend to bring in about $18 million under similar circumstances, and are just below that pace with $4 million raised.

Indeed, the only real change over the past few years has been found in the Libs' occasional fluctuations. But their early-2009 spike has long since leveled off - and this quarter's numbers are roughly in keeping with their typical pace too if that aberration is left aside.

So if anybody is changing their political plans based on the Q3 fund-raising numbers, it's only because they haven't bothered to notice what the parties' normal fund-raising numbers have been over the last five years. And I'd certainly hope that nobody involved in making decisions for Canada's political parties is that far out of touch.