Dog Days of August Polls

New SES and Strategic Counsel polls were published today. While SES President Nik Nanos suggests his poll would mean a Liberal minority, my own calculations in fact produce a Liberal majority with the Grits at 164, the Conservatives all the way down to 62 and the NDP at 27. However, the Strategic Counsel numbers show a tighter outcome than SES, so, in combination I would guess the Liberals are actually still in minority territory.

The SES leadership numbers put Stephen Harper in free fall finishing behind Jack Layton in third place while Strategic Counsel reports that the sponsorship scandal, his principal political asset, is now a key issue for only 2%. Take this latter fact with a grain of salt. I am sure the Conservatives will be courteous enough to remind us all again and again about it in the closing weeks of the next campaign.

What seems to have happened is a kind of negative honeymoon where, having failed to defeat the Liberals in the Commons, the public then turns on the Conservatives and punishes them for their failure.