Thursday, September 21, 2006
The bad news is that Stéphane Dion definitely isn't going to win the Liberal leadership
The worse news is that Bob Rae probably will (for anybody who's actually tracking it, this marks a shift in my prediction from Ignatieff to Rae).
The good news, to the extent that it exists, is that this new poll by Strategic Counsel makes for some very interesting reading.
The short version - that Ignatieff is the top choice of Liberals, but has far less growth potential than Rae, their second choice - has already been gurgitated by media outlets more timely than, if not as fascinatingly brilliant as, myself. But by performing some elementary statistical analysis on the full numbers, some other trends emerge.
Before I get there, though, I'd like to follow up on my observation from a couple posts back that Dion isn't a pariah in Québec, just in the Rest of Canada. According to this poll, Dion's actually leading among Liberals in the prairies and B.C., faring better even than he is in Québec, where he's running a close first ballot second to Bob Rae. Where's he down? Ontario, where, at seven percent, he's sitting in fifth place. I think I got me some Western Alienation.
But enough of that - on to the statistical analysis I promised. Let me first acknowledge that the stuff I do here is pretty elementary and, all things considered, a pretty blunt tool. It doesn't come anywhere near the sophistication of the kind of analysis that people perform in more important fields. In short, I'm marking this analysis "for entertainment purposes only". Don't use it as actual safety equipment.
The primary usefulness of the poll, besides the fact that it surveys Liberal members instead of Liberal supporters (remember that distinction?) is that, in addition to asking how Liberals intend to vote, it asks them which candidate they favour in a number of categories. Those categories are: has run the best race, has introduced the most innovative and exciting ideas, is most intelligent, comes closest to representing the respondent's own views, is most honest and ethical, has best personality, is most likely to lead the Liberals to victory, would be most effective at taking on the Harper government, is best communicator, is best-liked by the media, would make the best Prime Minister.
From this, one of the things that we can do is measure each candidate's success in each category against his/her overall support from the Liberals, and then determine what the candidate's assets and liabilities are. For this purpose, I removed undecided respondents from the race in all categories and calculated responses among decided Liberals only. From there, I compared each candidate's support to his/her positive rating in each category and determined whether he/she was punching above or below his/her weight class for each one. For example, thirty-seven percent of decided Liberals consider Michael Ignatieff to be the most intelligent candidate in the race, but only twenty-six percent of decided Liberals intend to support him - in this regard, he is punching well below his intellect, because there are a lot of people who aren't supporting him even though they think he's the smartest guy in the race. On the other hand, only nineteen percent consider him the most honest and ethical, so he's punching well above his weight there.
The final breakdown is as follows, with the candidates ranked in order of their over- or under-performance (the first candidate named is the one who is punching most above his/her weight in the category):
Who has run the best race so far?
Punching over
Brison
Dryden
Volpe
Kennedy
Dion
Punching under
Ignatieff
Rae
Hall-Findlay
Who has brought the best ideas to the race?
Punching over
Dryden
Volpe
Kennedy
Rae
Punching under
Ignatieff
Dion
Hall-Findlay
Brison
Who is the most intelligent?
Punching over
Brison
Kennedy
Volpe
Rae
Punching under
Dion
Hall-Findlay
Ignatieff
Who has the best personality?
Punching over
Ignatieff
Dion
Brison
Dryden
Punching under
Volpe
Kennedy
Rae
Hall-Findlay
Who is best-liked by the media?
Punching over
Dion
Brison
Kennedy
Volpe
Dryden
Punching under
Rae
Hall-Findlay
Ignatieff
Who would be most effective at taking on Stephen Harper's government?
Punching over
Hall-Findlay
Brison
Dryden
Kennedy
Dion
Punching under
Ignatieff
Volpe
Rae
Who is the most honest and has the most integrity?
Punching over
Brison
Volpe
Ignatieff
Rae
Punching under
Kennedy
Dryden
Dion
Hall-Findlay
Who would make the best Prime Minister?
Punching over
Hall-Findlay
Volpe
Brison
Dryden
Kennedy
Punching under
Ignatieff
Rae
Dion
Whose views most closely match your own?
Punching over
Ignatieff
Rae
Dryden
Punching under
Kennedy
Volpe
Hall-Findlay
Brison
Dion
Who is most likely to lead the Liberals to government in the next election?
Punching over
Brison
Volpe
Dryden
Kennedy
Dion
Punching under
Rae
Hall-Findlay
Ignatieff
Who is the best communicator?
Punching over
Volpe
Dryden
Dion
Kennedy
Ignatieff
Punching under
Hall-Findlay
Brison
Rae
Hedy Fry, alas, was excluded from the analysis because her support was listed only as "<1%".
A few points that we can take from all this:
In compiling the above analyses, I began to wonder exactly what qualities Liberals are looking for in a leader. To answer that, I correlated each of the positive responses to support. Unsurprisingly, there were reasonably strong positive correlations in each case (though the direction of the causality is not clear, since it's possible that a Liberal who supported Ignatieff primarily for his intellect might also credit him for being, for example, the most honest, simply because he was his/her candidate of choice - this is, in my opinion, especially a danger in the area of electability, since people are likely to perceive individuals they personally support as being more electable, because they assume that others will think the same way as they do). They are ranked in descending order below:
1. Best Prime Minister (.989)
2. Effective in Opposing the Harper Government (.985)
3. Closeness of Fit of Candidate's Views (.975)
4. Electability (.972)
5. Quality of Leadership Campaign (.960)
6. Quality of Ideas (.959)
7. Intelligence (.938)
8. Honesty/Integrity (.934)
9. Best Communicator (.908)
10. Personality (.897)
11. Liked by Media (.860)
It appears that Liberals want a leader who'd be effective both as Prime Minister and as Leader of the Opposition, would be likely to successfully move from the latter position to the former, and who have good ideas with which Liberals agree. Ideally, such a leader would also be intelligent and honest, but those qualities aren't as important as raw political skills. Interestingly, the qualities most associated with electability - communication skills, personality, and media savy - are the lowest-ranked.
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The worse news is that Bob Rae probably will (for anybody who's actually tracking it, this marks a shift in my prediction from Ignatieff to Rae).
The good news, to the extent that it exists, is that this new poll by Strategic Counsel makes for some very interesting reading.
The short version - that Ignatieff is the top choice of Liberals, but has far less growth potential than Rae, their second choice - has already been gurgitated by media outlets more timely than, if not as fascinatingly brilliant as, myself. But by performing some elementary statistical analysis on the full numbers, some other trends emerge.
Before I get there, though, I'd like to follow up on my observation from a couple posts back that Dion isn't a pariah in Québec, just in the Rest of Canada. According to this poll, Dion's actually leading among Liberals in the prairies and B.C., faring better even than he is in Québec, where he's running a close first ballot second to Bob Rae. Where's he down? Ontario, where, at seven percent, he's sitting in fifth place. I think I got me some Western Alienation.
But enough of that - on to the statistical analysis I promised. Let me first acknowledge that the stuff I do here is pretty elementary and, all things considered, a pretty blunt tool. It doesn't come anywhere near the sophistication of the kind of analysis that people perform in more important fields. In short, I'm marking this analysis "for entertainment purposes only". Don't use it as actual safety equipment.
The primary usefulness of the poll, besides the fact that it surveys Liberal members instead of Liberal supporters (remember that distinction?) is that, in addition to asking how Liberals intend to vote, it asks them which candidate they favour in a number of categories. Those categories are: has run the best race, has introduced the most innovative and exciting ideas, is most intelligent, comes closest to representing the respondent's own views, is most honest and ethical, has best personality, is most likely to lead the Liberals to victory, would be most effective at taking on the Harper government, is best communicator, is best-liked by the media, would make the best Prime Minister.
From this, one of the things that we can do is measure each candidate's success in each category against his/her overall support from the Liberals, and then determine what the candidate's assets and liabilities are. For this purpose, I removed undecided respondents from the race in all categories and calculated responses among decided Liberals only. From there, I compared each candidate's support to his/her positive rating in each category and determined whether he/she was punching above or below his/her weight class for each one. For example, thirty-seven percent of decided Liberals consider Michael Ignatieff to be the most intelligent candidate in the race, but only twenty-six percent of decided Liberals intend to support him - in this regard, he is punching well below his intellect, because there are a lot of people who aren't supporting him even though they think he's the smartest guy in the race. On the other hand, only nineteen percent consider him the most honest and ethical, so he's punching well above his weight there.
The final breakdown is as follows, with the candidates ranked in order of their over- or under-performance (the first candidate named is the one who is punching most above his/her weight in the category):
Who has run the best race so far?
Punching over
Brison
Dryden
Volpe
Kennedy
Dion
Punching under
Ignatieff
Rae
Hall-Findlay
Who has brought the best ideas to the race?
Punching over
Dryden
Volpe
Kennedy
Rae
Punching under
Ignatieff
Dion
Hall-Findlay
Brison
Who is the most intelligent?
Punching over
Brison
Kennedy
Volpe
Rae
Punching under
Dion
Hall-Findlay
Ignatieff
Who has the best personality?
Punching over
Ignatieff
Dion
Brison
Dryden
Punching under
Volpe
Kennedy
Rae
Hall-Findlay
Who is best-liked by the media?
Punching over
Dion
Brison
Kennedy
Volpe
Dryden
Punching under
Rae
Hall-Findlay
Ignatieff
Who would be most effective at taking on Stephen Harper's government?
Punching over
Hall-Findlay
Brison
Dryden
Kennedy
Dion
Punching under
Ignatieff
Volpe
Rae
Who is the most honest and has the most integrity?
Punching over
Brison
Volpe
Ignatieff
Rae
Punching under
Kennedy
Dryden
Dion
Hall-Findlay
Who would make the best Prime Minister?
Punching over
Hall-Findlay
Volpe
Brison
Dryden
Kennedy
Punching under
Ignatieff
Rae
Dion
Whose views most closely match your own?
Punching over
Ignatieff
Rae
Dryden
Punching under
Kennedy
Volpe
Hall-Findlay
Brison
Dion
Who is most likely to lead the Liberals to government in the next election?
Punching over
Brison
Volpe
Dryden
Kennedy
Dion
Punching under
Rae
Hall-Findlay
Ignatieff
Who is the best communicator?
Punching over
Volpe
Dryden
Dion
Kennedy
Ignatieff
Punching under
Hall-Findlay
Brison
Rae
Hedy Fry, alas, was excluded from the analysis because her support was listed only as "<1%".
A few points that we can take from all this:
1. Liberals are in love with Martha Hall Findlay, as she punches under in almost every category. In other words, Liberals are much more likely to gush over intelligence, communication skills, ideas, personality, communication skills, etc. than they are to actually vote for her. Tellingly, the only to categories in which she's punching over are her abilities in taking on Harper's government and in being Prime Minister. It appears that Liberals just don't yet think she's ready for the top job, her great qualities notwithstanding.
2. At the other end of things is Ken Dryden: Liberals don't seem to think much of the guy to judge by how rarely they rank him tops in any category at all, but they're still planning on voting for him in reasonably large measure. The single category in which he's punching over is "honesty and integrity", which seems to suggest that they think he's a good (if boring) guy, but ultimately a loser.
3. Then there's Joe Volpe. They think he's got a great personality and would make an effective opposition leader, but find him deficient in almost every other regard. Scott Brison's also perceived as all-around deficient (which means that I perhaps don't give Liberals enough credit) but is admired for the quality of his ideas.
4. I'm no closer, after reading these data, to understanding the mysterious appeal of Gerard Kennedy, who punches over in a majority of categories (most alarmingly in intelligence, where his overperformance is exceeded only by Brison's). They like his personality, think he's honest, and agree with his views, but perceive him as otherwise deficient - even, surprisingly, in the field of the quality of his ideas, which is generally touted as his strong point.
5. In relative terms, Liberals don't trust Bob Rae, don't agree with his views, and don't think he's either very bright or has brought many good ideas to the race. They're still likely to vote for him, though, because they think he'll be effective at all elements of the job if he becomes leader.
6. Dion's the polar opposite of Rae. Liberals think he's smart, admire his ideas, trust him completely, and agree with his views. But they think he's dull, a bad campaigner, not media-friendly, and would be a lousy opposition leader (though they think he'd be a great PM if he ever managed to get the job). I can't truthfully disagree with any portion of this assessment.
7. Michael Ignatieff, surprisingly, isn't viewed as either having a good personality or being a good communicator, but is still perceived as a winner politically (and is also lauded for his intellect and ideas, even though Liberals aren't apt to agree with his views).
In compiling the above analyses, I began to wonder exactly what qualities Liberals are looking for in a leader. To answer that, I correlated each of the positive responses to support. Unsurprisingly, there were reasonably strong positive correlations in each case (though the direction of the causality is not clear, since it's possible that a Liberal who supported Ignatieff primarily for his intellect might also credit him for being, for example, the most honest, simply because he was his/her candidate of choice - this is, in my opinion, especially a danger in the area of electability, since people are likely to perceive individuals they personally support as being more electable, because they assume that others will think the same way as they do). They are ranked in descending order below:
1. Best Prime Minister (.989)
2. Effective in Opposing the Harper Government (.985)
3. Closeness of Fit of Candidate's Views (.975)
4. Electability (.972)
5. Quality of Leadership Campaign (.960)
6. Quality of Ideas (.959)
7. Intelligence (.938)
8. Honesty/Integrity (.934)
9. Best Communicator (.908)
10. Personality (.897)
11. Liked by Media (.860)
It appears that Liberals want a leader who'd be effective both as Prime Minister and as Leader of the Opposition, would be likely to successfully move from the latter position to the former, and who have good ideas with which Liberals agree. Ideally, such a leader would also be intelligent and honest, but those qualities aren't as important as raw political skills. Interestingly, the qualities most associated with electability - communication skills, personality, and media savy - are the lowest-ranked.
