Invent something to worry about if you cant find a good reason to do so.

It shouldn’t be overrated Scott but it shouldn’t be ignored either. I’m pleased with the tight horserace numbers in the SES poll too, but I would like us to actually start to move ahead at some point too. We’ve been stalled in party support, and I think the low popularity number for Dion may be part of the reason why. It’s not the only reason, but to ignore any piece of the puzzle would be foolhardy, IMO.

I’ve seen maybe one or two posts on this. Hardly a big wave of negativism and hardly obsessing. Are we already starting to eat our own? That’s never a good sign.

I think polling on perceptions of leaders and on specific issues more revealing than polling on voters’ ballot box intentions outside of a writ period. Voters will park their vote until they start focusing on the eleciton issues and policies but they form their general opinions about a leader in advance.

That’s not at all to say things can’t change and change quickly. But perceptions of a leadership candidate are a “leader” on how people will vote, i.e. if the leadership perceptions are low, then they aren’t going to be voting for you. And to rely on an election to change that will be waiting too late, i.e. Harper’s personal numbers soared and Martin’s plummetted just before and as the election got underway. Anything Martin did to correct that after the fact was too late.

The truly worrying thing about this poll is not that Dion rates so miserably, but that he continues to rate so miserably AND Harper continues to rate very well after (a) a few leadership polls now (b) a cross country tour and more focus on Dion and (c) all of the nasty, petty partisanship moves by Harper.

Right now, the media are behind Harper and not helping Dion. He has to work doubly hard to get around their conventional wisdom “story”.

You’re right to point out Harper trailed badly before the election in the best PM category - but during the election, that number was the foreshadow of party numbers to come. So really, you’re banking entirely on Dion being able to turn it around during an election. Which of course, is possible. But do you want to go into an election trailing in all regions, amongst both men and women, and all age groups, by a 2:1 margin, in that category? Probably not.