The first thought I have is to muse whether Chantal Hebert will talk about the new Nanos poll that shows a dead heat (and Liberal support rising, though the Cons. support rose as well), or will she simply ignore it like she did the Decima poll a week or so back, because it doesn’t fit in with her meme of the Liberals and Dion’s certain doom (and we can throw in that question to Jim Travers of the Star as well, since he’s been a close second since December 2006 of bashing the Liberals and Dion).
The next thing I will say is that certain Liberal bloggers who jumped on this poll as vindication for the abstaining policy the Liberals have been doing should be careful on trying to make a correlation with that strategy and these numbers. This poll was taken by Nanos after Flaherty’s bashing by Ontario over its budget (which Jim, who is no Liberal, points to as a probable reason for the steep decline in the Conservatives Ontario numbers), and since the Tom Lukiwski video surfaced. I think those 2 events are far more likely the reason we see Liberal numbers rising, and Green and NDP numbers falling back, then any great endorsement of the abstaining policy that the Liberal Nervous Nellies have instituted (Nik says the same thing at his blog, by the way).
Lastly, my thoughts on the poll itself - specifically certain aspects of the poll. The Liberals now have 50%+ polling support in Ontario and the Maritimes, and are tied with the Cons. in Quebec. That to me would be enough of a seat swing if the polls held over a general election to upend the Cons from power, despite their rise out West (Liberal numbers held steady out west - an area that we aren’t really strong in anyhow and wouldn’t lose that many seats if we did).
I will leave others to debate why NDP and Green support have dropped. Needless to say, this is a good poll for Liberals after all the travails and media bashing we’ve had the past few weeks. It also says to me that if our Liberal strategists needs to think hard about that rumoured June election they may finally want.
UPDATE: the 2 best quotes on these poll results; BigCityLib: “If the (Liberal) party abstains for another couple of months, they’ll be in Majority territory.”, and James Bowie, on Jason Cherniak’s persuasive powers. I don’t necessarily agree with either, but found both funny.
Why would bad strategy by the Tories result in NDP losing votes to the Liberals? I’m convinced that this has more to do with comfort with Liberal actions than anything else.