TORY'S BLOWING POLL SMOKE UP YOUR ARSE

Chances are that if you're following the election at all right now you think Stephen Harper is probably going to get a Majority. Well kiddies, I'm hear to tell you it ain't going to happen. Why do I know this? Simple. The predictions are based on polls and polling has lost its credibility.

In both 2006 and 2008 Harper was predicted to get a majority by most pollsters in the country. Did he? No. Even as Dion's campaign was imploding and even when, in 2008, more than 800,000 Liberal voters didn't even bother going to polls (something that isn't happening this time), our Imperious Leader barely increased his seat count (and that was mostly with a sudden 8 seat jump in Quebec that won't be repeating).

The biggest reason why has to do with the make-up of respondents to polls now. A generation ago there was a 70 per cent response rate, but now a polling company is lucky to get 20 per cent and more and more average people (ie: Voters) use call display and cell phones to avoid being bothered. What have the pollsters tried to replace this with? Voluntary listings for polls. But who volunteers? Activists who are trying to influence the numbers in their favour.

And the few non-voluntary homes the pollsters do get a hold of are faced with hostile questioners, particularly when they get whiff that the respondent is undecided. And pushed to pick someone the respondent frequently goes with... the name they think is winning because of the polls they're hearing. But here's the rub, those people aren't likely to go out and vote!

And in case you don't believe me, check this out.

“I’m totally depressed,” Frank Graves of Ekos Research is quoted as saying about their research. “We’re trying to explain the underlying social forces that are producing political change, and the media, despite protestations to the contrary, are much more interested in the horse-race side of things.”

This is why party insiders are focusing so much attention on 'social networking', both facebook posts and more importantly newspaper comment pages. Check out the comments section for any story on the National Post, Globe and Mail or Toronto Star website (I don't include the Star papers because their editorial staff notoriously delete any non-conservative comments) and you'll appear to see a large number of Conservative supports chiming in on every story, attacking the "Fiberals" and "Ignatieff" and quoting Harper talking points.

But check out the screen names and a different story appears. Almost 90% of the pro-Conservative are coming from the same 50 avatars, while the anti-Conservative sentiment is being posted by hundreds, and in most cases thousands of different posters. It's very telling that typical Globe story has repeated comments from the same twelve conservatives attempting, like Harper MP's on a Commons committee going in the direction they don't like, to drown out the dissenting voices with the digital equivalent of a Charlie Sheen level, incoherent rant.

Well, they're rabid, they're frothing and they obviously don't have lives (or leave their parent's basements often) but at least they're consistent.

And not in the least bit reflective of the real discussions going on or the true sentiment of the average Canadian voter, which is increasingly distrustful of Stephen Harper and not the least bit dissuaded from supporting Dion's replacement, Michael Ignatieff.

But as Shakespeare wrote:

"a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

or in other words, a typical Harper supporter.