1. For those wondering why I haven’t posted on the David Herle poll (besides the fact that it’s a David Herle poll), here’s what I wrote back in March about leadership race polls:
But I won’t post the results from this poll, or any other similar ones, because these are dangerous polls that people should completely ignore. They are based on nothing more than name recognition, and most Canadians know very little about the big names, never mind the hidden jewels of the race
[snip]
These fictional polls are, in my opinion, one of the worst ways to decide who to support for leadership. Some may point to “the scream” as the reason Howard Dean lost the Democratic primary in 2004 but, in reality, it was because of polls which showed John Kerry would do the best against George Bush in hypothetical elections. Democrats, desperate to beat Bush, decided to put their faith in hypothetical election polls and jumped to Kerry, not realizing what a dreadful candidate he was.
I suppose the Mithrandir poll is good news for Dryden but I’d be more excited about this than this if I were him.
2. Obvious news we already knew.
3. More obvious news we already knew.
4. I’m curious to see the details of Kennedy’s national education strategy. Education is one of the most important investments any level of government can make and it’s about time we saw the federal government take it seriously.
5. I’d always kind of suspected the NDP would take the Parkdale by-election so I wouldn’t read too much into their win. Parkdale has a long NDP history and the Dippers usually perform well in by-elections.
6. In case no one has seen it yet, Lib News has the best link round-up of Liberal leadership news on the net.