Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Reality Check

CTV has this new segment on their political show called "Reality Check". Today, Sun Media's Greg Weston was on, and the topic of the upcoming Green Party convention came up. In discussing whether or not the Greens would be able to maintain a high profile and voting share, Weston first made some derogatory comment about the Greens in general, then fluffed off any suggestion of Green votes bleeding to the benefit of the Liberals. While there's no question the dynamics have changed with Ignatieff at the helm, as well as no sense that the Green vote is eroding, it was still curious that Weston piped off, stating "all the polls show" that Conservatives have the most to benefit from any crater in Green support. According to Weston, all the data suggests the Conservatives are the second choice of Green supporters. You know, if you're going to be so dismissive, with the know it all tone, you could at least have the semblance of a CLUE:

Harris Decima



EKOS:


The Conservatives never rise from third choice in the Decima poll, this is mirrored by EKOS. As a matter of fact "all the polls" I've seen confirm the above, so I'd love to know Weston's source material, or does working for SunMedia impede basic comprehension.

A small quibble for sure, but Weston was just so sure of himself, I thought I'd do my own "Reality Check" for the reality checker.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why don't you email him with the stats.....I'd love to hear his response.

Anonymous said...

I'm always suspicious of "names that sell themselves":

Fair and Balanced
We Report. You Decide
No Spin Zone
Keeping Them Honest

"Reality Check" sounds about up the same alley.

From this first example, sounds more like an Orwellian term for "Fiction Fountain"

If you have to have a name that sells the "authenticity" of your latest news concept, you maybe should rethink the concept.

My favorite of all time is The Onion's coining the phrase "Beyond the Facts" during their faux Presidential Election coverage.

Always smile when I think about that double entendre just dripping with sarcasm.

Steve V said...

anon

Done. Maybe he meant "none of the polls", as opposed to all of them ;)

Joseph

I'm proud to say I don't have FOX news on my cable provider. I did watch the Harpo interview online, and forgot about that "fair and balanced" tag, what a joke of biblical proportions. The sad part, people probably believe it.

Karen said...

Oh they believe it all right, they swear by it. Fox and Rush...no spin there at all, just facts.

Weston just can't help himself. I didn't see the show. Did he offer any evidence to support his comment

Where did you find an e-mail for Power Play?

Steve V said...

Unfortunately, I had to visit the Sun website.

No evidence, he just said it, so matter of factly.

Anonymous said...

My sense is that most Green voters are anti-Tory voters who would split pretty evenly between the NDP and Liberals - depending on the riding and region. There are SOME ex-Tories who vote Green to lodge a low-stakes protest at their party - but I think they are far outnumbered by anti-Tories who can't decide between Liberal and NDP. Then there is an even smaller segment of dyed in the wool greens who would not vote at all without any Green party. So if the greens got 6.7% last time - I think that if their vote plummeted to 3% - the NDP and Libs would each gain 1.5% and the Tories might pick up .5%

Steve V said...

That sounds like a fair breakdown.

RuralSandi said...

Confusing....Greens are all about the environment - Tories are not. So, why would Greens go to the Tories?

Greg Weston lost me as a reader quite some time ago when he took great pleasure in putting Dion down - constantly, daily - referring to him as Mr. Bean, etc.

Weston seems like an angry, negative person and I find people like that a total bore.

Jerry Prager said...

I actually know of several former conservatives - one who even voted for Mike Harris - who voted Green last fall, including a former Ontario PC cabinet minister.
The Greens are the conservative party Canada should have, because they represent a communitarian political philosophy,in fact, they a cooperative commonwealth POV, that the NDP lost when the old CCF became a Labour party. Green conservatism is one in which individual responsibilities and freedoms are coupled with societal change. Political parties are always coalitions of vested interests seeking advantage over other coalitions, and for now, the vested interests with most of the advantages are corporate, whether they be neo-liberal or neo-corporatist alliances. Since corporatists and neo-liberals are both corporate-capitalist, they have 'no conscience to bind them', so we get tar sands instead of conservation from our conservatives and we get Iggy supporting the tar sands for political gains in the west.
And because the NDP is a Labour Party, it's members are corporatist by default, they are their own enemy because they cannot advance their position beyond corporatism, the Greens at this point, are the only party
that can.

Anonymous said...

I have no idea what you mean by "corporatism". That is a term I have only seen in the context of the economic policies of Mussolini and Franco.