Monday, August 13, 2007

Bad Spin

Interesting article in The Hill Times on party fundraising. An up and down piece for Liberal fortunes, but the highlight for me, the bad spin from the Conservatives, to justify falling donations in the second quarter. Jeff has already pointed out the problems the Conservatives have with Canadian geography, but apparently the ignorance also extends to the seasons. Nothing says Canadian summer like April and May:
The Conservative Party's fundraising numbers also went down in the second quarter. In the first quarter, the Harper Conservatives raised $5.1-million but in the second quarter they raised $3.7-million. Mr. Sparrow said the numbers went down because it was summer. "Numbers traditionally go down in summer. If you look at our second quarter numbers from 2006, you'll also see that they go down like other parties. People are on holidays, people are not as engaged in the political process in the summer, that seems to be the way," he said.

To be fair, there are 10 days of summer in the second quarter, as opposed to the other 81 that are in spring. Is Sparrow projecting a bad Conservative third quarter, which is actually the summer period?

The bad spin actually makes a strong case for the Liberals. In the second quarter, donations were up threefold, which means the Liberals have successfully bucked the summer blahs, according to Sparrow. A new scandal emerges, the Tories have killed spring.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those that can't - teach.

burlivespipe said...

Perhaps the CONs were making a pre-emptive strike regarding last month's revelation that there's a loophole the size of Athabasca in the Elections Canada's financial reportage... The Globe & Mail's story showed that by donating a specific amount, i think it was $199 to every riding association, you could theoretically not be caught conniving the election donation laws.
Not that I'm saying the CONs are cheaters, but...
I'm just saying that its all on the Germant Grewal tape cutting room floor, that's all.

Steve V said...

An acknowledgment of global warming?

Anonymous said...

Ditto Steve V's comment . . . it was the first thought that crossed my mind, that and a little smile as well.

He's just trying to "acclimate" us to changing seasonal patterns ; ).