Election Spinning

Risking stating the obvious, I would like for a moment to discuss the relationship between media spin, punditry and polling in the current election. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's noticed the following chain of events: Election begins, is very boring, and no one cares (see blog entry for Dec. 24th). Between Christmas and New Years, things slow to a halt and the pundits have nothing to talk about. So instead of saying, "sorry Mansbridge, there's not much to say about the election right now", discussion of non-events turns to the forecasting of exciting election-antics to come. You've got the likes of Alan Gregg and Keith Boag yammering on about how in the new year Harper has a real opportunity to turn things around. And what do you know- poof! Polls today say 37% of Canadians would vote Conservative.

Look- I'm not saying that there is an absolute causal relationship between Boag's b.s. and the mood of the Canadian voter. Entire academic disciplines are dedicated to understanding the complex relationship between media, polling and voter decision-making. That being said, let's just think for a minute about what these polls really do. Polls are reports of what the public thinks. During the election, several times a day, we are bombarded by media reports of new polling results. In other words, the media is constantly reporting to us, what we the public think. Thoughts of chickens and eggs spring to mind.

And then something like this happens: This morning, The Globe and Mail reports that the Conference Board of Canada, "a prestigious economic think tank", has determined that the Tory platform will result in budget surpluses. Prestigious think tank? What kind of descriptor is that? The Conference Board is a consortium of Canadian business professionals who conduct applied research for both private and public interests. (http://www.conferenceboard.ca/who.htm) It may or may not be prestigious- what's clear is that The Globe wants its readers to think so.

So what would an election look like without spin? Hard to say. Boring for sure. But Canadian politics are so boring to begin with, I guess it's in the public interest to try and spice it up a bit.