Thursday, August 03, 2006

What A Difference A Year Makes

Recent polls suggest that Conservative support may be slipping due to the government's stance on the mid-east crisis. However, as part of the same polling this week, we learn that Stephen Harper has an approval rating of 60%.

Flash back a year. Weren't we looking at numbers that suggested that support for the Conservative Party was reasonably strong but that 'scary' Stephen Harper only had the support of around a fifth of the electorate as a suitable Prime Minister?

Perhaps there are those who are concerned by the slipping numbers, but I am not among them. People in large part vote for Prime Ministers, and 60% is a very very very strong number for a man who only a few short months ago was considered too scary to ever govern. People don't vote for foreign policy, except when polled between elections.

Fiscal imbalance and health care guarantees await, and who knows where that 60% could go when those are fixed.

One thing is certain in all of this; the Liberals will need a different ad agency with some different ideas next time around, because 'scary' has been consigned to the cesspool of history.