A Very Good Pollster

Tuesday, 6th March, 2007  - Richard Farmer 
Pull the other one!
Even if I say so myself, I used to be a very good opinion pollster. I was able to make up internal Labor Party polling with the best of them. First of all work out the answer. Then Richard would provide the research. Everything tailor made to give a gullible journalist a very good yarn.
The only draw back was dealing with journalists who had been around a bit, and wanted to stay around even longer, when you actually knew it would be beneficial to your campaign to tell them the truth. The rotters would often ignore you!
Such is the lot of the unfortunate election campaign strategist.
No such problem this morning for the spin team from the NSW Labor Party. They found the lads from the Daily Telegraph quite happy to run with a yarn that “Morris Iemma is looking down the barrel of a marginal seat blitzkrieg with secret polling revealing the state election is neck and neck in at least 10 key seats.” Whether that polling is of the made up (which would be my guess) or the fair dinkum (most unlikely) variety the story was right on strategy. The biggest problem facing the Iemma Government is the complacency which might encourage people to risk a protest vote.
The lead which the proper pollsters are giving to Labor is so large that even a protest vote of the dimensions which led to the surprise defeat of Jeff Kennett all those years ago would not be enough to give the Liberals victory. It might, however, be enough to put even more independents and even a Green or two in to the NSW Lower House.
Expect to see more of this kind of Labor Party polling revealed in the weeks ahead.

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