Put to the test

I don't tend to comment on each and every federal poll as it comes out due to the sense that most of the movement tends to reflect noise rather than much of substance. But it's worth noting when the results do have more meaning than usual - and the next batch of polls, starting with the recent one from EKOS, may be highly significant in testing public attitudes about possible coalition governments.

If the Cons are right to cling to the idea that any talk of coalition is toxic (and they've certainly wasted a lot of breath trying to claim just that), then we'd expect them to receive a major bounce in the wake of Michael Ignatieff's announcement that he'd be open to one following the next election. And conversely, if the public's immediate reaction to coalition talk isn't a boost for the Cons like the one they got in December 2008, then we can probably conclude that the idea is far more acceptable than the Cons want to believe.

So far, the results show no backlash at all either from the polling period as a whole or the days after Ignatieff's statement - which can only suggest that the Cons' coalition fearmongering has long since outlived its usefulness even without much pushback from any of the other parties. And the more the opposition parties can contrast a positive message about cooperative politics against the Cons' ineffective demonization of coalitions, the more likely future polls will be to turn decisively against the Cons.