Debate brawl aftermath

Do polls and focus groups tell us everything about the provincial election, or who won or lost Wednesday’s leaders’ debate? Or have we forgotten how we’ve put maybe a little too much faith in them?

A longtime Saskatchewan New Democrat was recently complaining about what’s wrong with today’s political world, which tends to be ruled by polls and focus groups.

If you get five people in a room and ask them what their priorities are, he said, they will inevitably say something like “seniors’ care” because that’s what they’ve heard so often and nobody wants to be seen as uncaring to seniors. But if you privately ask them what their priorities are, they will give you a very different answer.

Consider this in the context of what was — at least until the fireworks of Wednesday’s leaders’ debate — a rather banal 2016 provincial election campaign.

There has been an overwhelming sense that this election has been carefully following the script written by the focus groups and pollsters where the last scene sees a satisfied electorate re-elect Brad Wall to a third term with a convincing majority.

Certainly, the post-debate Mainstreet Research poll would suggest voters favoured Wall’s calm, don’t-panic demeanour over NDP Leader Cam Broten’s often angry passion.

The poll revealed a surprising 56 per cent of the 1,006 people surveyed provincewide saying Wall won the debate, compared with 32 per cent who preferred Broten’s shouty performance. Twelve per cent were unsure. (Interestingly, though, Regina numbers were much closer — 45 to 40 per cent in favour of Wall, with 15 per cent unsure.)

That said, Wall’s relax-and-stay-calm approach seemed a bit out of step in an angst-filled province where the pinch of the oil downturn has seeped down from unemployed oil workers to government stakeholders like those at the Prairie Spirit school division. And for Education Minister Don Morgan to say school trustees have no business bringing up such matters in an election campaign sounds more panicky and shouty than Broten was Wednesday night.

Sure, the polls and focus groups claim we prefer Wall’s businesslike approach over Broten’s old-style rural hotel brawling. But do polls and focus groups tell us everything? Or have we forgotten how we’ve put maybe a little too much faith in them?

Consider how the polling told us a year ago that the Alberta Progressive Conservatives were headed for a cakewalk win or that Justin Trudeau was running third for a large portion of that alltoo-long summer federal election campaign.

Nor does the post-debate poll measure whether Broten may have finally lit a fire under his own people ... or more significantly, those citizens who still aren’t quite sure who to vote for, but have their own reasons to buy into Broten’s “you’ve changed” sound bite that paints Wall as being less compassionate.

Now, let’s keep things in perspective: The debate doesn’t change the reality that the NDP isn’t likely to win on April 4.

One passionate performance by Broten does not an election campaign make — especially a disastrous campaign where four candidates were dropped and where his own platform looks as if it were designed by a focus group fearing to offend anyone. Nevertheless, it did seem like Broten accomplished more in the debate than Wall.

Wall remained calm and at least spoke the right words to demonstrate humility. But he failed to acknowledge errors on everything from Bill Boyd’s excessive executive air flights (Broten reiterated the NDP will dump the fleet) to the Global Transportation Hub (“You ripped off nuns and that’s the gospel truth,” Broten roared).

That’s not being humble. Nor was Wall truthful when he denied that candidate Bronwyn Eyre called global warming “witchcraft science” when she did so in her Saskatoon Star-Phoenix column.

Instead, he underpinned the reasons why Broten was yelling at him.

Wall did score in areas that may have been troubling for the Sask. Party like private MRIs (“You bet we’ve changed,” he said, referring to reduced health-care wait times). But it’s no small irony that Wall did his best when he broke the leash of his own political handlers and spoke passionately from his heart about the things he cares the most about. And therein lies the lesson that Broten might have better learned.

Notwithstanding what the polls and focus groups keep saying, it still might be OK for Saskatchewan politicians to demonstrate some passion.