It is unlikely that Jaime Watt was talking about Babel-on-the-Bay in a recent op-ed piece. The Conservative political pundit referenced “horse race journalism” as being premature and meaningless in discussing the next federal election. Well, it is too early and he is right about that.
But we like the horse race analogy and we know when to publish our Morning Line for the different electoral contests. You need that time before the contestants are ‘At Post’ to consider your bets and how you can personally influence the outcome.
It is not that you cannot dope out the election race for yourself. Most of the information is usually available by the time the writ comes down. You can assess the parentage, past performances, pole position and possibilities of the leaders and the individual candidates in your electoral district.
And you have to do far more analysis than just the party leaders. You have to view the race in relation to the entire field.
And we should all agree with Watt in regard to polls. There is good polling and bad polling and the news media have never figured out the difference. Individual polls need considerable analysis and to just lump them all together can produce some very misleading prognostications.
Watt claims that the horse race analogy portrays candidates as self-interested and focuses only on winning and losing. Frankly, those are the alternatives. There is no second prize in first-past-the-post elections.
And Watt also complains that as Professor Matthew Nisbet of Northeastern University tells us, horse race journalism leads to coverage that seems to present a false equivalency in the treatment of issues and allows for the creation of so-called “fake news.”
It has always been my belief that voters apply their own (probably unconscious) weighting system to the main issues in elections and have a wide range of tipping points that can persuade some of them to change their vote. It can be a very small percentage of voters in close electoral districts that can decide the next Prime Minister.
Canadians will be facing a growing cacophony of noise about the next election over the next two years. Given each party’s plans and promises, domestic and world problems and our individual concerns, we will have much to sort out. It will make the election a horse race.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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