As the market goes, so does Harpo’s support

And I, for one, am neither surprised nor displeased to learn this:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stand-pat, don’t-panic response to economic turmoil seems to have fallen flat with voters, sending the Conservatives to their lowest support levels of the campaign, according to a new poll.

[…]

Harper, who took a break from the hustings Sunday, will spend the final week contrasting his “modest, achievable, realistic” platform with what the Tory spokesman characterized as the “grandiose, risky schemes” advocated by opposition parties. That will be bolstered by the party’s largest-ever, direct-mail campaign warning voters against Dion’s proposal to impose a carbon tax.

However, the latest Canadian Press Harris-Decima rolling survey suggests Harper would be wise to bolster his own platform with assurances that he has a plan to ride out the economic maelstrom.

With just over a week to go until voting day on Oct. 14, the survey pegged Tory support at 34 per cent, down from an early campaign high of 41 per cent.

Potentially more ominous for the Tories, who have based their campaign almost entirely on the perceived strength of Harper’s leadership, the prime minister’s personal popularity has also dipped to a campaign low.

Forty-one per cent said they have a favourable impression of Harper – down 12 points – while 51 per cent had a negative impression.

Forty per cent of respondents said their thinking about which party to support has been somewhat or greatly affected by last week’s stock market meltdown, prompted by the financial crisis in the United States. Concern was most pronounced among those in Ontario and Quebec, the country’s manufacturing heartland.

Looks like he’s not going to get his desired majority (read: bully pulpit). Nor is he even going to hang onto the minority he’s got. He stands to lose seats in the very parts of the country where he made such a big to-do about gaining them three years ago. And those parts, as luck would have it, are the industrial ridings of Southern Ontario and Quebec. The parts which are–as luck would also have it–most affected by the stockmarket busts in Toronto and New York. Not, of course, the “safe” Tory ridings of Alberta, where the oil from the Tar Sands seems to have soaked permanently into virtually everyone’s brain, so that they vote for the Fuck the Poor party everytime.

The fact that Harpo will be held accountable at the polls surprises me not at all, and I’m hoping he gets a walloping there. I’m not “cheering for a recession”, as Harpo and his lackeys have accused his opponents of doing; only a fool (or someone who stands to profit from a recession) does that. What I’m cheering for is the fact that we are now seeing the Emperor stark naked. Laissez-faire (laissez-foutre, really) doesn’t work. And also that the NDP’s support is up to 20% now. They’re not far behind the Liberals, and while they don’t seem likely to pass them in the mere week they’ve got left, they’ll probably get their best national showing to date. If that’s not something to cheer for, I’ll eat my little red hat.