Some interesting polling from Nanos

Nanos asked people on April 13th and 14th what comes to mind when they think of each of the parties, the answers were open ended

                  CPC  NDP   Lib   BQ  Green
Total Responses   925  923   931  232  941
Untrustworthy    14.4  3.3  16.3  5.2  ---
Turstworthy       6.4  5.8   ---  ---  ---
net above        -8.0 -2.5 -16.3 -5.2  ---
Bad/Incompetent   9.9 10.1  18.4  ---  ---
Good              9.1 10.0  11.5  4.0  4.8
net above        -0.8 -0.1  -6.9  4.0  4.8
Arrogant          5.5  ---   4.9  2.9  ---
Aggressive        ---  4.2   --- 10.7  ---
Innovative        ---  8.6   ---  ---  4.5
New               --- 10.0   ---  ---  ---
Caring            --- 10.2   ---  ---  6.0
Naive/Idealistic  ---  5.6   ---  --- 23.3
Partisan         12.9 13.3  11.1 11.7 16.7
None              8.1  8.7  10.1 14.0 22.6
Overall positive 32.1 47.4  29.2  4.0 19.4
Overall negative 34.7 17.6  48.9 63.0 34.2

• By partisan, I mean such things as Conservative, Socialist, Liberal/Centrist, Separatist, or Environmentalist as it applies for each party
• None includes not well known and unsure
• Idealistic and Naive 

The numbers are interesting especially at how bad the numbers are for the Liberals.   34.7% of the responses for the Liberals are either untrustworthy or bad/incompetent.   With Stephen Harper into his seventh year as Prime Minister it is surprising at how many people see the Liberals more negatively than the Conservatives.  The party has not reconnected with the nation.

The Conservatives responses are somewhat more negative than positive but as a party they are the closest to equal between the two.  In the further responses the party was more balanced:

• Controlling/authoritarian 5.9%, Strong/Powerful or Strong leadership 6.1%
• Selfish 4.6%, Intelligent 4.0%, Realistic/Pragmatic 3.2%

The oddest result was 3.3% of respondents having Progressive coming to mind when asked about the Conservatives.   This has to be a connection to the provincial party name in seven of the provinces.

What I also see are the strong positive responses for the NDP.  Innovative, new and caring make up 28.8% of the NDP responses, add to that trustworthy and good and it gets to 44.6% of responses.  The positive responses are far out ahead of the negative responses.   The NDP is well positioned from this to build into the next election.

When asked, 1% of the responses of what people thought the personality of the NDP was answered Jack Layton.

The Bloc is drowning in negative responses.  Seeing the high negative responses for the Bloc I had thought the responses came from all of Canada, but the poll only asked about the Bloc in Quebec.   Even though it was only 232 responses for the Bloc, the numbers are very, very negative for them and should scare the shit out of the party leadership.

Not surprisingly, for the Greens people either have no idea, a partisan response or see them as naive/idealistic.    That makes up 62.6% of responses.  Overall the party has a negative image in public.   Even with Elizabeth May in parliament the party is not doing well.