Christy Clark clobbers Adrian Dix in online poll...for now

by Charlie Smith on Jul 28, 2012 at 6:37 pm

Most of us spent this Saturday enjoying the sunshine or watching some of the Olympics on TV.

But it appears that some B.C. Liberal trolls may have been hard at work trying to save the premier's job.

Why am I so suspicious?

I posted an online poll on this site in the morning asking readers whom they prefer as B.C.'s premier.

When I turned off my computer around 1 p.m., the NDP's Adrian Dix had opened up a huge lead, hovering around the 50 percent mark. Christy Clark was in second place, at 16 percent, followed by the others (Stockwell Day, John Cummins, and Jane Sterk).

At 12:41, a commenter named BC noticed the big Dix lead and wrote this telling remark: "Ok Charlie, we are waiting for the inevitable onslaught of Liberals trolls to try and skew your poll again! Let us know when they do! Such an honest bunch they are."

When I turned on my computer several hours later, Clark had achieved a stunning recovery, somewhat along the lines of Muhammad Ali's incredible comeback against George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.

After being put nearly on the canvas, the premier rebounded to reach 61 percent. That laggard Dix was trailing far behind at 26 percent.

Who would you prefer as B.C.'s premier?

Christy Clark 48%
725 votes
John Cummins 2%
30 votes
Stockwell Day 5%
73 votes
Adrian Dix 43%
660 votes
Jane Sterk 2%
38 votes
Comments (27) Add New Comment
Colleen Mitchell White
Jul 28, 2012 at 7:34 pm
I'd rather go home to Saskatchewan
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Moebius Stripper
Jul 28, 2012 at 7:43 pm
Or maybe Smith is just bitter that he had to scrap the "Dix wins in a landslide" piece that he laboured over for seven whole minutes.
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Moebius Stripper
Jul 28, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Having discovered just two weeks ago that Twitter does not employ a team of experts whose job it is to troll death notices and purge deceased politicians' accounts, Charlie Smith now brings us the news that online polls are not scientific. Next up: earth not flat.
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Charlie Smith
Jul 28, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Moebius Stripper,

Which one are you?

http://www.moebiusstripper.com/photos.html
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Martin Dunphy
Jul 28, 2012 at 8:10 pm
For someone who takes such horribly hackneyed photos, you sure are critical.
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Moebius Stripper
Jul 28, 2012 at 8:11 pm
Heh. None of them. Been using this handle for 20 years, though.
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judi sommer
Jul 28, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Hi Charlie, I just made the same point on your other article about the posibility of a change in Liberal leaders. If there has been a groundswell of support for her , the MSM would be all over this. I suspect trolls too or some BC bud at work!
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Pat Crowe
Jul 28, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Charlie, I have trouble believing there is 228 LiberalsNeocons} reading the Straight online on a Saturday afternoon? Let alone that many Liberal supporters of Christy.
Monkey business.
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Burlap Stevens
Jul 28, 2012 at 10:42 pm
This is what Liberals do best. They've never been any different. That said, the NDP are just as bad for different reasons. But to add insult to injury, the conservatives have a "ideological security force" around cummins. I'd like to see Falcon, Abbott, Krueger and others move to Conservatives. Clearly Captain Christy intends sinking another good BC Ship!
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seagreen
Jul 28, 2012 at 11:02 pm
Maybe near-sighted people thought it was a poll on who they wanted to go for a beer with; Christy's cuter than Jane Sterk IMHO . . .
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Peter Ritchie
Jul 29, 2012 at 7:01 am
I just noticed that since my post yesterday; my post about the BCGreen and Liberal party, and 5 other posts were removed that cast the BCNDP in a poor light. Why would the straight online site delete all posts that leaned a certain way?
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Gloria
Jul 29, 2012 at 11:40 am
The people of BC, are fully aware of all the BC Liberals b.s. The Campbell/Clark BC Liberals have thieved and sold every thing of value in BC. Our resources and our assets are gone. Christy is now winding up her sale, of the LBC stores.

We all know the Campbell/Clark BC Liberals work for Harper. Harper's henchmen Boessenkool, works for Christy and Harper, and he also lobbies for Enbridge. The BC Conservatives also support Harper.

If there is one thing the BC people know all about, it's lies, deceit, corruption, thefts, dirty politics, dirty tactics and politicians who cheat to win. This entire country, is a cesspool of corruption. BC is the most corrupt province in Canada.

That poll, will be the joke of the century, because that's the biggest lie of the century.
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Martin Dunphy
Jul 29, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Peter Ritchie:

No comments are deleted unless they violate the guidelines outlined in the comments disclaimer (below).
And, as would be made obvious by even a quick perusal of comments attached to news articles concerning B.C. politics, those that are unfavourable with regard to the B.C. NDP are not being targeted for removal.
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astro
Jul 29, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Let's remember this is an online poll and it has no scientific verification. Do not take it or any other online poll seriously. When I added an "agree" or "disagree" vote sometimes the total jumped by several numbers. It is not valid.
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Martin Dunphy
Jul 29, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Peter Ritchie:

I've discovered the source of your confusion/error. Your comment is here (http://straight.com/poll/who-would-you-prefer-bcs-premier), with the comments on the poll in which you were participating.
Nothing was deleted, as I pointed out.
You merely got turned around from the article you originally read to the comments on the poll to which you were directed.
Two different pages.
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gobbels
Jul 29, 2012 at 9:54 pm
This kind of media manipulation should be illegal.
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123
Jul 31, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Online polls are bogus anyway. They never represent society in general, just people who visit a certain site. The same thing is starting to happen with telephone polls. They are becoming skewed towards people who have land lines. This is often a different set or people who have only cells.
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derp
Aug 5, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Online poll fixing is dead easy to do. Same goes for online voting, whatever you do never let them try to implement 'secure online voting' no matter what technocrats the government office trots out to tout it's security, because it won't be secure.

And yes, Clark does hire media relations corporations who fix polls and write comments with bots. All politicians in the 21st century do
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Isaac Brock
Aug 6, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Good grief. None of the above? Why are our choices limited to neocons or nincompoops?
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Billiam
Aug 8, 2012 at 7:50 am
And the NDP trolls are not out in full force on every story?!....Come on Straight are you really hoping for the NDP that much?! When the NDP gets in and crashes the housing market like they are promising where do you think your ad revenue will go?....down the toilet along with the greater economy.
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