The political rehabilitation of John Turner continues apace

It’s bad enough when they are comparing you to the least successful leader in your party’s history. It’s something worse when you come out unfavourably.

Another bad poll for Her Majesty’s Artificial Opposition from Angus Reid today.

For the Cons and New Democrats, the global numbers are too close to 2006 election results to be notable, but for the Liberals, 27 percent puts them three points down from the drubbing they got in 2006 and even one percentage point below their disastrous result in the 1984 election.

Add to this that a monumental 90 percent of Canadians now do not approve of his performance, and you find Dion being compared in the Toronto Star to John Turner -- the Liberal captain through their worst years.

“Not since former Liberal leader John Turner bottomed out with a 14 per cent approval rating shortly after losing the 1988 election have things been so bad for the head of Canada's most successful political party. Just 10 per cent of those surveyed stand behind Dion's leadership, the poll shows, compared to 32 per cent for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

What's worse is that the number of people who said they were unsure about Dion's performance has dropped from 46 per cent at the end of last summer to 30 per cent this month, meaning that Canadians are making up their minds about a leader who has had difficulties rallying his party behind him as well as communicating his party's positions to potential voters.”

The second paragraph really is the kicker: people who were heretofore undecided about Dion have moved to the decided column to join the swelling ranks of those who disapprove of the flip-flops, the abstaining and the insincere haranguing of a government Liberals dare not defeat.

What can’t be helping any of this is the latest political disaster of Dion now saying he wants to force on Canadians a regressive carbon tax that will hurt the poor and which he called “bad policy” not even two years ago.