Harper in Quebec: the non-story

For sheer insignificance, it's hard to beat the notion that Stephen Harper's popularity "jump(ed)" in Quebec after Nycole Turmel became the NDP's interim leader in July. And yet, this is what the Huffington Post's Canadian homepage is trumpetting today, backed by an Eric Grenier article that "analyzes" the latest CROP opinion poll (at http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/30/layton-harper-quebec-leadership-crop-poll-numbers_n_940562.html).
The poll was taken August 17 to 22, just before Layton's death. If you were CROP and were contracted to do a poll during that week (by Montreal's La Presse - whose own website is silent today on that poll,) you would do your job and ask your usual questions - which they did. In a June poll, Layton had scored 48% among Quebecers to Harper's 16% on the leadership question, as who would be "the best person to be Canada's prime minister." In mid-August, with the very sick Layton replaced by Turmel, Harper's leadership numbers were an underwhelming +5, to 21%. Turmel scored 11% and Bob Rae 10% (+6 vs June). Most of the change, in fact, went to a huge increase in "none of the above" and "don't know," which together went up by 23%.
On the basis of the difference between the two polls, Grenier writes that "it is clear that the NDP's position in the province could be fragile." It's tempting to answer "Duh!" Since the very night of the election, commentators have harped on the possibility that the party's Quebec gains could be a one-hit wonder, tied to Layton's personal popularity. In any case, with little tradition in the province, heavy responsibilities in Ottawa, and complicated internal dynamics, the road ahead was bound to be difficult for the NDP. With Layton gone, things will be exponentially more challenging.
But there are two key points against Grenier's article and (even more so) against the HPC frontpage. First, the numbers racked up by an interim leader, whether Turmel or Rae, against Harper are pretty much meaningless: it is when a new, "permanent" leader is chosen that we will need to pay attention to "the best person to be Canada's prime minister" numbers. It makes no sense to assess the NDP's prospects in Quebec, or anywhere else in the country, on the basis of a Turmel vs Harper confrontation.
Second, even more importantly, this particular mid-August poll was rendered severely obsolete within hours of being completed, as a result of Layton's death. It's a cliché (!) to say that a poll is a snapshot of the electorate's feelings, but the usefulness of polls is that, on most days, the political world is not turned upside down. On most days, what was true on Monday remains the case on Tuesday; and may well remain true for a number of weeks or even months. But once in a while, something happens suddenly that changes the whole landscape. "Jack"'s death on August 22 was one such event.
You can't blame CROP for having done its job, but you have to wonder what in the world is going on at Huffington Post Canada. There has been a steady stream of media stories ever since May 2nd, that attempt to plant in our heads the notion that the NDP is not up to the job, that it's a flash-in-the-pan, and now that it may not even survive Layton. But these have tended to come from conservative sources such as The National Post, Sun Media outlets, and The Globe and Mail. But Huffington Post is supposed to be left-leaning. So, what's up with them?