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What a very odd start to the election campaign that was supposed to bring political peace in our time.

Poll after poll shows the voters are upset, really upset, enough to push Wildrose ahead of the Progressive Conservatives as the favoured party.

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That’s right, the NDP is one point ahead of the PCs.

This is so unexpected that pollsters themselves don’t feel the numbers will hold on election day, May 5.

“We need to be very careful about reading too much into the early horse-race numbers,” says Marc Henry, whose firm ThinkHQ has Wildrose at 31 per cent, the PCs at 25, and the NDP at 26, if an election were held tomorrow. That’s right, the NDP is one point ahead of the PCs.

There’s a big undecided vote — 21 per cent — which isn’t surprising, since few people believe any opposition party is in fit shape to govern the province.

The logical conclusion is that people will drift to the PCs during the campaign, if they vote at all. As Henry says, voters may want “to take the PCs to the woodshed, but not necessarily to the gallows.”