First: Elizabeth May deserves congratulations for gaining entry to the leaders’ debate. I’m not so sure that she should be so happy over this, however. Many people think that May has a good speaking style. This may be true in some contexts, but I’m not sure if she will perform well in a debate with four other party leaders. Harper, Dion, Layton, and Duceppe all have significant experience in Parliament and the first three have already participated in televised debates. May has no similar experience. "Elizabeth May," argues Kevin Libin, "talks faster than an auctioneer on a caffeine buzz." And we’ve already seen that her tendency to talk quickly can get her into trouble. As Harold Jansen observed, it may be Harper who benefits from May’s inclusion in the debate, as he is left to look prime ministerial as the other four leaders natter away.
First week report card: Conservatives win the week
So, who won the first week? I’d have to go with the Conservatives. It certainly wasn’t a perfect week for them: some overeager election staffers sent them off message and into damage control mode. However, Harper and the party dealt swiftly with pooping puffins and with e-mails about the political motivations of grieivng parents of dead Canadian soldiers. Furthermore, the party also had the most significant policy announcement of the week in the announcement of the 2001 end to Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. I’d give them an A-.
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First week poll numbers: Good news for Conservatives and Greens, BQ is in trouble
All right, a disclaimer before we begin discussing the latest poll numbers from Decima-Harris and Nanos. There’s a lot of trouble with how the media reports polls: they tend to do a horrible job of reporting margins of error on regional poll results, as Melanee Thomas detailed in her recent blog posting. Also, in a country with a heavily regionalized electorate like Canada, the national poll numbers don’t mean a whole lot. If the Conservatives are up nationally because they the remaining 35% of voters in Alberta who haven’t already succumbed to their charms have now decided to join the majority, it won’t mean much for seats because the party can’t win any more seats there. The key battlegrounds are British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario.
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War Rooms and Democracy
If Kim Campbell is right, and election campaigns are hardly the place to talk policy, they’re certainly no venue for political philosophy. So, please forgive me as I wax (not so) poetic about the impact of modern campaigning on the quality of democracy in Canada.
October 14: The Date
Aside from a few minor media stories at the outset of the campaign, few observers are making much of Stephen Harper’s decision to send Canadians to the polls on October 14. The date, itself, holds several strategic advantages, however.
Palin vs. May — a different angle
Beyond references to their attacks on "the old boys club" (overt and rhetorical in Palin’s case, and more symbolic in May’s case) comparisons between the Republican Vice Presidential nominee and Canadian Green Party leader have been few and far between. Perhaps this is because few people would place the two in the same political league.