Spoke too soon?

It looks like we may have to forget  about the idea of a one-on-one debate between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

 

Though Ignatieff is gamely tweeting this morning a renewed challenge,

The consortium debates are set. How about that one-on-one, Mr. Harper?

 

 

we are also hearing this from CTV's Robert Fife, aboard Stephen Harper's plane.

  Tory campaign insiders say Harper won't take up Ignatieff challenge of separate one on one TV debate. #elxn41 #cdnpoli

 

 *****Update: The Prime Minister, in an early scrum in Newfoundland, said he's not interested in multiple debates and blames Ignatieff for bowing out of the one-on-one challenge.

There's been some speculation this morning that the Prime Minister wasn't even serious when he mused aloud yesterday about the one-on-one. The CBC's Kady  O'Malley and Macleans' writer (and former Liberal PMO speechwriter) Scott Feschuk have been having a hilarious conversation on Twitter, actually, which includes the speculation that Harper is increasingly acting "like a man locked out of his office."

The Liberals are circulating a YouTube video this morning, in a bid to show that Harper is off his game. I'm not sure that's what it shows -- more like a seasoned politician who knows how the drill works (and when it doesn't). But here's the video, and you can judge for yourself.

 

Leaders' debates: Confused?

A lot of noise yesterday about the leaders' debates -- so much, that you may be totally confused about what we're going to see during Campaign 2011. The problem is that we have three different debates about debates. Here, a handy guide to to the story so far: 

1. The traditional leaders' debates will take place on April 12 (English) and April 14 (French). These are the ones organized by a consortium of TV broadcasters -- CTV, CBC, Radio-Canada, TVA and Global are at that table.  As far as I can tell, these talks nearly went off the rails over two disputes yesterday, which have now spun off into what well may be other debates in this campaign. 

2. A one-on-one between Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff. Both leaders seem to want a chance to face off, without the other leaders present. This of course enraged Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe and Elizabeth May (see below).  Listening to Harper and Ignatieff yesterday, I was under the assumption that they were organizing this encounter in addition to the traditional leaders' debate.

But a Tweet from Harper muddied the waters -- making it seem that the Conservatives wanted this proposal instead of the usual leaders' debates. Will the Conservatives still want an Ignatieff-Harper matchup on top of the April 12 and 14 events? We'll see.  Macleans' Paul Wells reported on Twitter yesterday that U of T and Rogers' cable network may try to make this debate happen. 

3. Elizabeth May seems to have been left out of the April 12 and 14 debates. Neither she nor her supporters are going to leave it there. If the TV networks and other parties stand firm, however, the other option may be to have yet another debate, which does include the Green Party leader. CHCH TV has made a formal offer to host that debate. We'll see where that goes. 

There. Hope that clears things up, a bit. All you need to know is that we haven't settled the question yet. Stay tuned. 

King for a day

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory, so I'm going to throw out one for today. On Day 5, secretly, all the parties got together and decided to let Peter Donolo, Ignatieff's chief of staff and Jean Chretien's former  communications chief,  be in charge for a day. And so we see...

 

Exhibit A: "After all, the real choice in this election is a choice between a Conservative government or an Ignatieff-led government that all of these other parties will support,” Harper said.

 

 

Exhibit B: NDP candidate drops out, throws support behind Liberals
 

"I made a strategic decision,” Ryan Dolby who was running for the NDP in the Southwestern Ontario riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London, told the Star on Wednesday. “I believe that is in the best interests of my family and generations to come, my community and the country at large."

"I was really worried looking at the polls seeing that (Stephen) Harper could form a majority, so I thought I had to do everything in my power to stop that,” said Dolby.

Exhibit C: From the Conservative campaign trail, this Tweet by CTV's Robert Fife: @RobertFife: At Brampton plant, Harper put workgloves on backwards. Laureen showed him how they were to be worn.

Remind anyone of this?

 

Update: Exhibit D, from the Tweetstream of Conservative campaign chief Guy Giorno:

 Even I took Vote Compass test and got Liberal. http://ow.ly/4pHEN #cdnpoli #elxn41

 

We get mail

In Ottawa today, the Liberals' David McGuinty is due to give a news conference on Conservative "waste," specifically surrounding spending for the G8 summit last year. Here's a sneak peek at the postcard he's releasing, exclusive to us (for now): 

Up for debate

If I'm reading things correctly, none of the four main party leaders has  a problem with Green Party leader Elizabeth May appearing in the TV debates.  In the story today from my colleague Joanna Smith, we are reminded that three leaders threatened to boycott in 2008 if May participated, but this year, it seems they've all decided that to protest this time would be a bad idea.

The Conservatives have been a bit ambivalent, saying May is "fully capable of arguing her own case," but NDP leader Jack Layton was more definitive  in a statement: "We're fine with her in the debate." Michael Ignatieff himself weighed in late last night from Vancouver: “I think Elizabeth May belongs in the debate, it's as simple as that."

Now the TV consortium finds itself with a flaming bag of something or other on its doorstep, left alone to withstand the same kind of firestorm that May's exclusion provoked in 2008. Or, if you want to go farther back, the same kind of popular protest that arose in 1993, when Reform Party leader Preston Manning was initially shut out, because he didn't speak both languages. Either this will be solved quickly today, and May will be involved, or this is going to get very complicated.

I've had a nagging feeling, which I've shared with colleagues, that we aren't going to have TV debates this time, or that they're going to look quite different (one-on-one encounters, etc.) I can actually envision a situation in which the battle over May goes on for days and one or the other parties just declare that the whole thing is a mess, let's call the whole thing off.

Is that a bad thing? Though  many have reservations about the staged, canned nature of these debates in recent elections, one thing is clear: they spark voter interest, even temporarily. No debates would probably mean lower voter turnout, already at a record low in 2008.  Presumably no party is interested in that. Or is there a party that would benefit from fewer people at the ballot box? 

 

 

Elections are like holidays

No, I'm not talking about Christmas, unless Santa drops down the chimney and says you'll get your present in five years. Nor am I talking about Canada Day or Groundhog Day (though I'll admit there's a bit of flag-waving and seeing shadows, wondering when spring will arrive.) 

It's watching Stephen Harper's day-to-day campaigning that suddenly reminded me of festive occasions. Walk around the neighbourhood, scare people, and hope you get enough bits of candy in the bag all over the place to bring home a big pile of loot at the end. If this works, we can call this the Halloween election. Don't forget your costume. 

Sliced and diced by Day 4

Fact: The nastiest and most intense battles of this election campaign will be waged on demographic fault lines in Canada, and we're already there at Day 4. An insult to Winnipeg MP Anita Neville, about her age, and  a  description of multicultural communities as "you people" are fuel to what could be firestorms in the early days of Election 2011. It could get ugly, in other words. 

Why so intense? Because elections are increasingly fought in the hyper-segmented marketplace, with strategists trying to divide up the electorate on demographic traits -- seniors, "ethnics," women, etc. -- and target platforms to "boutique" audiences. 

The federal Conservatives did not conduct national polling during the 2008 election campaign, we learn this morning in this highly interesting new blog post by Andre Turcotte. 

In the political marketing literature, the current practice of polling in political campaign is referred to as “market intelligence,” Accordingly, the purpose is to use the tools of scientific polling to identify, segment and target the electoral marketplace....As documented in the soon-to-be-released Lees-Marshment’s Political Marketing in Canada, the Conservatives did not even conduct nation-wide polling during the 2008 campaign since they understood that their success hinged on targeting few voters in key ridings. 

So watch for these controversies to get "some legs," as the strategists say, today and in the coming days. 

Mommy wars: Pitting stay-at-home parents vs. working parents: Telling excerpt from story: “They don’t need most of the women’s votes. They only need enough.”

Ignatieff accuses Conservatives of divisive tactics

TORONTO, ON: CARP is calling on MP Shelly Glover [St Boniface] to withdraw her ageist remarks directed at MP Anita Neville [Winnipeg-South Centre] and to apologize to all older voters.

(It's worth remembering too, that this isn't the first time that Anita Neville has been targeted by the Conservatives, though the earlier attack was aimed at casting Ms. Neville, a Jew, as an "anti-Semite." Nor is it the first time Shelly Glover has been dispatched to deliver low blows.) 

 

 

 

More right-wing writers needed

Another Craigslist ad (see previous post) has popped up, this time in Calgary. I'm putting the link here, but my suspicion is that the ad won't be up for long. If you can't find it, I can tell you it's pretty much the same as the one that appeared, then disappeared in Toronto yesterday. 

The Conservatives' campaign chief, Guy Giorno, sent me a small note on Twitter last night, saying "the ad is clearly a fake." I'm inclined to agree with him. It may say something about the quality of those anonymous comments on blogs that we're willing to believe they're churned out by a social-media sweatshop somewhere. I think the mobilization and incentives to write them are probably a bit more subtle. 

Troll call

This ad has now disappeared from Craigslist, but in case you were wondering where some of those blog comments come from..... (Anyone with more info about this practice of paying people to be comment trolls, please send along... discretion/anonymity guaranteed.)Apologies for the quality of the image... it's the best I've got. You can click on it and try to magnify it in your own browser.

 

The hypothetical election

I don't know who was the first PR flak to tell a politician  "Just say you don't answer hypothetical questions" as a way of getting  out of an awkward situation. Whoever that genius is, I hope he/she is rich, because it's one of the most overused dodges in the interaction between reporters and politicians.

 But the dodge is off this election, have you noticed? We're all time-travellers now, journeying to the future (and past) to see what heaven or hell awaits us if we go down one hypothetical path or the other.

First, to our intense annoyance, is the hypothetical coalition. If the election result is unclear, what would all the parties do? What would they not do?And what about 2004? What if Paul Martin's government had fallen and Adrienne Clarkson took Stephen Harper up on his letter/offer?

And now today, from the Conservatives, we get the hypothetical budget. Actually two hypothetical budgets: there's the 2011 one, which was released and never passed, which the Conservatives promise to implement if they are re-elected. Then there's the new 2015 budget, which will contain income-splitting for families, IF the Conservatives are still in power then, and IF the deficit is slain by then.

Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien liked to shrug off hypothetical questions by saying "if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bus." I guess we might say that if this election campaign had wheels, it  might look something like this: