The Leaders Debate, Sort Of
Having watched the four-on-one Leaders debate in English, highlights of the French debate, I’ve come to a few conclusions. Don’t take these as gospel or infer how I’m going to vote. I honestly haven’t decided yet except that it won’t be Conservative. Punditry and commentary over the last couple of days has mostly served to reinforce my opinion that it’s all about spin in the media.
Stephen Harper the robot is back. No emotion, no caring about what other people think or say, no reaction to almost everything. He spent his time attacking Dion without presenting anything resembling a platform or plan on any issue and only brought up bits and pieces of his governments “record” when something actually roused him enough to defend himself. Mostly he sat back and let people hit him.
Stephane Dion showed passion and determination whenever someone managed to piss him off. In those moments, he became someone you could actually listen to make a point. His handlers should be giving serious thought to how they can keep him pissed off at all times.
Jack Layton spoke very effectively, using his media training to good advantage. Come out with a quick jab to Harper’s chin, give a quick sound byte on the relevant piece of NDP doctrine, take another swing if there’s time. In the open discussion, he got the most hits in, mostly on the PM and occasionally on Dion, and all the best ones. “Where’s your platform? Under your sweater?”
Elizabeth May was a valid voice at the table, had certainly done her homework, and was no less reasonable than anyone else present. She seemed to delight in pointing out bits of past Conservative idiocy, broken promises, and outright lies. I’m certainly glad the consortium backpedaled enough to invite her and wonder if she performed well enough to get elected.
Gilles Duceppe. I have to say that I honestly don’t understand why he’s invited to the English language debate. I understand why he comes – it’s a free hit, or as many as he can get, against the government as well as everyone else – but I don’t think he should be there. He’s not running for PM (he said so openly) and the French-Supremist routine doesn’t play at all outside of Québec (not nearly as well in it lately, either), no matter how subtle, other than to make people’s eyes roll. A regional, separatist party doesn’t belong at the national debate.
The round table format was interesting instead of the traditional podiums, but what I’d really like to see are some one on one debates. Layton against Harper, Layton against Dion, Dion against Harper. They wouldn’t need to be two hours long, but they’d certainly be more informative and give us more to work with on deciding who should have the job of running the company.
Eleven days and counting.
