Election Tidbits - Greens Shut Out, Harper and Layton Fast Out of the Gate, Dion Lags

It looks like Elizabeth May and the Greens are going to be shut out of another leaders debate. The decision was made today by a group of Canadian television broadcasters who actually run the debates on their airwaves to only host the Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Bloc parties for the two debates slated for early October.

Unlike all the other times, this time I actually feel they should be there.

They are a legitimate national party now. They are not viable to form any kind of government, but neither is the NDP or the Bloc. They are running candidates in every single riding across the country, except one, which is a product of the ill-advised deal Stephane Dion made with May to not run candidates in each others ridings. (This works just fine for May, but as May herself is running against Peter Mackay, Dion might be thinking twice about not being able to run a candidate against the Foreign Minister) Also, as of the dissolution of Parliament, they actually had a sitting MP, as the near-disgraced, now-cleared but shunned by his former Liberals MP Blair Wilson had switched to Green stripes.

Maybe the Greens should have been let in last time, or the one before, but this time around, they have national prominence, and cannot be denied. More importantly, their main party issue should be injected into our national discourse in a major way.

May and the Greens are taking legal action to hopefully force their way onto the national stage. They've been doing a damn good job of it for over a decade now, and I hope the trend continues sometime in the next few weeks.

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Jack Layton and Stephen Harper really jumped out of the starting blocks of the national campaign today, hitting hard on issues and trying to define their opponents, campaigns and themselves.

Stephane Dion on the other hand, has had more of a...slow start on the race.

His campaign plane will not be ready for another few weeks, even though this election had been on the horizon since the moment he sat for the first time as Liberal leader in Parliament. He is to be on a bus tour for the time in between, and began today with a rally in Montreal.

As you can see from a 24 Hours review of the event here , it didn't seem to lack too much punch and enthusiasm.

This is going to be a tough campaign for Dion just based on the issues (Green Shift), let alone having to battle problems with energizing his Liberal base and the electorate. This is a very uphill battle, and Dion started with a thud.

Harper, on the other hand, has been issuing election-style commercials for a few weeks now, and peppering Canadian mailboxes with fliers about leadership, the environment, crime, and all the other issues of the day. They have a big head start on the hearts and minds campaign, as the Harper commercials have been effective, showing ordinary people praising Harper's policies, and the man himself.



On a side note, I saw the first Liberal ad of the campaign, and it was highly unimpressive. It didn't seem to have a clear point, didn't convince anyone about the Green Shift, throwing out a bunch of cliche lines about creating jobs and making our economy stronger, without offering specifics. It closed with a very bad, grainy shot of Dion saying something about why he respects Canada. I say again, THUD.

(Note: I searched for a good 20 minutes trying to find the Liberal Party's ad on YouTube, but could not, and ironically, every search with the keywords 'liberal' 'party' 'election' 'ad' 'Canada' '2008', etc, ended up pulling up the Stephen Harper leadership commercials for the first 3-4 hits. Dion is losing the viral campaign already, and with this generation possibly going to the polls, that is a very necessary chord to hit)

Layton gave a fiery speech in Vancouver today, hitting the Conservatives hard on their environmental and social policies. Jack is trying to be the Canadian Obama, preaching about being the candidate of 'change', and right away, it seems to be working for him. He has the populist cred to run this kind of campaign, and with him paying no attention to Dion and all his attention to Harper, in a year where people seem to be largely apathetic towards Dion, and not entirely comfortable with Stephen Harper having a majority, he could steal a lot of left-leaning voters.

I honestly think we will end up in another Conservative minority government, but if Dion flubs, or people are not comfortable enough with him, or Jack, then it could lead to a big Conservative slide.

Jack has opportunities, so does Harper, and the Liberals are just trying to hang on.

Ahhh, feels like 2006 all over again.

I do also think this will be Dion's only election as leader, and he will be subtly, or not so subtly, pushed to the side after the almost assured loss. I think everyone that leans left of Bush in this country (Which would be the type of policies Stephen Harper in a majority setting would emulate to the fullest) is just hoping he doesn't blow it and condemn us to absolute rule by the Conservative Party, and then we'll move on to someone more capable of winning an election. Someone like Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae, two men who should have been the last two in the leadership contest before Dion and Gerard Kennedy pulled their backstage deal to swipe the leadership away.

That aside, I have heard many people say in this cycle they will not vote Liberal or NDP, they will simply vote non-Conservative. Whatever works in their riding to ensure that seat is not held by a Conservative MP is what their vote is pointed towards. That concept will likely decide the makeup of our next Parliament more than anything the leaders have to say over the next 5 weeks, because with the polls showing a near tie amongst the Liberals and Conservatives, not many opinions are likely to change in just over a month, no matter how heavy the rhetoric and how prosperous the policy proposals are.