Thursday, October 09, 2008

Faltering at the 11th Hour

Timing is everything. Two weeks ago, the video of the Stephane Dion interview would have been a small blip. The timing today could be devastating. Tomorrow the long weekend starts, and then the next day is the election. There's time to make Dion look bad, but not time to recover.

I spent part of this afternoon at the office of my local Liberal candidate making cold calls. I did not talk to one person who said they were voting Conservative, but the proportion of people who said they were undecided was shockingly high. I can only hope that some of the indecision was a Canadian sense of politeness.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh My God...This guy wants to be OUR Prime Minister?


DION'S MELTDOWN. LIBERAL COVER UP

It was a very simple question... "What exactly has Harper done wrong, and what would you have done instead?" It's the very same question he's been hammering Prime Minister Harper on for the last three days. I'm sorry Liberals, but he should have had this answer down cold. With the way he's been attacking Harper on it, saying he hasn't done enough to protect the Canadian economy, you guys should have been well prepared with an answer to this question, and Mr. Dion should have been able to point out Harper's errors without blinking.

Anonymous said...

Wow, one botched question. Guess we should call it a weekend.

Democrats 2002.

Progressives are going to have to grow a spine if they are going to beat the republicans of the north.

I've watched too many of things south of the border to believe the severe angst coming out of this contrived story.

I thought you'd recognize it better than this, Yappa. Aren't you dual-citizenship with US?

Yappa said...

Hi Joseph,

It doesn't matter very much what we think people should do... it's what they WILL do. On Tuesday.

In addition, elections tend to have a defining issue, and this election appears to be about leadership. All in all, a very unfortunate event.

Aaron said...

I watched the interview. They joked around a bit then started the interview again. Seemed pretty normal to me.

To say this is a problem seems like a fairly desperate attempt to distract from the fact Stephen Harper does not have a plan (or really a platform).

Stephen Harper is petty and small- minded and has no vision for the country.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget how Steven Harper couldn't understand questions in the 2006 French debate. I guess he is incompetent too, if this is the criteria.

Bert said...

Sorry for posting my response to the video in the wrong thread Yappa. You can move it, if you like.

Anon 12:32. The 2006 debate is water under the bridge. This is 2008. He's done WAY better in this years debate. Besides, like it or not, Canada is still predominantly an English speaking country.

And Yappa, those people you spoke with who said they were undecided, they WERE being polite. They were voting Conservative.

Yappa said...

Hi Bert,

Actually I was calling in a poll that traditionally votes NDP, so I think they were probably not voting Conservative OR Liberal.

I still think that this election is marked by a higher than normal level of undecideds, and that is a concern, regardless of who you want to win.