Striving Against Opposition

Bye, Bye Mr. Liberalman Guy

I'd like to start off my assessment with a musical response watching last night's video. That's right kids, hum along to the tune of American Pie.

Bye, bye Mr. Liberalman Guy
You took your party to the people
But their pity ran dry
Now those good old boys
Those conservative guys
are singing this will be the day that you die!

Paul Martin

Well after the musical interlude you can graspe the substance of how I feel about Paul Martin's video presentation. To be fair the video itself was very good. Martin's demeanour seemed sincere, and his delivery of his speach was good. Stylistically, Martin gets full marks. The problem is, that a speach cannot subsist on style alone. While Paul Martin may try and plead with people not to punish the Liberals for the sponsorship scandal, the simple fact of the matter is - the Liberals stole money from the Canadian taxpayers and rna election campaigns with it.

You can sugar coat that all you want, but the fact of the matter is - it happened, and its absolutely disgusting. I don't think Martin's mea culpa where he admitted that he was negligent in not having seen what was happening to the money helps him politically. It may preserve people's good opinion of him - i.e. he was only incompetent not criminal. However, I don't think it does anything for the Liberal brand at all.

In fact I think the entire exercise of going on national television during prime time to bring the sponsorhip scandal to people's attention as some sort of national crisis was about the worst thing Paul Martin could have done. Perhaps, he's made it slightly more difficult for Harper to call an election. But not really, Martin is essentially promising a Decemeber election - that's premised upon legal action by Chretien not interferring in the Gommery report. I think if you asked people "Would you rather have an election in June or in Decemeber" they'd pick June. Furthermore, I don't genuinely think outside of political junkies that many people ever truly get fired up about an election. They just reluctantly shuffle out when they have too.

Furthermore, I think some people are going to be turned off that Martin went off TV to do some shameless self promotion. It wasn't the nation's business, it was rather transparently an attempt to save his own hide. Which is typically liberal, completely unable to distinguish between the national interest and the interests of the Liberal Party.

Stephen Harper

Some people have criticized his delivery from last night. I thought he did okay. It wasn't a knock it out of the park, ooze JFK style charisma speach, but what he did do is he looked like a leader. More importantly he moved back and forth between english and french fairly smoothly. He also made a pitch directly to Quebecers. I think that alone accomplished a lot for him. Firstly, he presented himself as a younger, reasonable figure. He didn't seem scary at all. He also demonstrated his billingualism which helps dispell the accusation that he's some sort of crazy westerner - as everyone knows crazy westerners ne parle pas francais.

On the substance he came out swinging in rejecting everything Paul Martin had to say. Well, you'd pretty much expect opposing from the opposition wouldn't you. He hammered home his points fairly ruthlessly, and I was pleased to see him making his pitch to Quebec rather strenously. Conservatives have been gaining some traction there, and its important to try and lure every federalist voter away from the BQ. I don't care if they vote for us, or for the NDP but if the Bloc polls at 60% that would be very..very bad for the country. I think his call for federalist voters to rally around the Conservative party and for Canadians as a whole to do so, went along way to difusing the Scott Brison "we are the cause and solution to this national unity crisis" argument. It was ridiculous to begin with but Harper's statement that "the Liberal Party can no longer go to Quebec with clean hands to represent the federalist cause" had a ring of truth to it. I personally think it will help us in Ontario. Ontario always seems nervous about upsetting Quebec, kind of like whipped boyfriend desperately afraid to upset his girl so they vote Liberal to "keep the country together"...well that argument is no longer on the table for the Liberals. I will feel my dose of gleeful spite if that begins to work against them.

But it's no secret I'm a Conservative. If Stephen Harper came out there and offered a Dean scream, and yelled "I hate the Liberals I want them all to die!" I would be "You tell them Harper!"

Gilles Duceppe

Duceppe scares me. He is far too good at what he does, which unfortunately is work to promote the disolution of the country. Stylistically he delivers his message with a passion the other leaders seem to lack, he seems genuinely enraged and indignant and its rather infectious. Furthermore, he stays perfectly on message. I kind of wish he was on our side instead of a seperatist and a quasi-communist. You have to stop yourself from nodding along as he makes his points..he's developed into a terribly effective politician.

Jack Layton

Alright..I can't stand Jack Layton. He comes across as slimy, insincere and on some sort of happy pills to me. But if you can get past that, and the fact he's a flaming socialist I guess your okay. I know I wouldn't consider voting for him unless my other options were Mao Zedong, and Joe Stalin, but if your into the "lets spend money on everything imaginable" mindset and think money grows on trees rather than being produced by trade and industry Jack probably sent out good vibes to you. He talked about all the pet lefty projects. On the other hand, he dissed Liberal corruption but came out and said 'let's make a deal'. That seems rather unprincipled to me. On the other hand I think socialists are thieves so they may not have the same perception as I do.

Reader's Digest Version: Martin shouldn't have given his opponents a platform on prime time to bash him. Nor should he have drawn more attention to the sponsorship program. I'm predicting this desperate gambit blows up in his face.

posted by Chris @ 4/22/2005 05:41:00 p.m.