Lisa Young - Week One Grades
Bloc Quebecois
Mr. Duceppe doesn't get much coverage in Alberta , so I'll grade him
on a pass/fail basis every week. The clips I've seen make it look as
though he's taking full advantage of the weaknesses in the Liberal
party's government. And thus far he's avoided wearing any silly hats.
Keep up the good work.
Conservative Party
Harper appears to have miraculously survived the Liberal party's efforts
to paint him as an extremist almost entirely unscathed. Now his biggest
challenge is to survive his candidates' attempts to explain party policy
to the press. A couple more slips like Scott Reid's and no amount of
damage control will be able to repair the notion that Harper's new
party isn't just the Alliance sporting Tory Blue. I wonder about Harper's
ability to stay on message through the campaign -- defending the wholly
public medicare system can't come too easily to him.
Liberal Party
The Prime Minister hasn't made any major missteps, but he hasn't
been able to seize the agenda either. He's been running
for this job for so long that there's a sense of déjà vu
when he announces more money for health care or the cities.
To be fair, Mr. Martin has had a rough week: having to deal with
the fall-out from the Ontario budget makes his job all
the more difficult. Then again, given that one of his closest
advisors was working on the Ontario budget strategy, this can't
have come as a huge surprise. Can someone explain to me again
why he called the election right now??
New Democratic Party
It's tough to grade Jack Layton this week. He gets an A for garnering
media attention, an F for accuracy (with his claims that Paul
Martin was personally responsible for the deaths of homeless people),
and a D- for math (you can't spend all that money and not run a deficit,
Jack). In politics, visibility is everything, so the media attention
outweighs accuracy and mathematics. But perhaps he should tone
down the rhetorical excess before it gets him in real trouble.
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