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Harold Jansen - Week Two Grades

Political Parties
B-	A-	C	B

Bloc Quebecois

The BQ campaign has been fairly low-key, but successful. They basically have been trying to avoid having the election be portrayed as a vote for sovereignty and so far, that appears to be working, despite Martin’s best efforts. The news was the minor blow-up over Duceppe’s pledge to make the Liberals “disappear.” A bit of an overstatement by Duceppe, sure, but Lapierre’s reaction was way over the top.

Conservative Party

The Conservatives are running an effective, error-free campaign so far that has them angling towards the political centre. The child care announcement helped them to take the initiative on social policy: an area that we don’t typically associate with the parties. Their $100 a month policy is tangible to voters, distinguishes them from the Liberals, and manages to target a group that the other parties typically ignore: single earner, two parent households. I didn’t think the Liberal announcement of more funding for their day care initiative managed to counter the attention that the Conservatives generated from this one. Harper’s announcement on cancer research funding also generated some positive publicity for the party.

 So far, the campaign is delivering its message effectively with moderate policies. The big question is: why is this not registering with voters? It must be discouraging for the party to see so little movement in the polls despite running such a great campaign.

Liberal Party

The Liberals had a better week than week one, but the campaign is still seriously lacking on policy and ideas. The Liberals finally managed to generate some headlines with a pledge to ban handguns, which are largely banned anyway. It’s funny to see the Liberals building a campaign around a “law and order” issue while the Conservatives built their week around child care! The Liberal pledge for action on gun violence played well to the Metro Toronto area, a key for them to hold on to power. Martin also managed to make the most of the climate change conference to accomplish two objectives. First, they showed commitment to the environment. Second, they managed to sound tough by criticizing the American administration’s policy on climate change. Since part of the Liberal strategy seems to be to paint Harper as pro-American, this was important to distinguish them. We’ll see whether they can do better in week three. The Liberals are lucky so far that voters appear to be paying little attention. Maybe everyone is too busy stocking up on beer and popcorn…

New Democratic Party

So far, the NDP campaign has been surprisingly lacklustre. Arguably, besides the Bloc, the NDP has the most to gain in this campaign. If they can manage to get enough seats to be the kingmaker in a minority Parliament, they get to be in the driving seat. But the campaign hasn’t been particularly effective so far. Layton is striving to increase the party’s electoral appeal by moderating the party. Witness their announcement on tax cuts this week. They basically promised to keep Liberal middle income tax cuts and the government’s plan to increase the personal exemptions. While that is a centrist, credible policy, it basically sets the NDP up as the “me too” party to the Liberals. The Liberals are guarding their left flank too well for the NDP to move much that way successfully.

Past Political Party Grades

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