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Royce Koop - Report Card Results

Week Seven Results (Monday 16th - Sunday 22nd)

Political Parties
B-	B-	B	A-

Bloc Quebecois

Duceppe had a surprisingly bad week, as he seems to be adapting poorly to the idea that his strongest challenger in Quebec has suddenly become Stephen Harper. This led to the crude and demagogic newspaper ad that asked Quebecers if they really want their prime minister to be from Calgary. This is the ad that the Liberals wish they could run, but it still represents a low point in the campaign.

Conservative Party

Harper was assailed in this last week by Liberals and reporters who were listening more intently than ever for some mistake that could be exploited. His attempt to assuage fears of a Conservative government by pointing out that the courts were stacked with Liberal appointees led to all sorts of dark premonitions from Martin about Harper’s quest for “absolute power.” Susan Delacourt criticized Harper’s comments by referring to them as “weird western ideas,” another low point for the media. By Friday, Harper had recovered and reporters had gone back to covering the Liberal deathwatch.

When the media became frustrated by the lack of social conservative pronouncements coming from CPC candidates, they began to actively pursue these candidates. This resulted in some fairly amusing episodes of candidates being chased away by reporters and, in at least one instance, a CPC staffer grabbing a reporter and holding her back. This reinforces what is perhaps Harper’s greatest triumph in the campaign: How he and his staff have kept the lid on comments by rambunctious right-wing candidates.

Liberal Party

Unbelievably, the Liberals released a new set of positive ads focused on Paul Martin this week. This segment of the game plan must have been conceived of when the Liberals were under the impression that they would be in the lead. In any case, Martin himself balanced out the ads by launching a new attack on Harper every single day of this week. This led to some of the greatest excesses of the campaign, from Martin musing about Harper’s question for “absolute power” to his labeling of Harper as an “anti-abortion extremist.” Not exactly language befitting a sitting prime minister, but no more divisive than his comments in Nova Scotia on Harper and his entourage being too Calgarian in their thought.

The shift in media focus benefited Martin greatly, and this might count as his first week free of a screw-up. But it was too little too late, and Martin’s frantic attacks, intensified by the prime minister’s speaking style, likely reinforced the notion that the Liberals are going to lose on Monday.

New Democratic Party

After being spanked by left-wingers voting strategically in the last election, Layton has attacked the problem with a vengeance. Focusing his big guns almost entirely on the Liberals rather than the Conservatives, Layton has been fighting hard for the left-wing vote that is repulsed by the idea of a Harper government and is willing to vote Liberal to prevent this. If the pundits are right, the strategy may pay off and Layton will increase his seat share. It may be the first time in the campaign that the NDP has had a clear focus, and Layton had a good week as a result.

Past Political Party Grades

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