Week Two in the Books: Liberals with momentum and Conservatives in trouble

So week number two is pretty well over and if we are to assess the results from it we can say that the Liberals seem to have a little bit of momentum heading into debate week and the Conservatives have some real troubles in the present and probable future.

The sense of momentum for the Liberals can be felt in the polls with most of them seeming to indicate that the Liberals and Mr. Ignatieff have made up alot of ground on the Conservatives in week two.  As well, they seem to be taking support from the NDP, which is a necessary step in gaining power.  Reducing vote splitting and convincing soft Conservative supporters to switch sides has always been the key to victory for the Liberals.

However, the real momentum can be seen in the campaign itself.  Mr. Ignatieff is playing to packed houses.  As I stated in a previous post in most cases these people are Liberal partisans.  So, if Mr. Ignatieff can attract 1200 Liberal partisans in Hamilton that probably means that the candidates in Hamilton and surrounding areas are attracting alot of volunteers.  That bodes well for the GOTV effort on election day.  As well, all reports seem to indicate that fundraising is going very well which would seem to indicate that Liberals are engaged in this election.  Remember folks that the Conservatives lost votes during the 2008 election but still won because almost 1 million Liberals decided to sit out that election.  If they decide to come back things will be very good for the Liberals.

The Conservatives are having real difficulties.  Week two of their campaign was just a brutal, if not more so, than week one.  They stomped on their own message with three days of reports of their tactics for keeping undesirable young people out of their rallies, the illegal use of the RCMP in doing so and the ongoing Carson saga.  It is starting to rattle Stephen Harper.  That is the only reason why he would release the Conservative platform in the setting he did today.  The bubble boy campaign claims are beginning to hit home and he desperately wants to appear to be reversing it without actually doing so of course.  Then there is the content of the platform.  Only a party that is feeling the heat would stomp on their own budget 17 days after tabling it in the House.

The Carson Affair is the real danger for the Conservatives.  I know that Conservative supporters and their apologists in the media have been trying to downplay the whole thing and they have had some success so far.  However, this affair just does not seem to end and with every new revelation more Canadians are wondering just what is going on there.    

Further the elements of the affair can be very easily stitched together into a nasty narrative for the Conservatives.

"Stephen Harper appointed, as one of his senior advisors, a man who was convicted of a felony five times and who seems to have had links with a money launderer, a man who is now under RCMP investigation for allegations that he illegally lobbied the government for government contracts that could have kicked back 10s of millions of dollars to him and his fiancee, who happens to be a former high prices prostitute."

Do you think such a narrative could be nicely explained in a 30 second spot?  One that is run, alot, from the end of the debates to the end of the election.  As the Adscam ads the Conservatives used during the 2006 election demonstrate, they do not need to be totally true.  They just need to tell a plausible story. 

Mr. Carson could very well bring down the Conservative Party on May 2.

The Liberals are exactly where they want to be going into debate week.  They have the momentum and they are facing a chief opponent that is showing signs that they may not be able to turn things around before election day.