Well, week three is pretty much in the books and not much has changed from when the election was called. The election campaign is pretty much unfolding as I stated it would here.
So far the Liberal campaign has been focused and disciplined. They have not made a misstep since it began. The brown face pictures was not a misstep it was a grenade thrown into the election by someone with an agenda. I am certain many in the Conservative camp would have liked it to do damage but Mr. Trudeau's handling of the situation made certain that would not happen. The Liberals have released their full platform so the next few days will be them hammering at its main themes, followed by debate preparation and the debates, followed by hammering on its main themes again for the final sprint home.
This week saw the Conservative campaign hit a bit of a pothole when it was revealed that Mr. Scheer is not a licenced insurance broker after all. Talk about bush league. A man who would be Prime Minister misrepresenting his credentials and work experience. Did he not think that someone would discover that and report on it before October 21? That is just stupid. The media is not focusing too much on it but it is getting out there and this late in the campaign the impression it might create may stick. Mr. Scheer still does not look like he is enjoying himself and there is still no rhyme or reason to the policy announcements he has been making. One thing I did notice was he made some announcements about reducing foreign aid and reopening the Religious Freedom Office in the last couple of days. These are two measures that would appeal only to his base. Why is he bringing them up now? The time for doing so would have been at the beginning, with this period being the time to pivot to appealing to more centrist voters. For this election he has done the opposite. He did not throw any read meat at his base at the beginning, instead coming out with vaguely centrist policy announcements. Then out of the blue, three weeks in, he massages his base a bit. I am not going to read too much into this now but it bears watching.
The other parties are irrelevant and I will not bother talking about their campaign. Although I will say that Mr. Bernier probably missed an opportunity by pursuing the campaign he is pursuing. His natural audience is Conservative supporters, he has some charisma and he is up against a guy who has less charisma than a turnip. There is a reason why he is called "Mr. Blandy". If he would have went hard after Conservative supporters in Ontario and Quebec he might have made himself relevant. As it is, he will probably win his own seat and that is it.
So what will the next three weeks bring? Both of the main parties have managed to hang on to their bases up to now so the next three weeks will be the time of the undecideds. No one can know how they will jump but I have to say that this election does not feel like a change election. In all of the elections where we have seen a change in government you can see that change coming long before this stage in the campaign. We are not seeing it. The undecideds could surprise us still but it is not as likely as them deciding to stick to the government they have. By the way, that may be why Mr. Scheer looks so miserable. He has spent a great deal of time and effort to convince Canadians to change their government and so far he has not seen any reward for that effort.
Three weeks in I have not seen any reason to change my assessment of how this election will end, as outlined in the post I linked to at the beginning of this one. The next three weeks may change that so we will have to wait and see.
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