In no particular order.
Some in the media and the Conservative side of the election are claiming that the Liberals are hiding Mark Carney for...reasons. This assertion comes from him "pausing" his campaign to take care of some PM stuff. What they are trying to sell with this line of reasoning is a non-eventful week, which saw the Conservatives ineffectively throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the wall, has seen them turn the tide against the Liberals. I even saw one dude mention that the Liberal internals must be terrible. The problem with that is leaders tend to campaign harder when things are not going well. Indeed, it can be manic. During the 2006 change election Paul Martin was campaigning like a mad man at this stage while Stephen Harper had a much less packed agenda. Perhaps the Liberal "internals" are actually saying that things are going so well for the Liberals that Mark Carney can take a little break. Or, hear me out, maybe he paused his campaign to actually address a global financial crisis that was triggered by the idiot who currently occupies the White House.
The contrast between the Liberal and Conservative campaigns is stark. For the Conservatives you would almost think Pierre Poilievre was running a Liberal campaign because he mentions them as often as he mentions his own party. Their ads on TV mention the Liberals more than the Conservatives by a ratio of almost 2:1. The Liberals campaign barely mentions the Conservatives. Mr. Carney only mentions them in passing during his campaign stops and I have not seen a single Liberal TV ad mention them. It is almost like the Liberals do not believe the Conservatives are relevant right now.
I saw the new Liberal TV ad, referencing the current economic turmoil unleashed by the orange blob to the south, yesterday during the hockey game. As political ads go it was nothing extraordinary. However, let's remember that political parties test their ads before releasing them so the release of this one would seem to indicate that Donald Trump and his stupidity is still very much on the minds of Canadians. If that is the case and it remains so until April 28 the Liberals are in the best position to win this election.
I see many Conservatives asserting that things will change after the debates. Perhaps, but as things stand now Pierre Poilievre will have to knock it out of the park AND Mark Carney would have to be a bumbling idiot. Anything is possible in politics but it should be noted that debates rarely have that much of an impact on election outcomes. Most of the time the debates are boring and banal, where party leaders toss out competing talking points.
In 2015 the Liberals crowed a great deal about the size and enthusiasm of the crowds that Justin Trudeau was attracting and the Conservatives played them down. This time the opposite is true. The whole thing with crowd size was silly then and it is silly now. Many years ago I helped my local Liberal candidate win an election. I once accompanied her to an all-candidates debate and was surprised and concerned by the number of Reformers who showed up to heckle her. I spoke to her after the debate about it and she stated that she had now problem with it. If they were spending their evening in a room heckling her they were not out knocking on doors and identifying their vote. She won that riding by over 10000 votes during that election. The foundation of an election win is established on the ground, in the individual ridings. If Conservative partisans want to waste time attending a rally instead of identifying their voters then I have no problem with that.
This is not feeling like a change election. I could be wrong and that sentiment could explode onto the scene over the next two weeks but that would be a first if it happens. Usually you can see a change election coming long before the writ is dropped. Usually, you can certainly see it as the campaign unfolds. However, for this election I am just not seeing it and believe me I have been looking for the signs from the beginning. I am just not seeing it, which is surprising considering how long the Liberals have been in power.
The polls indicating the Liberals will win 200 seats are about as believable as the polls that stated the Conservatives would win 200 seats. I am becoming more convinced that this election is all about Donald Trump and will remain so until the end. As a result, I believe the Liberals have the greatest chance of winning but their seat count will probably be between 165 and 185 if they do. There is still a chance for the Conservatives to win but time is running out for them. There are two weeks left in the campaign and public opinion usually does shift that quickly. Many point to the shift for the Liberals but I like to remind people who do so that the shift began at the beginning of January and it took almost 10 weeks before it shifted enough to benefit the Liberals. Will public opinion shift as markedly over the next two weeks. It is possible but highly unlikely.
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