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May 30, 2004
Sizing up the Campaigns: Week 1
It’s been a full week since Paul Martin called a General Election in Canada, so it’s a good time to look back and see how everyone’s doing so far.
The Liberals: It has been a tough week for Mr. Martin and the Liberals. They have spent most of the week trying to deflect the fallout from the Ontario Budget of Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty. Badly misjudging public sentiment, Mr. Martin initially blamed Mike Harris, the former Ontario Premier saying Harris cut taxes too deeply and forced the new Ontario government to break its promises. In short he defended the promise-breaking. What he hadn’t yet realized was that it wasn’t the tax hikes that really got people’s ire up, but the promise breaking. Yesterday, Mr. Martin changed tacks and promised to keep his promises or quit. He also took a shot at Mr. McGuinty telling reporters that politicians shouldn’t over-promise during campaigns. What hasn’t changed is the angry tone of the PM’s comments and his continued insistence on personally attacking Stephen Harper.
The Conservatives: Stephen Harper’s team had a surprisingly good start. Far from making Mr. Harper look scary, Mr. Martin’s attacks have allowed the Conservative leader to teach Canadians what he wants them to know about him and his party. His campaign, however, deviated from this strategy and has begun to try to pin the Ontario Budget on Paul Martin. They recovered well from the one bump they hit when one candidate got badly off-message.
The NDP: Jack Layton and the NDP have had (for the most part) a good week. They have a well organized campaign that spent its first week shoring up their core support with some policy on issues like homelessness while making the party more attractive to Liberal defectors by developing a careful costing of their plan.
Week one goes to the NDP.
Posted by maxthecat on May 30, 2004 at 09:52 AM
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