Week 1 in Review

As part of a continuing effort I hope to present a reoccurring strategic summary of how each party did generally against three criteria:
1) Were they effective in shaping the national ballot question?
2) Were they effective in responding in attacks?
3) Did they position themselves effectively in the policies and promises made thus far?

I’ve made the intentional decision to exclude the Bloc Quebequois from my assessment, because the Bloc doesn’t fit the normative paradigm of a Canadian political party.

The NDP

I would criticize the NDP’s ineffective attempt at framing the ballot question for voters, if I could discern a clear message from the NDP whatsoever. I suppose the biggest problem the NDP face is that they need to frame a drastically different message from one end of the country to another. In BC it’s more about the Tories. In Ontario – it’s all about taking down the Liberals. But I think it’s more than that. The NDP’s ballot question, I believe, needs to be the only one that counts – you need to elect NDP MPs to keep a minority government honest. When the electoral prospect of a majority government becomes more and more a reality, it leaves the NDP little room to manoeuvre in.

In terms of policy I am truly baffled at the NDP’s decisions. I would think their main strategy would be to press the Liberals from the margins. That means wherever the Liberals are, the NDP is a little bit more. Yet Mr Layton’s recent policy announcement of increases in the same corporate taxes that the Liberals want to raise while at the same time lowering some business taxes has put the NDP in unfamiliar ground – more centrist than the Liberals. I fail to see how this benefits the NDP significantly (except for possibly the highly competitive battleground of BC). Yet the NDP’s recent credit card interest rate cap announcement provides that sharp contrast one would more expect from the NDP, and positions them a lot more favourably with respect to the other national parties. Overall I would say the NDP has chosen a mixed policy positioning that risks it being ignored exactly in a campaign where it cannot afford to be ignored.

I really can’t comment on the NDP’s ability to respond to attacks, mainly because they have had scant attacks launched against them. Most of the attacks come in the veiled threat of a “Coalition”, which I think overall the party and the leader has been much more capable of defending, and counter-attacking than either the Liberals or the Bloc Quebequois.


The Liberals

The Liberals have not really shaped the national debate whatsoever this past week. The question they need out there is “are you better off now than you were five years ago.” That question has gotten buried somewhere in the talk of “Coalition” or of one-on-one debate shenanigans (Memo to National Party Leaders: no one cares who doesn’t want to debate who one-on-one). I don’t think Ignatieff has been particularly on message, though I suspect it must be very difficult him to do just that right now.

I do think that this past week has show cased some very important policy for the Liberals that places them very well strategically - but not perfectly. The new education bursaries and the new home care EI supplement are sticking to areas that are true “winnable” issues for the Liberals: education and social policy. The Tories aren’t going to be able to easily nullify these sharp policy differences and the NDP seems almost uninterested. That being said, I believe firmly that the Liberals should have never committed to ending the corporate tax rate reduction for this year. Taxes are not a winnable issue for the Liberals. Providing this sharp policy difference allows the Tories to charge Ignatieff with the “high tax” label.

I think that the Liberal response to NDP and Tory attacks has been surprisingly well this past week. From what I’ve seen there wasn’t a single headline the Tories could make with the Liberal response finding its way directly in the story. Whatever they’re doing on this front they need to keep doing.


The Tories

The Tories have been an abysmal failure this past week at responding to opposition attacks. It’s been almost a joke. News article, after article this past week (that I’ve read) has shown no political response from the right wing party. This leads me either to conclude that the Tories are either utterly disorganized or (believing they are ahead) they are more afraid to respond and screw up to actually respond. There is the possibility that the decision to limit reporters to 5 questions a day has given every excuse for the press to ignore Harper’s response team. Either way this past week I was stunned to see a national governing party so utterly unable to counter attacks.

The Tories did do one thing right this past week: They announced the Income Splitting promise. The measure will allow Canadian families with children to save thousands a year in taxes – a true bread and butter issue for the Tories. The economy and taxes are a natural “winnable” issue for the Conservatives. Poignant is the fact that the best opposition response so far has been to criticize the late implementation period. Very few on the left have actually come out to criticize the measure and national opposition leaders seem to have become very quickly silent on the issue.

The Tories started the week tarring and feathering Count Ignatieff with the “Coalition” label. That issue, it’s becoming obvious, is the central ballot question Harper wants to make. It has dominated the debate of the last week. If it were only for this reason, and this reason alone I think that I could say that the Tories were the most effective national political party this past week.

That was the week that was. The Tories didn't perform spectacularly - they just did less bad than others. To me it's them that therefore wins this week.