Finding a Wedge: Day 23

Day 22 had the Liberals opening a new front on the Tories, as their hold on the electoral lines seemed to be weakening.

Day 23 shows the Tory defense holding. As the Liberals pressed forward on the healthcare theme, Harper has succeeded in (if only temporarily) changing the channel.

This new line of argument is simple and direct: a majority is needed to stop a resurgent separatist movement. It's topical. It's reinforced by this weekend's PQ convention. And it's a winnable issue for the Tories.

The Liberals seem to be almost caught flatfooted on the topic falling back on the argument that Harper is using "fear" to gain votes. That argument is not likely to gain any traction with an electorate that is watching ads produced by Liberals to scare them over healthcare.

It'll be interesting to see how this new tact from the Tories pans out. If they're successful it could lead to a Tory majority.

If they aren't they may have at least limited the damage being done to them on the Healthcare assault.

Day 23 Winner: The Tories

Liberal Counter-Attacks: Day 22

The beginning game is apparently over for the Liberal Party. I sense that a drastic change in strategy is afoot.

First, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin are now welcome generals in the Liberal fight.

Second, healthcare has apparently emerged as a Liberal theme. That cudgel was used successfully by Martin and Chretien to repetitively assault former and current Conservative foes with telling success.

Third, the Liberals have suddenly decided that negative ads do in fact work (again!). The people who invented the Canadian Attack Ad have come full circle.

The Tories have responded swiftly and adequately to this line of attack. As they should.

Healthcare is the ultimate wedge issue for the Liberals. The Tories are not seen (rightly or wrongly) as staunch defenders of the healthcare status-quo. This puts them on perilously dangerous ground. The standard Tory approach has been to triangulate on the issue and nullify it as soon as they can.

In a telling moment during the debates, Layton lead a healthcare charge against Harper. If you look carefully you can notice that Harper's posture and facial expression changes. It was telling, because I believe he was very concerned.

What the Liberals did today was the equivalent of pulling out the heavy artillery most generals save for emergencies. Good 'ol bunker Tory is getting hammered today.

The Tories did well in response, but they need to turn up the heat on their own if they want to survive. That means changing the channel before this Liberal assault gains legs.

That means they need to stage a counter-assault on a wedge issue of their own.

Day 22 Winner: The Liberals

Interesting Trends...

I'd like our loyal readers to look carefully at the results of Nanos daily polling done since the beginning of the election:

In particular, I found it interesting that the NDP's apparent recent "upward trend" didn't start with the debates (Despite what the MSM says).

The NDP's latest uptick began with a bottoming out on April the 8th.

The question is, what happened on or about the 8th?

If you look at the calendar to the right you will note that this blog awarded the NDP a string a victories starting on the 7th.

Coincidence? Or something more?

Loser, I declare thee Sona

Setting aside the allegations about "ethnic costumes" or Tamil candidates, I'll focus on what happened late in the day in Guelph. I don't know what exactly happened, but according to some students there, local Conservative Communications Director Michael Sona attempted to reach for and grab a ballot box at the polling station, arguing that it was an illegal poll.

From everything I've seen, he appears to have had a legitimate argument (and local Conservatives claim that he did not in fact reach for the ballot box). Regardless, this is EXACTLY the kind of publicity the Conservatives don't need right now, and precisely the wrong way of going about things.

While Stephen Harper has been condemned for the ruthless discipline he exercises in controlling his caucus, it must be remembered how utterly savage the national media used to be with every misstatement by a Canadian Alliance or Conservative candidate. Now that candidates are on such a short leash, the press has moved onto seizing on Conservative staffers.

Conservatives will argue that it was unfair, but one cannot campaign against both parties and the press, and so they should expect attention to be drawn to everything. The name of the game for the Conservatives now is to avoid controversy - and having anybody associated with a campaign openly confront voting officials is a prime example of what NOT to do. Allegations of disrespecting democracy already abound, and anything that reinforces that impression must be avoided at all cost.

While this may be attributed to it having been such a slow campaign day, this has the potential to grow. I'd even go so far as to say Guelph just started leaning more into the Liberal camp after today's incident. This one could be a costly loss in the quest for a Majority. This story fits a compelling Liberal narrative of Conservative contempt for democracy, and is already being seized upon by Liberal columnists. Just wait until the press finds out Mr. Sona works on the Hill and we'll see how much traction this will get.

So, no clear winners today, but the Conservatives lost on this front. They're going to get hammered even harder in the coming weeks. We'll have to wait to see what the full impact will be for them.

DAY 21 LOSER: Conservatives

"What Leadership is About": Debate Post-mortem

Many of the commentators are agreeing that Liberal Leader Ignatieff didn't fare well tonight; apparently, if you go to Liberal.ca, their war room isn't doing much better. Must not be the red party's day today...:

...and the Debate Winner Is: Day 18

Was there a knock-out punch tonight? After 27 years of relatively calm debates, yes!

Who was involved? Simply, Jack Layton when he zinged Michael Ignatieff for his attendance record in Parliament.

Who benefited from this? Layton will for sure -- the NDP numbers will certainly be going up after tonight. That said, Stephen Harper will have a big smile on his face tonight. The attendance zing symbolized the lacklustre performance of Liberal leader Ignatieff and was not able to throw Stephen Harper off-script.

Winners: NDP and Conservatives

NDP Benefits, but Liberals Could be Big Winners: Day 18

Benjamin writes a fine analysis below on why the NDP won today -- so much so that we're inclined to give his analysis the benefit of being the deciding basis for turning the 11th on the calendar orange to the right of this posting.

That said, while the NDP is certainly going to be endeared by the eruption caused by a leaked Parliamentary report on spending at the G8 summit, the way that the rest of this week plays out will really determine where the Liberals end up on May 2 -- and the ball is firmly in their court now. Michael Ignatieff's herculean task of taking on the Prime Minister in tomorrow night's debate, and winning, becomes all the more crucial in light of this revelation, but a word of wisdom to the Liberal leader -- one of his predecessors, John Turner, quickly saw a supposed advantage over his Tory opponent turned against him when he took an patronage accusation against one Brian Mulroney too far 26 years ago; the rest, as they say, is history. Mr. Harper is a formidable adversary who, despite his perceived weaknesses, has proven that he learns from his mistakes over time; while the Liberals might be seeing today as a miracle, it could quickly turn into a curse if the Liberal leader enters tomorrow's debate overconfident and unattentive to his own weak spots.

Winner: The NDP...for now

Little Battles: Day 18

At Vimy Ridge, Canadians did not take the notorious "Hill 145" in a stunning blaze of glory. There was no Herculean stunning upset from the clutches of defeat. Instead the battle plan called for a series of small successes - one dependent on the other in a long chain leading to victory.

I can't help but point out that the daily predictions of "wins" on this blog mirrors this concept. The Daily winners calendar at the right can be thought of as a map of battle: the results of a series of mini-battles leading to a victory.

Today was one such battle. It was one where the Tories paid dearly, and the Liberals seemed to get caught in the mess.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser's Preliminary G20 report was ammunition for the opposition to pound the Tories as they roll into the debates. Playing the classic front-runner's campaign can only hold so long.

Yet the Liberals hardly faired better. Ignatieff found himself explaining away contradictory remarks made by himself regarding voting in foreign elections (namely did he?). This no doubt falls directly into the line of attack that the Tories have been playing: "He didn't come back for you." The Liberal leader has found himself exposed and in the line of fire directly.

Meanwhile the NDP managed to generate some negative headlines for both the Liberals and Tories for carting around and paying for (with taxpayer money mind you) Senators to move around the country during the campaign. They got praise for the number of women NDP candidates they're running in spite of everything.

Day 16 Winner: The NDP

Today does look a little sickly orange.

Dippers Laughing: Day 13

Another day, another candidate spewing nonsense for Ignatieff to handle.

Harper finally apologized for evicting teery eyed children from rallies, and Jack Layton has decided to triangulate on the Law & Order issue.

But first a joke:

A Canadian bloke is walking down the street with a case of beer under his arm.

His friend Randy stops him and asks, "Hey Dave! Whatcha got that case of beer for?"

"Well, I got it for my wife, you see?" answers Dave.

"Wow," exclaims Randy, "Great trade."

What does this have to do with Day 13? Absolutely nothing. Ok, enough testing the patience of the editors of this blog - back to some strategic musings.

Day 13 Winner: The NDP

The Tories latest TFSA promise is a clever policy aimed at their natural winning issue: taxes. That being said, as they opened ground, the NDP have closed it in by moving into the middle on crime.

Crime, and Law& Order, are natural Tory winnable issues. The NDP's recent move, in my opinion, closes the gap with the Tories and has a "knock-the-wind-out" effect on the Tories on this issue.

To make matters worse the Dippers also came out on a healthcare offense against the Tories today. Healthcare is definitely not a winnable issue for the Tories. Layton warmed up the "two-tier" healthcare horn putting Harper on the defensive on an issue he'd much rather avoid.

In short the NDP managed to punch Harper twice in the gut today. They'll need more days like this if they hope to avoid loosing seats.

The Day Iggy Wished He Could Forget: Day 12

When you wake up in the morning and you find out that one of your Quebec candidates is allegedly a White Supremasist (or at least not particularly overly zealously pro-aboriginal) you know this day isn't going to be a good one.

That was Ignatieff's Day 12 of the 2011 federal election. Although well handled (the candidate was turfed) all he can hope for is that the page will turn quickly and the damage will be minimal.

Because even though this could have easily happened to any of the other federal parties, it doesn't ever seem to matter to the media.

Day 12 Winner: The Tories

They were missing from this story from the get go - it's the NDP that deserve cudos. Yet as always in Canadian politics, hardly ever does the victor get the spoils.

Without a Liberal Candidate to name in Manicougan, the Tories will certainly pick up some votes - maybe even enough to defeat the Bloc in that riding (The Tories did come in second there last time).

The NDP will get some new votes, but not much. Their role will most likely be forgotten by week's end.

The Day the Tories Needed: Day 11

As with most things during this campaign, it's what didn't happen today that really made a difference. After a Monday where the Prime Minister was asked the same question that inevitably comes up every election -- will he change any laws with respect to abortion -- and he invariably lost votes from both sides of the issue as a result, the Conservatives have bounced back quite nicely today by not letting the issue linger. In short, this may be the election when the Tories finally outgrow the "secret agenda" tag that was put upon them back in 2000 when Stockwell Day led the Canadian Alliance.

Balancing this, the governing party also unveiled a pair of ads today which put the focus squarely on the economy -- this is a winning issue for the Conservatives and, as noted here on Sunday, the Liberals might have done themselves in with their platform by releasing a document that belongs in a "times are good" season, not one where jobs and the economic well-being of the country is on the brink. With two new ads, both of them heavily borrowed from the US (for the record, all parties here steal from south of the border), but both of them well-executed to deliver the Tory message effectively. If the Tories continue to follow this strategy, they will win many more days to come.



Day 11 Winner: The Conservatives

The Day of Boring Nothings: Day 11

Another day in this election campaign has gone by... I wonder if anyone noticed?

Besides the desperate debate inclusion ruminations by Green Party leader Elizabeth May, was there anything of substance that any average Canuck would dare to waste five seconds to think about?

There are continuous stories about legendary Harper Aide Bruce Carson's lurid past... Which included among other things, being hired by Stephen Harper, and not to mention having been convicted of fraud thirty years ago in a case no one remembers. He also "may", just "may", have broken the law when he thought he had a valid loophole. Riveting. I really think the whole thing was a ploy for the media to run spreads of his alleged 20 something girlfriend and former prostitute. That does sell papers. I doubt it will change any votes.

What may cause some lost votes, is the Tories propensity for kicking out veterans, youth, and teary eyed children for being security risks at Harper Rallies.

That isn't quite the best way to gain votes. It may not cost them much, but this is exactly the type of thing that can cause people long term enemies.

Because there's nothing else going on today, I'm forced to make my call for today's winner based solely on the dry small facts above.

Day 11 Winner: The Liberals

Not because they were good at anything, but because (in a typically Canadian fashion) they were less bad than everybody else. If Iggy is going to win through "a death by a thousand cuts" this day was one such cut.

Liberals Convert the Choir, Seek After Faithful With Platform: Day 9

For those following the election closely, today was bound to be a monumental one, either for good or ill, for each of the main parties. The Liberals announced their platform today, titled "Your Family. Your Future. Your Canada.", which borrowed heavily from the Tory strategy in 2006 to provide 5 key planks and then a bundle of other details. The question is did it work though?

The answer heavily influences who won today's battle on the campaign trail and, given the feedback and optics of this platform release, there is relative ease in saying that the Tories were quite happy with what they saw today. While it was obvious in reading through the highlights of the Liberal document that the opposition party is heavily relying on retail politics, the scope of target voters that would appreciate the document, combined with the fact that the economy is hardly highlighted will be giving the Conservatives an extra edge during the remaining month of the election period. The media has been constantly reminding us for years that Canadians don't love Stephen Harper, they just respect him and it's hardly a struggle to see the average Canadian's opinion of Harper's premiership during the economic downturn as being a major influencing factor. The Liberals, while running a very good campaign, image-wise, so far, have mistaken people warming up to Micheal Ignatieff's smiling face for a budding trust in him to manage the economy. If the Tories begin to wake up and put these factors together, it would be a lethal month that the Liberals are now facing. The document is far too insular, attempting to appease recent Liberal base grievances with the Conservatives while failing to understand just why Canadians sent the blue party to Ottawa with successively stronger minority mandates during the last five years.

Put another way, for those who loath the incumbent Prime Minister are frustrated with his ability to attain 40% nationally in recent polls just by hum-hawing through the last week of campaigning, just imagine what he'll be pushing if his team clues into the gift that Mr. Ignatieff just handed him...

One Week Later, Canadians Still Ask 'Why'?: Week 1 Post-Mortum

Dull as this campaign has become, one wonders how each of the three main federalist leaders are looking upon their efforts after week 1. It is clear that the Liberals have picked up the most momentum after the first seven days (see Shane's post above for more details on how this played in Day 7); their leader is beginning to be questioned about the budgeting of big ticket items from daycare to scholarships, but you wouldn't know it if the Liberals are worried right now as their events are energetic and Ignatieff is clearly finding his stride with the debate over a one-on-one debate.

If the Liberals have an issue that they should be concerned about, it is that the coverage of their campaign has been cotton balled to a certain degree -- if Michael Ignatieff looks like he has a good chance of becoming PM after May 2, he'll have to begin answering 'why': why the campaign now (aka what is the real reason to punish the Harper Conservatives?); why is he a valuable asset to voters? This will be the real test for the Liberals; one which the Tories failed in 2004 when they were in that position, but that the Liberals can draw lessons from.

Speaking of the Conservatives, their 'why' this week is why they are asking for votes at all? The blue campaign has actually been well-managed overall; the gaffes are small and likely already forgotten by Joe and Jane Canadian, Harper's policy announcements will stir the Tory base into action and the ads have done a good job at getting the governing party up to 39-41% in most polls. The air of staleness is quite the stench the Tories are giving off now though; they're not dead but they're certainly not lively either. The coalition talk has likely taken the party as far as it is going to get them and, going back to the why question, Harper's team would do well to spend the weekend trying to define their own vision of Canada for next week's campaign events. The flip-flop on the debate with the Liberal leader will hurt Harper's public image as a stable and decisive leader but, like the rest of the Conservative effort thus far, the party can recover if they pull it together in the coming days...or this could be the beginning of a slow and eventless implosion -- death by a thousand gradual cuts the Tories cannot be bothered to bandage.

The leader most in trouble tonight though has to be Jack Layton; as noted yesterday, he's at risk of becoming "Sideshow Jack" in this campaign by promising a few frivolous items that would find dye-in-the-wool NDPers hard-pressed to be inspired about, and by having his party almost completely shut out of the daily narrative. Even Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe and Green head Elizabeth May have earned themselves more influence so far in the English media than the NDP has; if this does not change soon, the NDP will find itself completely squeezed out by a polarized Con-Lib electorate and will have to fend for seats in already-parched Alberta, Saskatchewan and industrial centres in Winnipeg, Windsor and Hamilton. The NDP will have to find a defining attribute that it can attach itself to which the Liberals won't steal and the Conservatives won't touch. Otherwise, the 'why' the party will have to answer is why are you relevant in this campaign; a deadly question that has decimated the NDP in previous elections where it has failed to properly respond in kind.

Weekly Winners:
1st: The Liberals - for gaining momentum on the campaign trail
2nd: The Conservatives - for a stable, decent but hollow front runner campaign effort
3rd: The Bloc - for finding an effective Quebec narrative that even captured English Canada's attention
4th: The NDP - for failing to maintain a relevant place in the daily campaign happenings thus far

Liberals Find Their Big 'Mo: Day 6

Not since the weekend has there been a day so clearly won, and so clearly lost. The Liberals clearly had a good day today, buoyed by a trio of news stories which reinforces the truth that this is no longer Stephane Dion's election.

To begin with, in what has to be the first major self-inflicted wound of the campaign by a leader, Conservative leader Harper was painted as a flip-flopper on the issue of whether he would debate Liberal leader Ignatieff one-on-one. The Tories were quick to add that they never promised to do a full leaders' debate and a manno-a-manno version with the Liberal leader but the damage was already done -- regardless of who true or untrue this is, in politics image is far more important than reality and no voter or scribe has the attention span to sift through the lengthy party that the governing party provided.

To add extra sugar on the Liberal cake today, a new poll came out which put the Liberals well above the psychologically charged 30% milestone for the first time in recent memory. The Nanos poll, which can be found in full here, is interesting in that it has the Tories moving up in battleground Ontario while only losing steam in the largely irrelevant Prairies (where they'll likely win 110% of the seats anyway) and Atlantic Canada. The fact that the overall picture has the Liberals jump around 5 points at the expense of the NDP serves as a warning to Jack Layton's team that they risk becoming a side show in this election and will undoubtedly drive more Liberals to rethink sitting out this election -- a key win for the Opposition since any politically experienced person will tell you that a party which appears to be headed to destruction gets only a fraction of the volunteers while the rest sit the game out.

Finally, the Liberals released fundraising numbers that would make even the Tories blush. This will again help to motivate the Liberal base as money is a big deal; a party which has lots of it (as the Conservatives have for the last five years) will naturally be able to make the case that they are capable of fighting a top tier campaign.

Aside from the good vibes the Liberals are feeling, much of the coverage focused on the role the Green Party will (or won't) play in the upcoming debate. The Tories once again are showing signs of inability to react quickly to the campaign and have received little positive press coverage -- Liberal blogger and campaign mastermind Warren Kinsella's assessment that the Prime Minister is "phoning [the election] in" might start to resonate if the lack of Tory war room presence continues to be felt. On that note, where is the NDP today anyway?

Day 6 Winner: The Liberals

Liberals Gain One, Liberals Lose One: Day 5

And they're finally off! In what was one of the most bizarre campaign days in a generation (and that's saying a lot!), an NDP candidate in London quit to endorse the Liberals, a move that saved the coalition issue from being otherwise taken off the table today. This would have been a banner day for the main opposition party, except that their former by-election candidate and party stalwart in Vaughn publicly endorsed Tory MP Julian Fantino later today, marking a second defection. The headlines responded in kind and the two items will be making the newspaper front sections tomorrow morning.

The other major item today revolved around the leaders' debate, Green leader Elizabeth May's participation and Prime Minister Harper's open challenge to a one-on-one debate with Liberal leader Ignatieff. This will obviously be a game changer down the road, either if Ms. May gets an invitation that many did not expect her to receive again, or if there is a separate debate between the two poll-leading party leaders.

The Tories did get stuck with another ex-staffer-who-is-being-investigated-working-on-their-campaign story today, but as the headlines aren't keeping up with the fact that there was a first one, it is unlikely that this will stick to the Conservatives for now.

Summary: a more exciting day, but still not any major shifts in momentum that would see a different result.

Day 4 Winner: The Conservatives

Consistency Without Much Substance: Day 4

It might be premature to dub this "the coalition election" but with over 10% of the campaign over with now (yes, these things happen fast!), the opposition parties that brought down the government last week have failed so far to change the page from talk of a coalition, and have in fact encouraged it in the cases of Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton. How attacking Conservative leader and Prime Minister Harper for an alleged coalition deal almost a decade ago will help their causes remains to be seen; the times have changed so radically that Harper is on the offering end of "secret agenda" theories, not the receiving end.

The four party leaders spent the day making modest, routine stops (Harper in Saskatchewan/Winnipeg; Ignatieff in Oakville; Layton in Brantford; Duceppe in Montréal) while most of the headlines still focused on coalition talk. Harper made a stop late in the day to do another piano performance in Winnipeg (this time with Youtube star Maria Aragon). Very little of the day focused on policy development: the Tories had to defend against an ex-staffer campaigning for them in Edmonton but who also is under investigation by the RCMP; the Liberals were discovered for a typo in how their $1000/yr scholarship could actually give Quebec students $500/yr and Layton promised to freeze credit rates for families. Overall, very dull and very boring which, again, works to the Conservatives' favour.

At this stage, the other parties will be banking on the debates becoming a game changer ala 1984 (the Greens, it was announced today, won't be participating), or they will have to change the discourse on the campaign trail. Time to get cracking guys!

Day 4 Winner: The Conservatives

The First Policies Don't Shake Coalition Talk: Day 3

I made a mistake at the beginning of this campaign in stating that my opinion for "who is going to win" is simply "this is Harper's majority to lose". A lot can happen in six weeks and, as 2004 showed, Stephen Harper has been on the receiving end of a rude electoral awakening. The dynamics of 2011 are different than that of 2004 though; Harper is on the inside, has a history with voters now and entered the campaign with the lead (2004's days of the Tories struggling in the upper 20s seem like a distant memory to most politicos, let alone voters).

That is why I go on the record to say that if the campaign continues to be days like today, the Prime Minister is likely to be handed 154+ seats in exactly six weeks; the Tory vote is currently in the upper 30s, with some polls showing it cracking the 40 threshold while the Liberals hover around 25%, sometimes more, sometimes less. The job of Michael Ignatieff is to rattle the cage and turn this into a dog fight.

If you look at the policy planks that the two leading parties released today (a somewhat distant promise of income splitting from the Conservatives and scholarships for poorer students from the Liberals), the boring theme seems to take hold. The Tories didn't announce their income splitting plan to attract new voters to the fold; this was purely targeted at that socially conservative base that will come out in droves on election day for the CPC; often it's not how many supporters you have in close elections but how many bother to vote! The Liberals, for their part, are targeting the wrong group if history offers any insight; students only vote 15% of the time, on average, and it's fair to say that most of those 15% are committed to a particular party anyway. The highschooler parents that Mr. Ignatieff is banking on might not materialize either -- middle-class families don't consider themselves "poor" and the tuition policy stipulates that one must be in the lower class to qualify; lower-class families likely already look at university as an unattainable dream. In summary, the Tories did a classic maneuver in shoring up the base early; the Liberals aren't likely to do more with their move than reinforce the Tory line that they're spend-thrifty.

Now, before I end tonight, looking at the NDP and the Bloc, it's amazing again to see how much Gilles Duceppe has been commanding attention so far this campaign -- the coalition talk is still in the news, largely thanks to the BQ leader and the Quebec party is coming across as important and instrumental, which will serve the third-place party well on election night if it holds. Jack Layton went to the former NDP heartland of Saskatchewan today in an attempt to shore up support. It's no surprise that Jack is spending a lot of time out west since that's where the NDP hopes to make big gains this year. Aside from being a pain in Iganatieff's side by also talking of coalitions (both the alleged 2004 one with the Tories and a possible one later this May), the NDP leader is having difficulty in conveying anything more than a protest movement -- this will hurt Jack as he has, for the fourth time in as many elections, begun his campaign by stating that he's "running for Prime Minister"; he risks being seen as too reactionary and not as proactive as a PM should be if this continues to be the main coverage the NDP gets.

Day 3 Winner: The Conservatives

Harper Has His First Challenge In A While: Day 2

Gilles Duceppe can be forgiven for being a little sore today. After doing what few have done, put Stephen Harper on the defensive during a campaign, as he skillfully did yesterday by reintroducing the 2004 letter signed by Harper, Duceppe and NDP leader Jack Layton and in 2008 with the cultural funding, he would only go on to see the Liberals reap the harvest of his work.

Such was the case today when the media was quick to react and shifted the coalition question from Michael Ignatieff to the Prime Minister. Harper was somewhat buffered by Jack Layton's response later in the day which indicated that no talk of a formal coalition happened seven years ago, but the damage has been done -- tomorrow's headlines will be about Harper's hypocrisy instead of Ignatieff's hidden agenda. At this stage in the campaign, it's not likely to be a major factor but it does throw the Conservatives off their game since they've been quite clear that their intentions for the last two years were to make this campaign a referendum on a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition; now that the spotlight has shifted, they will either have to reframe their message to focus more on the alleged secrecy of the idea rather than the idea of a coalition itself.

If there is a silver line that the governing party can turn to tonight, it's that the longer the coalition issue is in the news, the more Canadians will focus on a topic of their choosing and not that of Mr. Ignatieff's. What is more beneficial to the Liberals at this point than the topic itself is the fact the Tories have done very little to control the message this weekend; the Liberals and NDP are frequently getting their responses into election articles while the Conservatives are only getting news on their activities so far. It's almost as if the Tory war room is asleep at the campaign bus wheel, allowing the Liberals to cruise through a good-news day and take the win by default today.

Day 2 Winner: The Liberals

Canada 2011: Day 1

Perhaps it was the weekend start or the fact that the parties have been using the last week as their unofficial start to the campaign, but today was a rather dull affair. Conservative leader Harper went straight to Quebec after meeting with the GG, Liberal leader Ignatieff stayed around in Ottawa, while Jack Layton was out west in Edmonton. As this blog will be providing our thoughts on who "won the day" during each leg of this campaign, we've got to chose somebody but it's fair to say that today wasn't the most dramatic beginning to an election season.

While Michael Ignatieff's team put out a press release to clarrify their coalition stance, the document quickly met with mixed reviews as to how sincere the Liberals are to avoiding a formal coalition with either the NDP or BQ in the event that the next Parliament looks similar to the one that was dissolved yesterday, while leads me to grant today's vote to the Tories -- this is still a campaign being defined on their preferred topic of the coalition and not one about the recent controversies that the government has suffered.

Often in politics, the first punch is the one that counts the most and the Conservatives deserve credit for making this an issue out of the gate. That said, the Liberals have plenty to distance themselves from the coalition issue if they can convince the media to look to more interesting stories. The governing party might have landed a clean opening hit, but they are far from winning the round.

Day 1 Winner: The Conservatives