[cerveza_fiesta]

NDP ads were the only ones I saw during the Montreal boston hockey game last night too. Where are the other parties' heads if they aren't buying all the hockey ad time they possibly can?

Of course vote day will tell a different story than the polls (as always) but the NDP are really running a wizz-banger of a campaign this time. Their advantage is that they really have nothing to lose, they are the underdog, they don't actually have to attack anyone (and haven't seriously attacked anyone yet).

Liberals are ramping up attacks against the NDP too...which I view as a mistake. Keep to the harper bashing it's easier and way more consistent with the campaign so far. Liberals bashing other leftists just ends up looking like they're bashing themselves.

I was also listening to a CBC program called "the house" on the weekend, which is normally an awful, dismal bore to listen to, but has gotten half-decent during the campaign. They interviewed some expert on governments and forms of democracy and apparently the dreaded coalition is not only allowed but is actually the way parliamentary democracy is supposed to work when confidence of the standing government is lost. Opposition parties can literally overthrow a government and replace it with their own coalition if they so choose. Somehow the conservatives took one of the fundamental rules of our system of government and made it seem like an illegal cardinal sin. The problem is that explaining otherwise to the masses is a difficult proposition because it can't be done clearly in a single sentence - and in politics if you're explaining yourself you've already lost the debate.

[Abyss]

Goaswerfraiejen, on 27 April 2011 - 05:02 AM, said:

... The best and most effective Liberal ads I've seen/heard so far as those of Ignatieff talking in emotional tones about how he couldn't afford to save for retirement for 17 years, and how his grandparents came to Canada. Notice that neither of these ads tries to attack anyone...

cerveza_fiesta, on 27 April 2011 - 02:43 PM, said:

...Liberals are ramping up attacks against the NDP too...which I view as a mistake. Keep to the harper bashing it's easier and way more consistent with the campaign so far. Liberals bashing other leftists just ends up looking like they're bashing themselves.

I was also listening to a CBC program called "the house" on the weekend... The problem is that explaining otherwise to the masses is a difficult proposition because it can't be done clearly in a single sentence - and in politics if you're explaining yourself you've already lost the debate.

Iggy was on CBC (radio...) last night around 7ish... y'know... the man is well spoken and while he's not exactly a charismatic dynamo, he's generally done a decent job of casting a leaderlike shadow... but WOW he was bad...

Paraphrasing...

INTERVIEWER: To what do you attribute your inability to move up in the polls?

IGNATIEF: Well, last night I was at a Town Hall meeting, and all kinds of people were there, and they are looking for something something not answering the question or telling you anything about the Town Hall thing but we're in the middle and they love us.

INT: So if all these people were there why aren't you polling higher?

IG: Well, we're the middle party. We're not left, we're not right and we're offering Canadians a middle something something.

INT: So why are you not overtaking Harper?

IG: I'm repeating myself about that middle thing.

INT: So you're dueling with the NDP for second place?

IG: Middle thing middle middle not left not right right in the middle.

INT: What are you going to do in this last week of the campaign?

IG: Middle middle middle middle middle!


I realize that not every appearance/interview is going to be a blockbuster, but FFS ANSWER THE QUESTION.
ANSWER A QUESTION.

This election is making my guts unhappy on all kinds of levels.

[cerveza_fiesta]

I wish interviewers had more balls to kick off politicians that refuse to answer questions.

Like a CBC radio interview of the federal justice minister last night on "As it Happens". Carol just gets done interviewing the former ombudsman for victims of crime (or whatever his actual title is) who didn't get re-appointed because he was speaking out against the conservatives' idiotic tough-on-crime build-bigger-prisons thing. Basically, he says building more max security prisons and dealing with high-end crime like murders is a pointless waste of money when it only helps about 5% of the total population of Canadians actually affected by crime. He also said bigger and better social / education programs in lower security prisons and crime prevention programs for at-risk populations outside the prison system would cost way less and might stand to help the other 95% of people affected by crime.

I know...crazy idea right? Putting a tiny fraction of criminals away for longer terms doesn't actually help anything? Who knew?

So anyway, the interview was largely the same, Carol firing the question at him (paraphrasing)

Carol: "Your former ombudsman says your plan to build bigger prisons only stands to help about 5% of the population affected by crime. How do you justify this?"

Justice Minister: "Blah blah, the conservative party has introduced more legislation to protect victims rights than the liberals did in their last mandate, blah blah"

Rinse, repeat about 15 times until the end of the interview, with Carol never getting an answer and the justice minister never saying a single thing of value other than to attack other political parties, even though the question had nothing whatsoever to do with politics.

It drives me up the wall that every interview around elections turns into ignore the interviewer and spout party platform regardless of what the interviewer asks. Who the hell do they think they're fooling? TBH, Layton is the only one I've heard actually providing a decent interview that actually seemed to answer a question or two the interviewer posed (last weekend's edition of "the house").

If I were Carol Off, I would have hung up on the justice minister and cut the segment short. If more radio programs and TV programs did that, it would force the politicians to think twice about rambling nonsense over the airwaves. It could actually turn into some very negative PR for a politician too. "Ignatieff gets booted from CBC interview for refusing to participate". The only reason they ignore the questions is because they get away with it. I say the broadcasters need to take a harder line on interviews. Big

Ideal world.....where are you.

[Abyss]

cerveza_fiesta, on 27 April 2011 - 04:21 PM, said:

I wish interviewers had more balls to kick off politicians that refuse to answer questions.
...The only reason they ignore the questions is because they get away with it. I say the broadcasters need to take a harder line on interviews. ...

Not exactly. Here we are stating that we were paying attention and saw what they did.

An interviewer who did that wouldn't get interviews, meaning we wouldn't get to hear the politicos stumble.



But what truly bugs the crap out of me is these are not loaded questions. It's not rocket science to come up with a semi intelligent way to say 'The polls suggest that Canadians are really divided and we're going to pull out all the stops this week to get our message out there and bring more people over'.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Yeah...that''s why I put the ideal world comment at the end. All interviewers would have to be in on it otherwise it wouldn't work. Politicians crave their airtime enough that they'd eventually give in.

What it comes down to is the ubiquitous usage of talking points. I've been involved in a very limited way in media matters through my work. My boss to a much greater extent due to the media-sensitive nature of some of our operations. His advice is to pick 3 things (and it's important that its only 3 for some obscure reason) that embody your message and that you know you can talk about no matter what. Bring everything back to those 3 topics in one way or another no matter what is asked. Basically, if you're talking about anything other than those 3 points within 10 seconds of beginning each response, you're doing it wrong. By the end of it, the media should have no ability to report on anything but your talking point because every response relates to them. The talking points are simultaneously your crutch, your message, your armor and your weapon in all media dealings.

Having heard that from him, I see how prolific it is in modern political PR, and it's usually not too hard to pick out a politician's 3 points. They even do it in the debates - which is sad.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 27 April 2011 - 06:58 PM

[Abyss]

I'm familiar with the 3 points thing, and there's an art to it. A skilled speaker can tie anything back to them.
A weak speaker relies on the talking points as a crutch.

Ignatief was not being skillful in that interview. I'm not saying he's not capable of it. He is. But ffs with a week to go, this was not his finest performance.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

I think the standard, non-transferrable voting system would be much improved if we had mandatory seppuku for the losers. Or firing squad.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Iggy smoked pot. He admitted it!

Not like it was a surprise...or that anybody really cares...but funny to admit that on the campaign trail.

Haahahahaha. My support for him is sealed now.

I bet Harper's never even looked at a joint, or at least started squealing and crying the first time he saw one.

[D'rek]

I was driving with CBC on the radio yesterday and they got to their 10-minutes-of-random-party-ads segment, this time consisting of the Marxist-Lenninist Party, Marijuana Party, and Conservative Party.

Marxist-Lenninist Party - pretty sad. They didn't have a full 3-minute ad to fill their slot so they played their 1.5-minute ad twice. Vaguely-Acadian folk music mixed with communist ranting is a strange combination, though.

Marijuana Party - seems the basis of their platform this year is that "People are FED UP with their government system because all the big parties are run by the same shadowy figures". Are you guys so fed up with our current system you want dramatic reform to our electoral and government system? I'm pretty sure most people are okay with it right now...

Conservative Party - One of their radio ads is awesome! It's Harper trying to give a dramatic Churchill-esque speech, with background music fit for a fantasy movie trailer and sound effects like fighter jets flying past. Finally political parties are getting on the "epic" bandwagon that beer and car commercials have been doing for years! Of course the ad didn't say anything at all, but it was at least a bit entertaining!

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Have a look at the costing document at the end of the Tory platform. Notice that the F-35 purchase doesn't show up, and that no costs are associated with Senate reform, "keeping taxes low to create jobs," combating human smuggling, and support for clean energy projects (which is entirely based on the Lower-Churchill loan). Also notice the crucial fact that the Tory costing document didn't plug in any numbers for corporate and income taxes, despite listing them on a line in the costing document. Their only source of revenue on that document is ending subsidies to political parties. Is that paltry sum supposed to fund major tax cuts and defence spending? How?

[Abyss]

I must be living in the alternate reality from Fringe, because the Globe and Mail just endorssed harper, and Sun Media slapped the Tories for attempting to manipulate the media.

So now at campaigns' end i'm calling it: Conservative minority, NDP opposition, Lib close third, Bloc down by about 1/3rd of the seats held before.

Not the result anyone was hoping for, but an interesting one even so.

I'll be very curious to see how long Harper remains PM after yet another minority.

Outside chance that the Libs chuck Iggy and go coalition with the NDP w/Layton as PM. More likely the Libs will hunker down and lick their wounds for a while, similar to the Tories post the Kim Campbell debacle.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Abyss, on 29 April 2011 - 02:09 PM, said:

I must be living in the alternate reality from Fringe, because the Globe and Mail just endorssed harper, and Sun Media slapped the Tories for attempting to manipulate the media.

Yeah, WTF? Where have they been for the last five years? And here they are reporting the the NDP is only 5% behind the Tories in the polls... I'm not sure I understand how or why the editorial board came to that decision.

[cerveza_fiesta]

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...1-poll-tracker/

Can't remember if this was posted yet.

CBC poll tracker including a 3 day rolling average poll tally.

Kinda neat.

[Anomander]

The Globe and Mail endorsed Harper because the majority of the editorial staff identify as Conservative (or so I've been told).

[Abyss]

cerveza_fiesta, on 29 April 2011 - 03:04 PM, said:

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...1-poll-tracker/

Can't remember if this was posted yet.

CBC poll tracker including a 3 day rolling average poll tally.

Kinda neat.

Yeah, it's kind of interesting how 'polls' as a tool have been the subject of news.
That said, the one thing EVERY poll has agreed on is the Tories ahead by a slight margin.

Anomander, on 29 April 2011 - 03:24 PM, said:

The Globe and Mail endorsed Harper because the majority of the editorial staff identify as Conservative (or so I've been told).

I put it to more or less a big corporation supporting a gov that's more pro-big-corp than either of the alternatives.

No matter how you spin it, at root the Tories are pro corp tax cuts and the Libs and NDP are anti and/or pro corp tax increases.

After the Iggy-in-Iraq fake picture debacle, Sun Media couldn't afford to make a similar endorsement without looking like the Tories media lapdog.


Interesting how in the aftermath of the debate debate, May and Greens have virtually dropped off the popular radar.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Abyss, on 29 April 2011 - 04:27 PM, said:

Interesting how in the aftermath of the debate debate, May and Greens have virtually dropped off the popular radar.

Yes, media coverage, including the debates is one of the main methods of parties to advertise and I attribute media coverage almost exclusively to the recent rise in NDP support. I mean, we all were saying (in this thread) NDP did't have a chance at the start and now we're all realizing that they might have a chance. That realization can make a voter thing that voting for NDP isn't throwing your vote away. I imagine a lot of potential NDP supporters (consciously or subconsciously) were waiting for just that kind of confirmation and now are throwing their support behind the party.

It reaffirms my belief that arbitrarily blocking the greens from the debates was a huge mistake that has completely crippled them in this election. They don't just get reduced coverage, they get NO coverage. I haven't heard a peep from them or about them since before the debate.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 29 April 2011 - 04:50 PM

[Abyss]

cerveza_fiesta, on 29 April 2011 - 04:50 PM, said:

...It reaffirms my belief that arbitrarily blocking the greens from the debates was a huge mistake that has completely crippled them in this election. They don't just get reduced coverage, they get NO coverage. I haven't heard a peep from them or about them since before the debate.

The Greens have NO ONE in the House. No one. Thus, they are not entitled to the same treatment as the four parties that do.

A party must needs get itself elected, and THEN it's entitled to participate in the debate. Not the other way around. Otherwise the Marxist-Leninist folks and the Radical Marjiuana party are just as entitled to show up.

And yes, i realize that the Greens actually have a (relatively noticeable but far from significant) chunk of votes, but so what? They still have no one who can get themselves elected.

If May and co can't get at least one MP in on the strength of a well run campaign, solid platform, and, oh, i dunno, running someone who actually gets more votes than their competitors, then they have no place at the table.

Say what one will about the Bloc, they got there.
(hopefully not for much longer, but that's an aside...)

[Abyss]

Game on!

Please people, whatever you're doing today, if you haven't already, get out there and VOTE.

[RodeoRanch]

I voted just before lunch.

The little old lady manning the polling station made me smile as she thanked me for voting.

[Mentalist]

I had to register, since I wasn't around when they were mailing out the fancy voting cards.

we only had 5 candidates running here, and this being a typical upper lower middle class suburban riding, I don't expect anyone other than the libs or Cons to have a shot.