Sunday, October 05, 2008

Where's Your Platform?

Yesterday, I posited that any argument that suggests the Conservatives always had a platform, the timing merely strategic, was just bad spin. I highlighted Harper's debate reactions, to demonstrate that the platform was only hatched in the aftermath of the debates, pure damage control, rather than a careful plan. Everyone knows Stephen Harper, does anyone really believe we would see the following, the blank stare, looking to the moderator for relief, if he KNEW that a platform was coming, if his team planned on announcing said platform the NEXT MORNING? You be the judge, Harper's deer in the headlights routine, as he takes it squarely on the chin, says it all from here:




6 minute, 18 second mark:


He never had a platform.

11 comments:

Oxford County Liberals said...

I think Paul Wells thinks the same thing.

Anonymous said...

I would not trust Harper ..Tuesday he is going to tell us what it is..(buying votes in Quebec),.....Money put back in the Arts, etc because he could not spend too much, without putting back funding for the Arts..if anyone is gullible enough to believe him.

Steve V said...

I see this release as the final chance for our media to get it right. No fair observer will let this release come without the deserved cynicism.

ottlib said...

Duffy will claim it to be the best thing since sliced bread.

Robertson and Fife will fall all over themselves to point out how good it is. Let's not even talk about Taber and Oliver.

The National Post will write a glowing editorial about it and the Globe and Mail will do so as well.

In short most of the media will do exactly what they have been doing since this election began.

I do not expect them to change unless the reality changes so dramatically that not to change would make them look like prize idiots. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen before Tuesday.

We and the Liberals better be prepared for both the release and the media reaction when it comes.

Steve V said...

"We and the Liberals better be prepared for both the release and the media reaction when it comes."

Indeed!

Anonymous said...

CTV is now playing Nik Nanos.

If you want to get really into conspiracies, are they trying to downplay the threat of a conservative majority in order to ensure a conservative gov't?

Steve V said...

anon

The last thing you want is the sense you are fading in the final week. Besides, CTV does give NANOS coverage, especially if it's striking.

Jerry Prager said...

I think what has happened is that so many stories have come off the blogosphere that the Canadian public has come to the blogosphere looking for the stories TV and the print media won't tell them.
For the first time, this election is being fought online and TV and the newspapers are just playing follow-the-online-story. I'm not certain the same is true about radio, because radio has always contained, like the internet, anarchists who just happen to care more about humanity than do the corporate hacks who mask themselves as libertarians.But this is the first election when the internet has become the medium for the message. And all those hate spewing con bloggers can be seen by the visiting electorate and weighed against their own impressions of Dion and May.

Anonymous said...

That's an interesting insight. And here I was thinking he was keeping his notes close to his chest until the last minute so that no one could fact-check them before they had to head off to vote.

The alternate theory certainly explains why Harper needed an extension until Tuesday to release the platform. (Those things take a lot of time to write.)

burlivespipe said...

Funny how fart-catcher Fife pinned the tail on his story by restating that Harper isn't talking the economy for fear of causing more damage. Yah, that strategy worked so well for Kim Campbell (the election is no time to talk policy)... Let's see, maybe I'd believe him if Harper hadn't already given his hatchet-leprechaun Flathery the thumbs up to call Ontario out in front of world investors.
Nothing like protecting the economy like telling people 'Last place to invest...'
Guess Harper spent all of Sunday fumbling through Herbert Hoover speeches for a quick retort.

Steve V said...

burl

That is such a lame argument. The stock market is already in crisis, Harper's words would hardly alter the dynamics. We had the two worst days in stock market history the past week, obviously Harper's rosy opinion is irrelevant, just as any acknowledgement would be.