French leaders' debate analysis

[frandroid]

The winner, if defined by who has gained the most in the debate, is Stéphane Dion. Dion has show a mastery of most files as well as a leader's strong presence, especially in the first half of the debate. He needed to quash doubts about his capacity to lead the country and his performance in this debate has gone to great lengths to do that. He was particularly good in his criticisms of Harper, and he was citing sources for his assertions from a variety of canadian associations and journals (professoral deformation! :]), something that gave greater weight to his arguments. A+.

Duceppe is a great debater, the most skilled of all the leaders around the table at this format. However, he was walking in tracks he has well worn himself. He consolidated his newfound strength somewhat but he did not reach new audiences for his message. A.

Jack Layton has offered a decent performance. His French has improved somewhat, although he is still trailing behind Harper on that matter. He was handed a fastball in the middle of the plate when he had the right of first response on the question on banning handguns (asked by a Dawson College professor) but he tergiversated and did not manage to give a strong answer. The answer to that question should have been "Oui, nous voulons bannir toutes les armes de poing." When the question asks you to repeat your party platform, you don't start talking about kids getting killed in your riding, you first recite your party platform. Then you can give some context if you feel like it. So, that was a missed opportunity. Layton was also stronger in the earlier party of the debate. C+.

Stephen Harper. His French has improved significantly since the last debate (and it was already better than Layton's then), something I have great admiration for. He was hammered by everyone at the table and valiantly defended his fort, but his opponents scored many points against his policies. His repudiation of negative campaigning obviously sounded very hollow, but he was lucky that Stéphane Dion waited until the very end of his intervention on this question to call him on his hypocrisy, and was then interrupted by Stéphane Bureau, the moderator, for exceeding his alotted time. C.

Elizabeth May needs to get better at speaking French, but for an anglophone who has just arrived on the national political scene, she did rather well. The speak at which she sometimes interjected over another candidate's assertion shows that she has a good comprehension of French. At other times she was rather off the mark, but I couldn't always tell if that was because of her lack of French or her lack of substance to offer on economic policies. In spite of her need to learn how to better speak French, she was still spirited and did better than Stockwell Day's 2000 French leaders' debate performance, for example. C.


It was interesting to have all the candidates around a single table rather than each standing at a podium. There was a really good pre-recorded question from the public where the person asked each leader to say good things to the person sitting to their left. Stephen Harper praised Layton for his participation in the HoC's unanimous decisions (Québec as a Nation, Apology on Residential Schools) and on his character, which about as much as he could do... I can't recall who had the luck in praising Harper, maybe it was May?

The demagogic moment of the evening award goes to Gilles Duceppe, who answered the question of whether we should natonalize the oil industry by saying that if we nationalize oil, next thing you know Ottawa would be taking away Hydro-Québec. Hello, it's already "nation"alized, Gilles! Duceppe was probably the most demagogic politician of the debate, although Harper had him beat on the obfuscating answers.

All of the leaders were rather poor at sticking to the question at hand; should one have done that consistently (Duceppe was a bit more on top of it than the others), they could have gained some respect as someone who faces the questions. Layton can never win at this contest, as he uses most questions as pointers to repeat well-rehearsed answers to imaginary questions. He wasn't as bad at it as in the 2006 debate, but it's frustrating. There's staying on message, and there's sounding like a broken record.


Debate night at the Gladstone tomorrow, I'll try to make it there.

Comments

[okanagansun.livejournal.com]

It was May who had to speak kindly about Harper. She didn't have much nice to say, so she called him a good father with lovely kids. Then she said the usual about being able to "work together on issues" - some of the meaning may have been lost in translation, as I was listening to the awkward English version.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Haha yeah, that was a backhanded compliment she made, almost nothing his political skills. That was kinda small.