In an effort to stand out from the crowd, I’m going to not “live-blog” the Canadian televised debate tonight, I’m going to dead blog it. Stay tuned for what I mean (if I figure something clever out).
-6:35 MDT - Tom Clark of CTV Newsnet is vying for Gerry Ritz’s job as a tasteless and biased stand up comedian? He deadpanned that he “didn’t know George Bush moved to Canada”, after Sheila Copps pointed out that Harper’s economic plan “hides” behind Bush’s disaster. The Conservative pundit parroted the “tax on everything!!!11!” line as a retort to Copps.
A regular dude on CBC’s YourTurn was more insightful than all 3, saying the economy is the main issue, and it’s nearly impossible to insulate Canada from an economic downturn when it’s largest trading partner is crashing. The Conservatives are either willfully ignorant about the state and prospects for the economy, or are the worst economic planners in 80 years.
6:58 CPAC is talking about Kyoto. Jim Harris is doing a fine job of depicting the NDP as unprincipled on the environment.
7:05 Harper is attacking Dion and gives no new ideas. May gave ideas. Dion gave ideas. Layton attacks Dion and Harper with some ideas. Duceppe is attacking Harper “Don’t worry be happy” like Bush. Point to Duceppe.
7:10 May and Layton smacked down Harper as ignorant, incompetent and unprepared.
7:13 There’s a danger that this will turn into a constant attack on Harper and give the illusion that it’s his debate to lose.
7:16 Duceppe says Harper’s biggest error is “not linking environment with the economy”.
7:24 Harper is coming across as an elite robot. Someone get him to a rich gala before he tips over backwards with upturned nose.
May wants the pulp and paper industry? Wants to control dollar and lower it to improve export.
Layton wants us to process the logs too.
Harper admitted economy is changin’!
7:35 Dion sold his economic plan well. Harper only attacked Dion and said his plan wasn’t as strong on the environment. Layton said Harper’s poor plan is a lost opportunity.
He keeps saying “terd”.
7:39 Dion is pleading that Canadians not believe Harper’s “lie” that the Green Shift is not revenue neutral. May did a fine job giving examples of why carbon tax shifting works, and free pollution doesn’t.
7:46 Layton gave a good example of polluters getting permits to pollute without paying up.
Harper is trying to say he’s done good things for the environment. May said one on his list was true and the rest were “fraud”.
7:56 Healthcare is the topic. Duceppe wants the provinces to manage it more. May said the Greens will protect against predatory American for-profit medicine.
8:00 Culture cuts? More like death by a 1000 cold Harper cuts!
8:03 Duceppe, Layton, and Harper trot out their family’s artistic abilities.
Moderator wonders if other leaders think Harper-bot is a “barbarian”. Dion thinks Harper sees artists as “enemies” of his. Duceppe thinks the arts are not in the Conservatives’ values when governing.
Harper claims he increased funding to the CBC!
8:07 May: Conservatives have a database in their warroom that has predicted “stupid cuts” will win them more votes.
8:09 moderator: trying to stop people from flipping to Palin - Biden debate. The Canadian debate viewers go, “oh right!” and have just switched!
8:12 Broadcast consortium throws Elizabeth May a curveball and asks a question that has an untrue premise — that violent crime is going up. She hits a foul ball by correcting the stupid Canadian who has spent too much time watching Amercian cable news stations.
8:16 Harper cut literacy program that “didn’t teach people to read”.
8:24 Afghanistan: 2011 deadline. Can you trust Harper’s word? Harper wants to “pacify that country”.
Layton says they’ve always opposed escalation. Duceppe corrects Layton.
8:35 May points out that Africa and all other points of aid are ignored in favour of politicized Afghanistan.
Dion keeps saying “not done” meaning done.
8:37 First thing: Layton raise corporate taxes. Duceppe says 3 others won’t be PM, but some don’t say it. May says finish the shed, do more than one thing first, especially electoral reform so no more false majorities. Dion wants to take care of your savings. is stumbling, then appoint best cabinet ever. Harper wants to keep us in surplus [but hasn't given a plan to do that] Red Wilson Panel on competitiveness.
Layton says Harper didn’t list the worries of the middle class. Is Dion going to listen at meetings he asks.
Dion says he is courageous enough to make the right descisions for Canadians. May mentioned the Green Shift is taken from Green’s platform, and Greens are proposing income splitting for married couples. Harper is claiming to have income splitting, then says we can’t afford it!
8:46 Income trusts - May “[Harper] did break his word it’s pretty obvious.”
8:48 Frustrated young voter doesn’t trust promises:
Duceppe - waffles. Is Harper’s fault. No fixed elections..
May - Former lawyer, now politician, is treated like scum paparazzi now! “You don’t deserve what you’ve got, you deserve better!”
Dion waffles, Harper’s fault
Harper is so proud of our “precious” country. Asks people to look at “our platform”. May unleashes zinger of the night “Where is it?” in innocent voice.
Layton turns on car salesman charm.
Point to May; it was LOL funny.
8:55 May brings up Atlantic accord and Bill Casey who Harper tossed. “Your [Harper] word is law, and that’s no way to be Prime Minister!”
8:57 Duceppe and Harper were fighting. I didn’t look away from the keyboard but it sounded like Harper pulled knife and muttered, “You’ll never take me alive!”
8:58 CWB is Harper’s closing statement.
8:59 Steve P. moderator thinks the debate must have been better than Palin’s. May got the last word by saying it’s OUR democracy it’s more important.
Green pundit on CBC thinks May won. She certainly demonstrated that the Greens are not a one issue party, she was never stumped on a question and seemed the most prepared.
Nanos thinks she “landed a number of punches on the Prime minister”. I agree.
CNN doesn’t mention the Canadian debate. They do have a poll though that puts Biden at a 44 point lead over Palin in a reader vote of who won the debate. Not surprising, the one clip I saw had Palin pausing 3 or 4 beats to remember the one liner talking point to respond on a given claim from Biden that the Democrats would “end this [Iraq] war”.
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Fossett has been found dead. This was a dead blog post after all.
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UPDATE December 24, 2008: I selected this post at my best of 2008 for Jon Swift’s 2008 roundup.
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![[EFC Blue Ribbon - Free Speech Online]](http://www.efc.ca/images/efcfreet.gif)
Carrie | 02-Oct-08 at 7:15 pm | Permalink
Harper keeps saying jobs were lost - yes - but more jobs were created. God I wish somebody would answer to that b.s.
Also, Harper and Layton went into this aligned. Harper was responding to Dion and said “as the opposition, Mr. Layton, pointed out”….uh no. The opposition is Mr. Dion, not Mr. Layton. That was sly and insulting
Scott Tribe | 02-Oct-08 at 7:24 pm | Permalink
If I was to give a definition of “dead-blogging”, I’d say it would be that you watched the whole debate and then blogged about it after it was finished.. but you’re not obviously doing that.. so you can’t use that as a definition :)
Saskboy | 02-Oct-08 at 8:30 pm | Permalink
Yes! May said we should turn the poppies into 3rd world medicine! Give the Afghans an economy and security will come from that!
She corrected Harper’s claim that it is a UN run mission.
Layton is nailing Harper on trust.
Jaybird | 02-Oct-08 at 9:14 pm | Permalink
Very lively blogging.
It seemed during the debate that May did a better job of selling the Liberal Green Shift than the Liberals did.
Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy :: PM Debate PostMortem dead blogging | 02-Oct-08 at 9:29 pm | Permalink
[...] The debate deadblogged - I feel like a debate blogging zombie! [...]
themusicgod1 | 03-Oct-08 at 4:36 am | Permalink
Here’s my deadblog
themusicgod1 | 03-Oct-08 at 4:56 am | Permalink
What did you make of the “make a stronger wheat board” gaffe by Harper? Did you catch it? Am I right about layton/may at the end?
Saskboy | 03-Oct-08 at 10:26 am | Permalink
I’m not sure I caught him saying he wanted to strengthen the CWB, but at least someone talked about farming issues. There wasn’t enough time to talk about MOST of the country’s local issues. There was no mention of pot even which was disappointing. There needs to be MORE debates before the election.
themusicgod1 | 03-Oct-08 at 12:32 pm | Permalink
Personally I was most disappointed by the almost complete lack of copyright discussion…although not on Layton who worked it into the conversation anyway(although I was visibly scared at the way he did so, he pulled it off—managed to give copyright maximalists a damn good reason to vote NDP without the other parties calling on this seemingly inconsistent plan. But it only seems inconsistent…copyright maximalists and pro-user zealots alike can find something that benefits them in the NDP, and there is no conflict between them on this).
I came into the debate thinking it needed to be longer, with more of them…but you know what? I don’t think it’s really needed. They each did a very good job (including may) of showing Canada what they had to offer. While another hour or two(or another full debate) might have helped…I didn’t watch the french debate anyway so who am I to suggest this?
Saskboy | 03-Oct-08 at 2:06 pm | Permalink
They didn’t discuss farming at all aside from Harper’s closing thought to try and toss a bone to SK, and May surprisingly went for logging, I guess she’s looking for the BC and north vote. There needs to be more debates, and with more parties in the rest. It’s still completely unfair that they aren’t there, and I’m not going to stop saying that just because the Greens made it (this time).