What I Learned
The debates didn’t get a lot of my attention tonight: I was busy ruining a batch of raisin bread (it didn’t rise), and the Maternal Unit, usually quiet and falling asleep by 9:00, insisted on gabbing through everything that I was trying to listen to and asking “Can’t we watch a movie instead?”
But from what I saw from both sides of the border, I gathered this:
In the Canadian debate, Stephane Dion’s English sounded much better. He was much more controlled in his delivery, and while is accent is still extremely heavy (and that alone could cost him), he expressed himself well.
Elizabeth May delivered. The leader of the Green Party (a party that stands less than a snowball’s chance in hell of forming a government) was informed and confident and we all learned a little more about her. Peter MacKay, the incumbent opponent in her home riding, has his work cut out for him.
Gilles Duceppe: Remind me. Why is he posing as a national leader, when his only interest is Quebec?
Jack Layton has never met a camera he didn’t like. In the round-table setting, all of the other leaders responded either to the moderator or to each other as they discussed issues and questions from the viewers. Jack rested an elbow on the table, leaned forward, and spoke to the camera. It made me giggle.
Stephen Harper: It was that smug smirk that I couldn’t get past. Every time a leader either challenged him or attempted to take a shot at him, he’d smirk. The Toronto Star described the mannerism as something out of the Book of Bill Clinton. Sarah Palin smirked too. I’m thinking it’s a conservative thing.
I came away from the Canadian debate an undecided voter. Three of the four opposition leaders gave me things to think about, and Stephen Harper just bolstered the resolve that I have held since the age of 18: To never vote Conservative as long as I live.
On the US side, I watched enough of the Biden-Palin match to learn a few things: First, that Sarah Palin’s handlers did a darn fine job of, well, handling her. While she was described by the expert observers as “aggressive” and not blundering, I still saw her as vacant as a new apartment. If someone came to me, asking that I vote for them as a new world leader and uttered words like “doggone it”, I would turn on my heel and run. But that’s just me.
And she called it “Eye-Rack”. Over and over again.
I don’t want folksy in a leader. I don’t want someone who talks in circles and says absolutely nothing (which she did) and tries to charm with a wink and a persistent smile. I want someone with a plan. Give me the facts, cut out the adjectives and the flag waving, and tell me how you’re going to get down to the business of running the country. Joe Biden won me over on that score. He might not remember who was president when, or when television was invented, but he knows the business of government.
Good luck to my US neighbours: You have a tough choice. Canadians? Just get out and vote. Please.
Thursday October 02, 2008 | 11:38 PM in The World From My Window
