Of Platforms and Public Forums

With the release of the Conservative Party's platform later today, I figured I'd expend some time on it for a bit.  Given that my focus tends to get slightly myopic during election campaigns, the fact that it's being released so late in the campaign is something I've been puzzling over. I've managed to come up with a pair of theories that, to me, seem the most likely.  At the risk of running afoul of Sir Bernard Ingham, they fall into two categories: both cock-up and conspiracy.

To begin with cock-up: simply put, the CPC (Conservative Party of Canada) campaign planners didn't think they'd actually need to release their platform.  Unable or unwilling to see the looming economic uncertainty, they decided on a campaign based around the personalities of the two primary leaders.  This ties in nicely with all the fuzzy-sweater ads and photo ops from early in the campaigns, along with the not-a-leader campaign run against Dion both before and during the early part of the election.  So, if this is the real reason, what went wrong?  I'd suggest that, along with the change in the economic climate and the public's reaction, they also targeted their campaign against the fictional personalities that they'd built up, instead of the real ones.  So, when they actually started getting their punches returned, they were unprepared — despite their press, the much-vaunted Tory war-room is, after all, made up of fallible people.

Moving onto the conspiracy theory: I've been spending time lately reading Paul Wells' analysis of the 2004 and 2006 election campaigns, Right Side Up: The Fall of Paul Martin and the Rise of Stephen Harper's New Conservatism.  One of Wells's observations is that the Tories lost their chance at government in 2004 and majority in 2006 when they ran out of script and Harper, always his own worst enemy, was forced to improvise.  Leaving the platform release until this late in the campaign both provides them with plenty of earned media (i.e., positive media coverage that they don't have to pay for) that could provide cover for any last-minute gaffes, and also provides Harper with a script which to consult and prevent him from derailing his own campaign.

Alternatively, if you want to go deep into tinfoil territory, the platform release comes this late because they don't want to give the opposition parties time to criticise it.  While it is undoubtedly an added bonus, I prefer a rationalization that is some combination of the previous two theories.

On an unrelated note, the Fredericton all-candidates debate is Thursday night.  Or perhaps more accurately, the all-candidates-but-one debate. Keith Ashfield, the CPC candidate for Fredericton, has declined the invitation to appear at the debate being held at the University of New Brunswick.  From reports, this appears to be a common occurrence, as numerous CPC candidates across the country have been skipping all-candidate debates, round-tables, and Q&As held by a variety of organizations ranging from all the way from special interest groups to the CBC.  I can't help but wonder if there's currently some sort of officially unofficial policy emanating from the Ottawa HQ about these things — especially after the bad press that occurred following the less than empathetic comments from their candidate during last month's Ottawa Centre debate.  (The 7:41:42 PM entry is where the candidate's responses really get weird.)