With last night’s Leaders’ Debate complete, Decision BC 2013 heads in to the homestretch, with less than two weeks til election day, on May 14th.
With no so-called ‘knockout blows’ landed by any of the party leaders, as can be seen in the Ipsos-Reid post Leaders’ Debate poll conducted for Global BC, last evening’s debate emerged as pretty much a draw, with BC’s NDP leader finding somewhat more favour among British Columbians than did his BC Liberal party counterpart, the beleaguered Christy Clark, who drew much of the fire during the course of Monday evening’s debate.
Vancouver Sun legislative columnist Vaughn Palmer weighed in on last night’s debate in today’s edition of B.C.’s newspaper of record …
(John Cummins) had the most telling comment of the night, however, with his devastating observation off the top that “nobody” expects Christy Clark and the Liberals to win the election and folks probably tuned in “to see what Adrian Dix would look like as a premier.”
If so, then what they saw was a leader who remains a bit awkward and evasive here and there, but who is a master of his chosen material, with growing confidence overall.
If any of the other leaders laid a glove on him in Monday night’s debate, it didn’t show up in my notes.
The Globe and Mail’s Justine Hunter and Ian Bailey write that the party leaders traded punches during the course of the election’s only televised debate, while columnist Gary Mason felt that “Dix won on points, as he delivered the most important performance of his political career.” Meanwhile, Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith opined that, “It’s hard not to feel that all four provincial leaders are insulting voters’ intelligence.”
And, of course, Charlie is right. Last night’s Leaders’ Debate was, for the most part, an ‘issue free’ zone, with virtually no discussion by the party leaders of the major policy issues of concern to British Columbians: transportation, education, and housing, among others. Yes, it may be that Christy Clark’s gaffe in barreling through a red light at 5:15 a.m. offers a metaphor for her approach to governance, but to be the first question that was posed to her by debate moderator Jennifer Burke? C’mon now. And so the night went, parry and thrust, personal attack followed by more political invective, and nary a mention of some of the critical issues that a new government in Victoria will have to face in developing policy that best meets the needs of British Columbians across the vast expanse of our province.
Today, then, it’s back onto the hustings for the four leaders, with Premier Christy Clark spending the day in the Kootenays mainstreeting, before travelling to Cranbook for a 5pm Liberal party rally.
Following an early morning, so-called Breakfast of Champions campaign event with Vancouver-False Creek NPD candidate Matt Toner, BC NDP leader Adrian Dix will hop on a plane heading for Prince George, where he’ll issue a policy announcement at the College of New Caledonia at 3pm, after which he’ll attend a Rally for Change with candidates Bobby Deepak and Sherry Ogasawara, at the Prince George Civic Centre.
BC Conservative Party leader John Cummins — who didn’t fare all that well in last night’s debate, with his deer-in-the-headlights performance — will spend the first part of the day in Vancouver before traveling to Kamloops for a BC Conservative fundraiser. Meanwhile, BC Green Party leader Jane Sterk — who wasn’t as strong in last night’s debate as she was on Friday — will spend her day doing media (e.g. interviews with the editorial Boards of the Vancouver Sun and The Province), before heading out to Surrey this evening for an all-candidates debate at South Park family school.
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As can be seen from the latest ThreeHundredEight.com statistical compilation poll above, heading into the final 12 days of Decision BC 2013, as most pundits predicted the race has tightened up some, the Liberals are up 2.8 points, the NDP down a couple — all of which means not a whit to the election outcome May 14th, other than the prospect that the election result will not prove a complete wipeout for the BC Liberals.
VanRamblings will return tomorrow with more, probable, election outcome predictions, a review of Decision BC 2013 mainstream media coverage and, perhaps, a bit of insight into BC’s 40th provincial election. For the latest VanRamblings election coverage, click on Decision BC 2013.
