2:59 PM Macleans.ca – Canada’s top political team on the web will be here at 9 PM tonight to provide analysis of tonight’s leadership debate as it happens. Check back often.8:22 PM Paul Wells – I’ll just note that our liveblog from last night was the ninth Top Post on Wordpress — AHEAD of Jack Cafferty and The Page, and nipping at the heels of 2dopeboyz!8:22 PM Paul Wells – botd.wordpress.com8:59 PM Aaron Wherry – Greetings from the National Arts Centre. There’s a big poster on the side of the building announcing that Tony Bennett will be here Saturday night for the annual NAC gala.
|9:00 PM Aaron Wherry – And we’re off. And the guys in the press room just turned off the sound.9:00 PM Martin Patriquin – Harper saying his version of McCain’s ‘the fundamentals of the economy are strong’ on a day when the TSX loses 800 points is not such a hot idea. Discuss.9:00 PM Kady O’Malley – And hello from the Public Policy Forum debate watching gala, where I am liveblogging amid a throng of bright young political junkies, from a table with its very own bowl of chips and salsa. And a beer. 9:01 PM Aaron Wherry – And we’re back.9:01 PM Kady O’Malley – Hi, NAC peeps! There’s food here. You?9:02 PM Kady O’Malley – No sea urchin pendant? Bah. She’s gone Ottawa. 9:02 PM Martin Patriquin – Blue’s nice, I guess.9:03 PM Kady O’Malley – Elizabeth May has just turned into a generic economist pundit. That was unexpected. 9:04 PM Aaron Wherry – A columnist who shall remain nameless finds Stephane Dion’s English hilarious.9:04 PM Kady O’Malley – Wait, weren’t they going to mix up the seating plan?9:04 PM Aaron Wherry – They did.9:05 PM Kady O’Malley – Somehow, I feel as though I’ve heard those talking points before9:05 PM Aaron Wherry – So Stephen Harper doesn’t agree with Stephane Dion. I’m shocked.9:05 PM John Geddes – Harper talks to Dion, Layton talks to the camera. 9:05 PM Martin Patriquin – Harper’s economic platform: Attack the egghead across the table.9:05 PM Paul Wells – When Paikin called on “Jack Layton,” I thought he was calling on “Czech Lady.” My debate is far more fun than the one you guys are listening to. 9:05 PM Andrew Coyne – May: save the economy by blocking investment, and depressing purchasing power. Greeeattt..9:05 PM Chris Selley – Layton is talking to ME, not the Camera. And I also heard Czech Lady.9:05 PM Kady O’Malley – The *real* economy9:06 PM Andrew Coyne – Ooof: Harper on the attack off the top. “Stephane, you panicked.”9:06 PM Paul Wells – That can’t be right, because the one who sounds like a Czech lady is Duceppe.9:06 PM Kady O’Malley – Layton cares about your personal economy. 9:06 PM Kady O’Malley – The invisible hand likes oil companies?9:06 PM Paul Wells – Duceppe made his first reference to the rich oil companies. Amazing that it took six minutes.9:07 PM Martin Patriquin – @Paul: Drink!9:07 PM Chris Selley – Nothing to do with nothing to do with doing nothing. Nothing!9:07 PM Kady O’Malley – Wasn’t Harper beside May yesterday? Or did I hallucinate that?9:07 PM John Geddes – You have an option, sir.9:08 PM Kady O’Malley – I’d just like to note that Andrew Potter is sitting behind me, dropping bons mots and quips like snowflakes. Or nacho crumbs. 9:08 PM John Geddes – The Wall Street crisis is not a government balance sheet issue. 9:08 PM Aaron Wherry – Elizabeth May is reminding Stephen Harper why he didn’t want her their in the first place.9:08 PM Andrew Coyne – May; Where’s your platform! Exactly…9:08 PM Kady O’Malley – Harper has that smile again. 9:08 PM Paul Wells – Harper is actually correct: in a lot of big ways, Canada’s fiscal management has been very different from the US’ in the last several years. I remember Jean Chrétien made precisely that point in a speech in Chicago, and our colleague Christie Blatchford tore a strip off him for being rude to the Yankees. 9:09 PM Aaron Wherry – Harper’s sitting up straighter. That’s leadership.9:09 PM Kady O’Malley – Crowd loved that: “You don’t care, or you’re incompetent.”9:09 PM Andrew Coyne – Layton: Either you don’t care or you’re incompetent… So I guess we’re no longer eschewing the personal attacks…9:10 PM Aaron Wherry – When were we eschewing the personal attacks?9:10 PM Paul Wells – Well, he DID give the PM a choice, Andrew…9:10 PM Chris Selley – What, you think think there’s a third option or something?9:10 PM Kady O’Malley – While we were sleeping. 9:10 PM John Geddes – Layton didn’t like those stories saying Dion was more aggressive yesterday. 9:10 PM Kady O’Malley – So the rich oil companies and the manufacturing sector are at war?9:10 PM Chris Selley – Jack Layton doesn’t care about families who work for oil companies. There, I said it.9:10 PM Martin Patriquin – Duceppe talking about Canada as a whole. Delicious.9:11 PM Kady O’Malley – Well, the working ones. Not the soul-sucking ones. 9:11 PM Andrew Coyne – You’d never know we had unemployment of 6.1% (30-year low) an employment rate of 63.4% (all-time high), etc.9:11 PM Paul Wells – On the monitor we’re watching in the English press room, every single one of them is wearing bright makeup like Oompah Loompahs. I greatly fear our friend Paikin is about to turn into a blueberry. 9:12 PM Aaron Wherry – Yes, look at the markets.9:13 PM Kady O’Malley – Andrew Potter wonders, “What about the farmers?” 9:13 PM Chris Selley – Phew. It’s a good thing Harper didn’t say people aren’t worried about their jobs and houses, I’d say. Wait, what’s Elizabeth May on about…?9:13 PM Kady O’Malley – I keep mistaking the red Maple Leaf for a Red Cross. 9:13 PM Chris Selley – Or did I just miss it?9:14 PM Martin Patriquin – Just out of interest, and I’m asking because I don’t know, but do political leaders often push for a lower dollar, as opposed to higher productivity?9:15 PM Kady O’Malley – Hey, Dion has picked up on the “laissez faire” meme9:15 PM Chris Selley – So… because Chretien and Martin made our banks stable, we should pretend they aren’t?9:15 PM Martin Patriquin – You’re right, Stephane. Paul Martin never wanted bank mergers. [end sarcasm]9:15 PM Andrew Coyne – Harper’s completely right, but politics and journalism are not kind to the “things are on balance okayl” message. He needs a tax-cutting, market-opening message — do-something not do-nothing.9:15 PM Kady O’Malley – Duceppe gets the green star. 9:15 PM Kady O’Malley – (For bringing up the K word)9:16 PM John Geddes – This is Harper’s best moment. Specifics. 9:16 PM Andrew Coyne – Laissez-faire, don’t care?!?! They’re spending more than any govenrment in the history of the universe!9:16 PM Andrew Coyne – Okay, Canada.9:17 PM Kady O’Malley – My audience is bored. I mean, they’re paying attention in a polite way, but really, they’re waiting for everyone to compliment the person to their right. 9:17 PM Kady O’Malley – Or sneaking over to watch the Palin/Biden debate in the next room. 9:17 PM Chris Selley – From Harper’s 1997 speech that May mentioned: “In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don’t feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don’t feel bad about it themselves, as long as they’re receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.”9:17 PM Aaron Wherry – Did Jack Layton just compliment Elizabeth May? And how is it that Harper is getting hammered by Layton and May on the economy? 9:18 PM John Geddes – Talking about the OECD all the time is “real people in the real economy ? 9:18 PM Andrew Coyne – Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a party to the free-market side of Harper? Somebody to criticize him for spending too much, not too little? Somebody to contradict the NDP/Bloc/Green wackos?9:18 PM Paul Wells – I went offline for a bit, grrr, but I was trying to make the point Coyne made: Canada’s situation is indeed stronger than in the US, but “It’s not so bad” is a very difficult hill to defend.9:18 PM Kady O’Malley – May clearly has it in her head to establish herself as more than just a hippie earthmommy type9:18 PM Martin Patriquin – @ Wherry: He did. Gives you an idea of how he feels about the threat from the Greens.9:18 PM Kady O’Malley – And has transformed into a Catherine Swiftian type. 9:19 PM John Geddes – Again, Harper is good when he narrows the focus. 9:19 PM Martin Patriquin – Duceppe has been louder than I thought. Not sure why that is.9:20 PM Kady O’Malley – Andrew Potter asks: Since when are the poor so popular?9:20 PM Chris Selley – I wonder how much having released a platform–any platform–would have shielded Harper against this do-nothing/no ideas charge.9:20 PM Chris Selley – Probably not much.9:20 PM Andrew Coyne – At last! Jack goes after Dion. 9:20 PM John Geddes – Did Layton just go after Dion for “adding a tax”? 9:20 PM Martin Patriquin –
9:21 PM Martin Patriquin – @ Coyne: How about this guy?9:21 PM Kady O’Malley – The permanent tax on everything. 9:21 PM Kady O’Malley – oooh, Martin just escalated the liveblog arms race. 9:21 PM Chris Selley – Scandinavia reference! Drink!9:21 PM Aaron Wherry – Dion to Layton: You’re Swedish. (Ouch.)9:22 PM Paul Wells – I’d suggest that in some ways there is a party to the free-market side of Harper, and it’s led by the geeky prof with the sylin’ new glasses, Andrew.9:22 PM Andrew Coyne – “Strategic investments in technology..” God forbid the auto companies could invest on their own account.9:23 PM Kady O’Malley – The first Just The Facts of the evening is out!9:23 PM Martin Patriquin – Please share.9:23 PM Kady O’Malley – It politely suggests that the Official Opposition Leader reacquaint himself with the last budget. 9:24 PM Andrew Coyne – “We need to bring the manufacturing sector back.’ Also the horse-and-buggy industry…9:24 PM Chris Selley – Elizabeth May wants a revitalized pulp and paper industry. That’s interesting. (Looking up Green platform…)9:24 PM Kady O’Malley – Wait, I just realized that the Liberals were out of the gates first with a series entitled “Harpernomics”9:24 PM Paul Wells – A note about how Ottawa works: our colleagues next door in the French press room were polled on whether they preferred the live English feed or the French-language simultaneous translation. They overwhelmingly picked the live feed. ‘Cause they’re bilingual, I’m saying. 9:24 PM John Geddes – Not the raw logs. Please, no. 9:25 PM Martin Patriquin – May’s point about family’s and Fort Mac is salient, given the percentage of Newfoundland fathers that live there.9:25 PM Andrew Coyne – “We shouldn’t be shipping raw logs.” Take that, BC logging industry: what do you know about your business compared to Jack?9:25 PM John Geddes – Newfoundland miners in Red Lake, Ont.’s gold mines made $200 K last year. You can fly home a few times on that.9:25 PM Aaron Wherry – In Windsor, this question translates as: Will there still be a town here in five years?9:26 PM Kady O’Malley – Steve Paikin is being pretty laid back as far as letting them go at it. 9:26 PM John Geddes – Can’t the ribs industry in Windsor pick up the slack? 9:26 PM Paul Wells – Dion: We have the most talentuous people in the world. Surprising that Dion is seeking, or being granted, quite a bit more speaking time tonight than last night. And his English is quite strong. 9:26 PM Martin Patriquin – Harper has accomplished the impossible: he is actually more of a pin cushion than last night. And no language barrier to, uhh, pin it on.9:26 PM Aaron Wherry – Shout out to the Tunnel Bar-B-Q.9:27 PM Chris Selley – The TBBQ will be the last business to close, I imagine.9:27 PM Kady O’Malley – He has that tone. The barely concealed contempt one. It works devastatingly well once every ten times he breaks it out. 9:27 PM Martin Patriquin – @Geddes: True, but that means dad’s gone much of the year. Not so family values if you ask me.9:27 PM Aaron Wherry – Breaking news from the Globe! Harper to aim debate performance at women!… So ladies, how you like him now?9:28 PM Kady O’Malley – Ooh! I get to answer that one!9:28 PM Kady O’Malley – Uh, no comment. 9:28 PM Kady O’Malley – Really, though? This is supposed to appeal to women?9:28 PM Martin Patriquin – Ducuppe’s stumped pretty huge on his Buy Canada Act on the campaign trail. It’s surreal.9:29 PM Andrew Coyne – This is what comes of ridding yourself of any ideological basis: when you are attacked, you have no philosophical counter-argument, no grounds for justifying your course. 9:29 PM Aaron Wherry – “The voters who are more in play for us tend to be women .. And we think we have more potential to go there, so we think if you come across as harsh and argumentative, you’re less appealing to them,” a Conservative source said. “You may get more cheers from your respective war rooms but it doesn’t mean you’re doing the right thing for women who are quite turned off by that over partisan approach.”9:29 PM Chris Selley – Elizabeth May supports theCanadian arms industry.9:29 PM Kady O’Malley – For *hugging*!9:29 PM Andrew Coyne – Harper could offer a million counter-arguments to the nonsense these idiots are spouting, but that would require him to step out of his “pragmatic” guise….9:30 PM Kady O’Malley – I wonder if that Conservative source was a man or a woman. 9:30 PM John Geddes – Harris/Decima said on Sept. 27 the NDP was picking up a lot of urban women. Dion needs them back. 9:30 PM Kady O’Malley – (That’s an entirely relevant question, given the context. I am not a sexist!)9:31 PM Kady O’Malley – WHEN HAS HE EVER BEEN BETWEEN JOBS?9:31 PM John Geddes – “I’ve been between jobs.” That’s a mistake. 9:31 PM Kady O’Malley – Between think tank and party leadership?9:31 PM Aaron Wherry – Oh. Snap.9:31 PM Martin Patriquin – After Coffee Time, and just before Hooter’s.9:31 PM Chris Selley – WAY better joke if he was wearing a sweater, Jack.9:31 PM Paul Wells – Knockout punch! 9:31 PM Paul Wells – I kid.9:32 PM Andrew Coyne – Good, you had me worried for a second…9:32 PM John Geddes – I think it was the Royal Bank’s chief economist who said a deficit would be a good option to keep open right now. 9:32 PM Kady O’Malley – I thought that phrase automatically got you kicked out of ScribbleLive9:33 PM Andrew Coyne – Dion just fibbed. They will raise taxes $40-billion, and only cut them $26-billion.9:33 PM Martin Patriquin – @Geddes: I’ve heard that before. Why?9:33 PM Aaron Wherry – The English press room is loving Snarky Jack.9:33 PM Chris Selley – Manfred von Vulte!9:33 PM Paul Wells – Stephen Harper between jobs: (a) Tory staffer to Reform strategist; (b) Reform strategist to Reform candidate; (c) Disgruntled MP to think-tank/lobby guy; (d) reverse of (c); and that’s about it so far.9:33 PM Kady O’Malley – andrew potter here, filling in for kady while she gets a red bull. What’d I miss??9:34 PM Andrew Coyne – It’s an irrational taboo to say you would never run a deficit, and as irrational taboos go, I favour it: after the first one, the second becomes that much easier, and the third, and the fourth…9:34 PM Martin Patriquin – Shut it, Selley. He’s my cousin.9:34 PM Andrew Coyne – At last a question that does not involve massive expansion of the state!9:34 PM John Geddes – @Patriquin. If I mention Keynes I’m afraid of what Coyne might do… 9:35 PM Paul Wells – over at the buzzz.tv dial groups, there are 455 people online, and they are not fond of one of these leaders.9:35 PM Andrew Coyne – Harper admits his GHG plan would impose costs!9:35 PM Aaron Wherry – Coyne, here’s where you plug your magazine story.9:35 PM Kady O’Malley – hey chinanello, get off your husband’s computer!9:35 PM Chris Selley – Everyone, shhh. Jack’s talking to me again.9:35 PM John Geddes – @O’Malley that’s a very inside joke9:35 PM Andrew Coyne – “Big polluters”. Drink!9:36 PM Kady O’Malley – kady’s back. Thanks, you’ve been great! -ap9:36 PM Aaron Wherry – I hope you’re watching from your kitchen table Selley.9:36 PM Kady O’Malley – Oh, thank goodness. The economy section is over. 9:37 PM Andrew Coyne – Great moment for May.9:37 PM Kady O’Malley – Andrew Potter points out that they aren’t actually talking about things like the internet. Technology. Dot com 2.0!9:38 PM Martin Patriquin – May: Yes! This is EXACTLY what needs to be said. It’s not the economy or the environment. It’s both.9:38 PM Andrew Coyne – Harper’s right on the tax credits — except the Tories have played the same game (of claiming tax credits as tax cuts), so he can’t really drive the point home.9:38 PM Aaron Wherry – 40 is not twice as big a number as 26. Just saying.9:39 PM John Geddes – Dion needed this moment.9:39 PM Kady O’Malley – My room liked that Dion moment. I heard claps. 9:40 PM Paul Wells – I liked the bit where E. May points at Harper with her pinkie finger. “And neither will yours.” 9:41 PM Andrew Coyne – “Not to impose taxes on people, it is to make companies pay.” Stephen Layton.9:41 PM Kady O’Malley – What is the difference between a tax, and making a company pay money into a fund?9:41 PM Kady O’Malley – Layton gets the Bush award!9:41 PM Chris Selley – Duceppe keeps yammering on about this 1.2% drop in emissions even as he plumps for Kyoto. Remind me – what were our actual Kyoto targets? Rather more ambitious, methinks.9:42 PM Chris Selley – Jack! Jack! Over here!9:42 PM Andrew Coyne – Harper could OWN this debate. He could be the only candidate defending a free market approach. But because he’s abandoned that, he can only bleat, we agree, but we’d do less than you would.9:43 PM Martin Patriquin – Having four opponents ganging up on you is better than just one ganging up on you.9:44 PM Kady O’Malley – There’s one May/Harper camera angle that is particularly unfortunate for the latter. 9:44 PM Aaron Wherry – Is Elizabeth May winning this debate?9:44 PM Chris Selley – Territoriality means you work together. Thanks for clearing that up, Ms. May.9:44 PM John Geddes – May is scoring all over the place. 9:45 PM Kady O’Malley – CARBON DIOXIDE IS NOT POLLUTION. HUMANS DON’T EXHALE POLLUTION. -potter9:45 PM Paul Wells – I’m finding Elizabeth May quite strong, and partly because she’s not proposing much policy, which would lead to her proposing some of the Bad Policies
Looks pretty swank — in that it is’nt mold-infested.