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February 23, 2004

God forbid that this commentary space actually agrees with something that the always narrow-minded and dogmatic Vancouver Sun columnist Barbara Yaffe has to say, but if a winner must be gleamed, then Clement made the best impression.

Belinda Stronach looked stilted and out of place in terms of language, understanding, and most importantly, policy.  By her own admission, Ms. Stronach has no political experience, and on stage, it most definitely showed. 

In terms of one liners, Stephen Harper delivered a couple of worthwhile zingers.  "I'm the only person on this stage who's won an election in the last three years" and "Cities may be the engines of our economy, but surely farmers and fisherman provide the fuel" immediately come to mind.  He looked polished, confident, and surprisingly moderate.

That being said, Clement made the most sense.  His assertions that there was no time for dickering around with policy blackholes like Ms. Stronach's public flirtations with two-tier health care is correct.  There is absolutely no opportunity to play with and test policy ideas that are clearly unwelcome amongst the electorate.  With Paul Martin set to call a snap election in early April, there can be no backtracking for the Tories.

Clement also scored points by his accurate description that Harper had failed to enamour voters east of Manitoba.  No matter how much Harper tones down his image as a Western based regional party leader, it is questionable as to whether he can make a breakthrough in Ontario and Quebec. 

When it came down to it, the self-proclaimed face made for radio had quite a strong showing in spite of appearance, glasses and height.  Political results based on substance...now how about that!

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Glad to see that the Vancouver Sun editorial board has been reading the TDH commentaries, specifically the one from February 16th.

Comments? jonathan@tdhstrategies.com