Sunday, April 24, 2011

Like Jean Lapierre Before Him...

...Gilles Duceppe is desperately trying to turn this into an election referendum:

Election a federalist-sovereignist battle: Duceppe


Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe appears to be escalating his party's message amid a dramatic drop in poll numbers, saying the election is not a "left-right" battle, but a "fight between the federalists and the sovereignists."

Duceppe made the statement in a Twitter post on Saturday.

This follows yesterday's announcement that Jacques Parizeau will be joining Duceppe on the campaign trail.

There are two obvious problems with this strategy:

1. Duceppe has spent the past decade arguing that federal elections are NOT about sovereignty; and

2.He's been right.

As the Liberals learned in 2006, Quebecers understand that federal elections aren't referendums. While I don't doubt Duceppe will be able to hold on to his core of staunch nationalists, we're about to find out just how small that core is.

7 Comments:

  • Probably ~30%, given the 2007 PQ vote (which was ~28% iirc)

    By Blogger Chris, at 6:18 p.m.  

  • Makes sense as an estimate. I guess at this point, the Bloc is just trying to salvage that.

    By Blogger calgarygrit, at 8:42 p.m.  

  • Hi Calgary,

    I just watched Ignatieff's appearance on Tout Le Monde En Parle.

    It was a good appearance Dan. FWIW at this point, much better (imo) than Jack's appearance (and Gilles too come to think of it).

    Really, it's hard to see how it good have gone better - this was a dream showing. Everything from the cancer-beating guest endorsing him to beat Harper to the way he got to tie in his final quiz questions in with the intitial welcoming repartée exchanged with the same guest --- it was a very very good job. He was more relaxed and comfortable, more personable, warmer, jokier, folkier, sincere and polished, and he just LOOKED great: handsome, wise, experienced, knowledgable. His winning appearance so far imo.

    By Blogger Jacques Beau Vert, at 8:49 p.m.  

  • Looked "Prime Ministerial". In a relaxed book-ish handsome way.

    By Blogger Jacques Beau Vert, at 8:51 p.m.  

  • Thanks for the recap JBV - glad to hear it went well. I may just have to watch it online myself, once it gets put up.

    By Blogger calgarygrit, at 10:00 p.m.  

  • I suspect Duceppe is entering a higher-risk strategy in light of the collapse of his polling numbers - clearly, if 1/3 of your voters tell the pollsters that they're walking away, it might be time to try something different.

    While federal elections may not be about sovereignty, sovereignty is still the raison d'etre for the BQ.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:23 p.m.  

  • By Blogger jeje, at 11:13 p.m.  

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