Round II

In spending last night's entire debate looking for a "knockout punch" (and yes, it's now officially become a cliche to bemoan the overuse of this cliche), much of the media overlooked that the whole thing may have been a knockout punch. One would be hard-pressed to pick a clear winner, though Harper seems to be the consensus choice (more on that in a moment). But Martin, to these eyes at least, was a mess.

In the French debate, I actually thought the PM accounted for himself rather well, even if he blew it big time by failing to press Duceppe on the sovereignty agenda. But last night, he came off cranky, flustered and defensive. Way too much arm-waving, grimacing, head-shaking, and all the rest. And as for the message, some leaders are born to deliver platitudes, and some are only credible when they're offering some substance. Martin is the latter, but he's still trying to be the former. It ain't working.

Now, as for those public perceptions...

I was thinking of writing a column a few days ago on how, in almost every debate, viewers see what they want to see. I wish I had.

If his campaign were tanking, Harper could've given the same performance and we all would have piled on him for being flat, uninspired, robotic, and insufficiently prime ministerial. But because the Liberal campaign has imploded and - largely by default - Conservative support has spiked, he's now getting the benefit of the doubt and more. The exact same thing happened last fall in Ontario, when Dalton McGuinty was lauded for a debate performance only marginally better than the one four years earlier that everyone thought was so disastrous. Heading into an election, our optimism tends to get the better of us, we invest it in one of the leaders, and for a few weeks he's seen in a light he could previously only dream of.

A colleague mentioned this morning that, on a post-debate CBC call-in show, one listener described Harper's performance as "Kennedyesque." I rest my case.