Better late than never

Apologies for the lack of rapid response to the debate. See, the thing is, it's bad enough to spend two hours on a Friday night by yourself on the couch, eating Doritos and watching four middle-aged white guys primping and preening. If I'd then rushed over to my computer and commenced with blogging, instead of going out and actually socializing a bit, someone might have had to stage an intervention.

In any event, I hesitate to give my impression of who won or lost, because my reading isn't always in sync with majority of others. But if I were scoring it, I'd have said Layton was the strongest. Though he seemed to lose a bit of steam toward the end, when all the Captain Canada stuff started, he generally seemed fair, focused and about as sincere as one can seem in these things.

That being said, I suspect Harper benefited the most from the evening. Whatever exactly they've done to him reminds me of what the Ontario Liberals did to McGuinty between '99 and '03. (Is there some kind of politician boot camp these guys go to? And if so, would it make for the worst reality show ever?) Suddenly, the guy seems more confident, more down-to-earth, more human. And as expected, he probably came off the least angry of all of them - playing against type. If voters were looking for reassurance that he's not scary, they probably got it.

As for Martin, he wasn't as bad as he's capable of being. But there was a desperate quality to his attempts to veer off-question and attack Harper that I found off-putting. In fact, "off-putting" is probably the best way to describe not just his debate performance, but his general persona these days. It's hard to put your finger on what exactly it is, but I know a lot of people feel it.

Oh, and I know I've said this before, but stop with the creepy daddy stuff. "Vote for me because my dad built health care" was a poor pitch 15 years ago, and it's all the worse now that Martin so clearly has no idea what to do to save that system.