On Sunday afternoon, a senior Conservative campaign advisor briefing reporters about the week ahead. Among other things, the advisor said that the focus of the Conservative campaign would shift and would include more attacks on the BQ, the Green Party and the NDP.
The NDP, for its part, spent all of last week harping at Harper. Indeed, as NDP strategist Brad Lavigne told me, the decision to have Jack Layton campaign in Calgary Southwest – Harper's own riding — was a symbolic statement that Layton wants Harper's job. On Sunday, Layton was in Gatineau, Que. for a rally and he continued his focus attacking Harper.
From a strategic viewpoint, the NDP and the Conservatives are united in one sense: A weak Liberal vote helps each of their cause with one important caveat for the Tories: The Liberal vote can't be too weak. That's because, in some regions of the country, such as suburban BC, votes on the left and centre-left, tend to split among the NDP and Liberals and that can help a Conservative candidate who might win with 30 per cent of the vote, if the Libs get 25 per cent and the NDP gets 20 per cent. But if the Liberals weaken too much and those votes fall to the NDP, then there is a chance that an NDP candidate could get more than 30 per cent of the core Tory vote and steal a victory.
So at this stage in the campaign, the Conservatives believe they have had a good weak weakening the Liberal vote but now it's important for them to hammer Layton in order to keep the vote on the left fractured, so that it doesn't coalesce around one party or another.
This morning in Ottawa, at Harper's daily (and only) media availability, Harper was asked about the NDP's campaign which, in some respects, is looking a bit like the Conservative campaign. Here's some excerpts:
I think where there is some similarity I notice with the NDP campaign is that they are trying to target on the needs of real people as opposed to theoretical schemes. Where there is a difference is tha, obviously, we're a fiscally conservative government that knows we have to operate within a budget. We're making modest but affordable promises that we know we can deliver on. I'm not so sure the NDP is making sure any of this adds up and some of their promises are very very big.
The NDP approach has many of the same problems as the Liberal approach mainly that it's not costed. The Liberals are at least going to cost their promises by taxing everyone to death through a carbon tax. The NDP, it's far from clear where they would get all this money to spend billions of dollars at a time of economic uncertainty. That is a pretty clear difference that this party has with all of the opposition parties. We understand that we have to operate within a budget. We understand that our promises have to be doable, affordable and believeable. And I think all of the other parties are promising lots of things, some of which sound good, some of which don't – the NDP promises always sound good — but at the same time the economy has to be able to afford them.