The War Room War

In the wake of last night's French-language debates — which our pollster says Dion did best at — the war rooms of the major parties have been issuing releases left, right, and centre today. These are some summaries of all of the press releases filling my inbox today. It all seems like terribly wasted effort as all the political news that most assignment editors will want for tonight's newscasts and tomorrow's papers will almost certainly be about the two debates on this evening.

The Liberal war room wants us all to know:
• NDP Leader Jack Layton needs to do something about Durham candidate Andrew McKeever who apparently says, on his MySpace page, that he liked the part in Schindler's List “when the guard starts waxing the prisoners” and goes on to say his hero is George W. Bush.
• Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant needs to retract the “lies” she's been telling consituents in her rural Eastern Ontario riding. The Liberals would like her to know that their plan will not tax the use of firewood.
• They have a new television ad, might even be their best yet, though that's probably not saying much. This one reminds viewers that, in 2003, Stephen Harper delivered a speech that had been plagiarized from a speech of Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
• The Liberals followed that up with a press release detailing all the international press coverage with headlines like “Copycat Canadian leader” or “Harper Speech Scandal“.
• Harper has no plan for the economic crisis facing Canadians.
• They've launched an anti-Harper Web site: Harpernomics.ca
• A Vancouver woman got a half-a-million dollar government contract shortly after being acclaimed as a Conservative candidate in a riding that is just about the best thing the Liberals have for a lock in B.C. (It's Ujjal Dosanjh's riding in Vancouver South)
• Conservative MP and former minister Michael Chong likes the idea of a carbon tax, thank you very much.
• The NDP would hike EI benefits.
• If you criticize anything the Conservative government does, even if you are demonstrably non-partisan, you are, by definition, a “Liberal.”

The NDP war room asks:
• Why can't the Tories add? Conservative “Bay Street” math doesn't add up when it comes to the cost of the Afghanistan mission. The Tories say it has or will cost $8-billion but the NDP says other estimates suggest it could cost $22-billion.
• Where is the Conservative election platform? The Conservatives are the only party that has not released their election platform. If I were a betting man, I'd say they do it Monday.
• Why are the Liberals contradicting themselves on unemployment insurance? Liberals are misleading Canadians on funds available to help workers, the NDP says.
• What if Dion calls a meeting of premiers and bigwigs on the economy, as he promised last night that he would do, and they all tell him to ditch the carbon tax? (Funny: Several Tories I had a beer with last night said the same thing.)

The Conservative war room reminds us that:
• Dion is hiding — hiding, I tell you! — from his Green Shift.
• Stéphane Dion “discovers the economy but still has no plan.” This picks up on a theme several Tory advisors were scratching their head about after last night's debate. Dion's plan, they said, is to come up with a plan after he's elected? How do you campaign on a plan to plan, they wondered.
• Some Liberals have said some dumb things about their leader, including MP Charles Hubbard, who apparently wondered today how things might have been if Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff were in charge.
• Dion is a hypocrite when it comes to the issue of arts funding.
• In announcing a new economic plan (or a plan to plan) in the middle of last night's debate, Dion is reminding us that his predecessor did the same thing in a debate in 2006 — and that really didn't turn out well for him.

The Bloc Quebecois war room lets us know that:
• It, too, has some new TV ads featuring various BQ candidates attacking Harper for his rigid ideology.

And then there's the Green Party:
• Party in New Glasgow Saturday night! BYORB! (Bring Your Own Reuseable Bottle!)