Ottawa Centre Debate Review

Got back from the OC debate, and overall it was pretty good and even, no candidate landed a killing blow.

Greg Laxton-Green Party: 6.5/10
Calm, relaxed, and laid back, Greg managed to formulate the Greens eco-capitialist platform in a fairly effective way. He was very focused on staying on message, and had a relaxed pitch while speaking. I didn't think though, that he was really agressive enough. I appreciate his approch, but considering the Greens are positioned to greatly improve opon past elections, and that OC has been a good riding for them in the past, I expected him to be more agressive in defending his positions and attacking others.

Will Murray-NDP: 5/10
Dippers tend to be either passive-agressive, or fire breathing dragons in all candidates debates, and Murray leans more towards the former. Long on rhetoric, and short on workable policies, Murray was smart enough to focus mainly on the Liberals, rather than engage in debates on the impact of Conservative governments past. His agressiveness and reliance on rhetoric was probably based more on wanting to preach to the choir, and I doubt he managed to draw in any more undecided voters.

Yasir Naqvi-Liberal: 7.5/10
As the representitive of the incumbant party both in Queens Park and in OC itself, Yasir took most of the heat on the evening, and although he was largely successful in staying on message and telling his story, the cumulative effect of the 3-on-1 was noticable. Did a good job of rebutting NDP and PC criticisms of the Liberal record by pointing out the short comings of those parties governments.

Trina Morissette-PC: 4/10
Trina's performance was basically the cookie cutter PC platform, short on policy, avoiding any references to the Harris days at all cost, painting John Tory to be a god like genius, and Dalton to be basically the devil. She was the only candidate to get outright heckled, as the audidence at one point "reminded" her on the childcare spending record of the PC government. On the plus side for her, she is getting better and telling her story, and her intro and outro pieces were both fairly solid.

Stuart Ryan-Communist: 1/10
Had a table with various propaganda set up at the start out in the lobby, but didn't show up himself until halfway through the debate, when he pretended to not have been invited to go up on stage, and asked a question from the audience about manufacturing job loss. Apparently pulls this sort of stunt often.

Family Coalition Party candidate Danny Moran and Independent candidate Richard Eveleigh I didn't see, unless they pulled a Ryan and I missed them.