Election-campaign launch buzz: Bus breakdowns, barcodes and getting on a first-name basis

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/08/2015 (3744 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Five things people are talking about as the campaign gets underway:

1. Questions. Questions. Questions.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is usually the one getting the criticism for not taking questions, or not taking enough questions. He has only had six media availabilities in Ottawa in the last two years, all of them when an international leader was visiting.

When Harper does take questions from the media, be it in Ottawa, on the road or during a campaign, the Conservatives also generally allow for just a handful of questions from reporters who get their name on a list. 

So far this campaign is par for the course. Harper took five questions at his opening press conference on Sunday at Rideau Hall, and only from reporters who represented news outlets who have paid $12,000 each to travel with Harper on his campaign tour this week.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, whose only campaign appearance so far was the campaign launch Sunday, took zero questions. His handlers tried to dispel criticism, saying Mulcair had to go to a funeral. It was a valiant spin attempt, but the funeral for former cabinet minister Flora MacDonald was being held less than a kilometres away from Mulcair’s opening event at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., and it was three hours later.

Mulcair did take numerous questions at Tuesday’s news conference.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau tried to prove he isn’t afraid of anything by taking questions at his opening event in Vancouver until the questions ran out. But with a few awkward pauses as he waited for questions that didn’t seem forthcoming, perhaps it should be known that taking too few questions isn’t a good sign of accountability but you should still probably always leave them wanting more.

2.The wheels on the bus meet karma

In August 2010, then Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff set off from Ottawa on a weeks-long national tour to sell him and the Liberal Party to Canadians. Minutes after leaving the nation’s capital, the bus started to sputter. And it eventually died.

It wasn’t during an election but any number of Conservative attack dogs made fun of the symbolism — especially when the bus ended up being towed to a garage that happened to be called “Harper Diesel.”

And of course less than a year later, Ignatieff led the Liberals to their worst electoral showing ever and his political career came to an untimely conclusion.

Stephen Harper and Conservative supporters will now discover if karma really is a witch with a capital B.

On the first full day of campaign 2015, one of Harper’s shiny new campaign buses, suffered what politic spin doctors might deem a technical malfunction. (Translation: It broke down.)

Another bus was dispatched and the show got back on the road without much trouble.

Some Conservatives shrugged it off without so much as a blink.

But Liberal pundit Greg MacEachern was prompted to tweet, “Campaign buses break down. They are not metaphors. Unless you’re Stephen Taylor. Then they are.” With a link to Conservative blogger Taylor’s 2010 post on the Ignatieff trouble.

It’s unclear if Harper’s bus ended up at Justin’s garage or Mulcair’s Mechanics. We will do our best to find out.

3. Consider yourself QRed.

Some tourists wandering the nation’s capital this weekend may have gotten more than they bargained for with the unexpected, long-weekend election call. A bus tour arrived at Rideau Hall just moments before Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s motorcade made the one-kilometre drive across the street from 24 Sussex Drive. They didn’t get anywhere close to him, however, as security guards set up a barricade to keep the tourists far back from the action. 

Later Sunday, in downtown Ottawa, tourists gathered to watch the Conservative campaign bus being loaded outside party headquarters. According to CTV reporter Katie Simpson, some asked security guards if they could get a photo with Harper but no dice.

Don’t despair Ottawa tourists. You will be in good company.

In fact, it looks as if the Conservative campaign will be so tight this election, those tourists may have gotten closer to the prime minister Sunday than any other “ordinary” Canadians will until after October 19.

Only invited guests will be allowed at all Conservative campaign events, and all of those invitees will be vetted. If you show up without a ticket labelled with a QR code and your ID, you won’t get in.

In 2011, Team Harper was criticized for removing students from events after it was discovered they had posted photos on Facebook posing with other party leaders.

4. If an election is called on the August long weekend, does anybody care?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper probably couldn’t have picked a more unlikely date to launch an election campaign. On the Sunday of the August long weekend, in the heart of the summer, the number of people paying attention can probably be counted on one hand. Well maybe not quite, but guaranteed more Canadians were in Muskoka chairs and on golf courses on Sunday than were watching Harper’s opening press conference on television.

It appeared the Liberals were banking on that, as Justin Trudeau’s campaign launch came hours after everyone else. While Harper, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe had all delivered their opening speeches before most Canadians had even finished Sunday brunch, Trudeau was on a plane to Vancouver most of the morning.

It meant he was conspicuously absent from the television news cycle for the first five hours or so of the campaign.

Does it matter? In any other year it might, but when a campaign is 79 days long and the launch comes when more Canadians are swimming in lakes and roasting marshmallows by campfires than fired up on their smart phones, it probably does not.

Ask people again on Oct. 19 if they remember how long it took Trudeau to appear on August 2.

5. What’s in a name?

Harper. Mulcair. And Justin?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was called out this week for referring to Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau as simply “Justin” in a news conference this week. 

The Conservatives will also refer to him as such in their advertising.

Some see it as a carefully crafted way to shower disrespect on Trudeau and indirectly reiterate in the minds of Canadians the message that Trudeau is not experienced enough to be prime minister.

Calling someone simply by their first name — either on purpose or not — diminishes their standing, makes them seem younger and less authoritative.

It also is often done from a position of disdain.

When people call Harper “Steve” it isn’t because they want to pretend he’s their friend.

While Harper using “Justin” instead of “Trudeau” makes Harper look petty, the Conservatives are also not wrong to suggest they are only in keeping with what the Liberals are doing themselves.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

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Because the Liberals call him Justin, too.

From justin.ca to references of “Justin’s vision” throughout Liberal literature, the party is clearly branding him not as Trudeau but as Justin.

From the Liberal perspective, calling him Justin is probably a way to differentiate him from his famous father, but also to make him seem like the more approachable candidate, the one you would go for a beer with or chat to about your kids’ soccer game.

The main thing this issue does is point just how small some of the considerations have become in political campaigns. Even what you call your opponent will be analyzed to the hilt.