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Today Harper, Layton and Duceppe showed their true colours. They announced today that they were willing to sacrifice all of the free press and publicity of being at a leadership debate. Why would they do such a risky and politically stupid thing to themselves and their party? According to them, they would do this because one woman, Elizabeth May, might end up on that stage beside them. They are willing to risk losing the prestige of being at the only official leadership debate because they might have to debate with this woman.

Sure, Harper will tell you it’s because he considers her to be another Liberal. However, if that was true, then he should be glad to have her on stage. He states that he thinks the Liberals’ plans are obviously bad, and that people can easily see that. So, having two people present these terrible plans should benefit his cause. It would give his party even more of a boost.

However, wouldn’t it be more reasonable to believe he is afraid people will discover that she isn’t a Liberal, but actually a member of a real alternative to the party Harper hates? Risking losing all of the prestige of the debates would make sense if he was afraid that when people really saw her party’s platform they’d see it was actually a reasonable alternative to both the Liberals and the Conservatives. In that case, not being on stage to allow her to rebut his attacks would make perfect sense. This way, he can run scared, and still pretend to claim the high ground.

Harper claims to be a brave man who will stand up for Canada, and yet he won’t even stand up for his party in a fair fight with Elizabeth May. That’s not bravery, that’s simply a petty, scared politician. A politician who thinks his platform has such negligible strength that he will run away to keep Elizabeth May from even being allowed to be at the debate. He is genuinely afraid his one chance at a majority could be stopped by her.

That is definitely a better reason for him to walk away from the debates and all of the benefits it provides in order to stop May from attending.

Layton’s not too much better. He claims that the reason he doesn’t want to attend the debate is because the Greens are a one issue party. If that were true, then he should be delighted to debate May one-on-one. He could show all of those potential NDP supporters how little basis there is to run over to the Greens and even potentially gain the Green’s 8% of the electorate’s votes (according to recent polls). This means more desperately needed NDP seats.

However, that’s not really the reason Layton doesn’t want May there. He doesn’t want May there because he knows she has a real platform. She has a platform covering everything from the economy, to the military, to, yes, environmental issues. He is afraid of her. He is afraid that her party will do better than his own, and in the end, he will end up being a weak, lame-duck leader. A leader, who, when given the best possible chance to pull the NDP into the big leagues failed because some upstart 21st century party led by Elizabeth May showed him up.

He is afraid of being yet another NDP leader who couldn’t break the 30 or so seat threshold that they’ve been trapped behind for decades.

It’s a petty reason, but it’s probably why he is afraid to debate man to woman with Elizabeth May.

Duceppe…

Well, Duceppe is Duceppe. I’m guessing he just jumped onto the bandwagon because he saw the rest of Canada’s political leaders doing it, and heaven forbid he show independence from these crass Canadian federal political games. That would imply he has some separate, original ideas from the rest of them. Albeit, Duceppe seems to be backtracking on his original position, which at least shows some backbone.

Maybe one of these boys will prove me wrong instead of throwing their arms in the air and whining like children because a real woman, May, shows up to the debate.

1h