I’m figuring anyone who wanted to see Sunday night’s chefs’ debate probably watched it and came to their own conclusions, but sans TV I’m catching up by reading a few discussions – there are bound to be more Monday morning in the conventional media, which I’ll post links to back here.
Meanwhile Paul Wells, as usual, has some level-headed critique, especially in his reflections on François Legault’s prior life as a PQ minister. Wells thinks Charest fumbled, his colleague Martin Patriquin thinks he won.
Adam Hooper 23:53 on 2012/08/19 Permalink
Pundits miss the point of Journalism entirely. They aren’t there to judge who “won”: they’re there to help us understand what happened so we can decide whom to vote for.
There were good points from all candidates, all were well prepared, and none screwed up. Yes, there’s a political chess game. But far more important are the policy choices we’re facing. All leaders have plans to improve health care, and they’re vastly different. The leaders mainly focused on presenting and defending their platforms, and that’s far more important than who “won”.
Journalists should be evaluating the platforms critically, not the performances.
Kate 08:01 on 2012/08/20 Permalink
There’s a fair bit of that too – Wells isn’t stupid and his piece doesn’t talk about knockout punches or rubbish like that. But someone has to win the election, so I don’t think it’s entirely irrelevant for people to look for a winner of the debate.
walkerp 09:11 on 2012/08/20 Permalink
That Patriquin piece is just propaganda garbage. He’s not analyzing the debate and concluding who has won, he is telling readers who they are supposed to think won. Of course Maclean’s wants Charest to remain in power.
Overall, I watched about half of the debate and I found it to be fairly impressive in that they were allowed to really argue and go at one another. It was great the Davide got a lot of face time and could bring up the environment, which wasn’t even on the slate. She came off as very credible.
Kate 09:13 on 2012/08/20 Permalink
Some people are saying David probably won Gouin with that debate. It would be nice to see her and Khadir as twin gadflies in the National Assembly.
qatzelok 10:29 on 2012/08/20 Permalink
Walkerp, while I agree that the Maclean’s piece is propaganda garbage by a commercial interest, the author lets one gem slip through: “Of course, that’s Charest’s charm — he’s a master of half-true soundbites.” Maybe Patriquin was forced to write a pro-Emperor piece, but couldn’t resist the urge to sabotage it.
willie granger 10:43 on 2012/08/20 Permalink
The Liberal spin guy on RDI (I missed the debate and only saw last 2 minutes of glitchtastic RDI wrap-up) praised Francoise David, clearly because he wants her to drain votes from the PQ.