Revolutionary Moderation

Gaffe scoring opens



Via the sharp-eyed Andrew, Paul Wells has noted from the campaign trail:

(a) the Martin Team's Quebec slogan, "droit devant," or "straight ahead," is identical to a Canada Steamship Lines slogan.



(b) Steve MacKinnon, a senior Team Martin strategist, took it upon himself to telephone a memeber of Le Devoir's senior management and ask that this story not run. "It risks harming our campaign," he said.



Le Devoir, no fools, promptly put MacKinnon's call and his quote right into the story he was trying to kill.

Of course, this isn't a huge error - it's the sort of thing that would only be noticed by CPAC-watching wonks such as ourselves. SIG=1. The decision to use the phrase was probably reasonably senior among the Quebec communications staff, but that's still not a big-time player. PROM=1. Total, One gaffe point to "Team Martin".



Andrew suggests MacKinnon's kill request is a seperate, additional-scoring gaffe. I strongly suspect that the MacKinnon part of the story here is overstated - no "Senior Team Martin Strategist" is going to think any newspaper is going to show his guy a break. I'm going to reserve judgement on this part, and keep an eye on this MacKinnon fellow.



The scoresheet above will be updated at the end of each day, so look for the change then.