Revolutionary Moderation

We do requests - the sequel



First up - Don at All Things Canadian asks:

Can you put up a couple of examples - say if these things were done during

the election campaign:



- Martin's Norway/Normandy switch

- Jack's math error on budget day

- how many points would Stock Day's Niagara direction gaffe have garnered

Let's have a go, shall I? Martin's (leader, therefore PROM=3) "Norway" thing, because it was repeated and more than a slip of the tongue, showed a pretty serious knowledge gap about Canada's and the world's history. Most Canadians knew he was incorrect without checking any maps or interwebs. On that basis, I'd have to measure the gaffe moderate (SIG=2). 3PROM * 2SIG = Six gaffe points (GP) for the Prime Minister.



Jack's "error" was a result of the sort of shaky math that I've seen both the left and the right rely on. You can see lots of the same sort of over-the-top assumptions to produce crazy numbers supporting claims unburdened by facts on the Fraser Institute's website, too. In that sense, I don't think this is a gaffe at all. I think the producer of the $222B debt repayment number knew exactly what the assumptions of the calculation were, and knew it was wrong but defensible. The NDP was speaking to its base with this number, something they've done a lot of lately. In short, I think the release was a bad calculation, bad economics, and bad politics - but I don't think it was a "gaffe", per se.



Stock Day (leader at the time, and therefore PROM=3) didn't know offhand which way the Niagara river flowed. If he were a Jeopardy contestant at the time, that might have mattered. However, the press used it as a stick to beat him up with, because the story they were running that entire campaign was "Stock Day is a mental lightweight." I don't think it was an entirely fair story - I hated his politics, but he wasn't stupid, and still isn't. This one is the toughest example you've asked me about, Don, but I'm going to have to go with SIG=1, no matter what storytelling the media was trying to do. But perhaps if we were back in that moment, it would look as huge as the media wanted it to look, and I'd be scoring it two. There's going to be some judgement calls here, and since no one has volunteered to be verifier, I guess you're all just going to have to take my word for it - or argue the heck out of each event in the comments. At any rate, Day's trip down the falls: 3PROM * 1SIG = three GP for the Canadian Alliance. Oh, how I miss them.



I want to give one spare example, because it's the Gaffe triple play: Jaques Parizeau blames money and the ethnic vote for losing the referendum in 1995. Leader (PROM=3), Stupid beyond belief and pretty racist, too (am I the only one who reads that sentence with the word "money" standing in for what I think he really meant: "Jews"?) (SIG=3), and throw in the Parizeau multiplier (within the twenty-four hours after the last vote was cast, so PRZ=2). 3PROM * 3SIG * 2PRZ = eighteen gaffe points for the little british-sounding fellow.



I could go on. In all of our examples, we're dealing with leader gaffes, because those are the most memorable. Campbell's "the election is no time to discuss issues" (or words to that effect) was probably a nine - 3*3. In the same way that Layton's numbers were factually questionable but not a "gaffe", Pettigrew's comments about private health providers being part of the system were factually correct but a SIG of two (perhaps three, but that doesn't really save any room for the huge ones, does it?). Give Pettigrew a PROM of 2, and the score added to the Liberal Party is four. I hope this clears it up for you, Don.



Request number two - my chess friend Walter is, I think, asking for a plug for chesstalk. Now if only I could find that URL again.....