[dinosaur]

Overall it was "meh" which is what I expected. I am always hoping for more, but in reality it was the same stuff all the candidates have been talking about for the last few weeks.

There were a couple good jabs and things that made us laugh out loud but, unfortunately, nobody capitalized on each others' bullshit which was annoying.

Green= out to lunch. no real platform....brought a couple okay points up about the pipeline and Clark's stance on it however, there was no new developments with Clark's 5 point thing she kept reverting to. Talked a lot about wind energy and how BC Hydro is shutting down all these proposed developments that will stick a dent in hydro's profits. Referred to some Thunder Mountain development that I don't know anything about so I can't really add much on the relevance of this proposal that was shut down. Other than that it was like watching your crazy aunt ramble about her cat collection for 90 mins.

Conservatives= took some good jabs at Clark but is appears that he wants to win at all costs. He talked non-stop about the carbon tax and how he will eliminate it however, he did not go into how his gov't would work to pay off the deficit. He just kept repeating that they are fiscally conservative....fiscally conservative....fiscally conservative but failed to go any further. Basically he was just repeating three things: Clark sucks, fiscally conservative, and he will eliminate the carbon tax. His 4 fired candidates were brought up and he addressed it pretty damn good. Basically said they done wrong and he doesn't have the patience to deal with bullshit....then called Clark out on keep one of her dudes who has been busted drinking and driving. I respect that he doesn't have time to deal with shit candidates and made the quick decision and I'd fail Clark on not really addressing the faults within her party.

Libs= Nothing new. When pushed about the pipelines she just repeated the 5 conditions she wanted and then when asked if she would "sell BC for the right dollar amount" basically said "yes". Talked NON-STOP about families...families first....families living here....families working....families having dinner...blah blah blah. The red light situation was brought up on the second question and she hugely back peddled on her aloofness yesterday and addressed it as you expect any politician to but then switched gears half-way through to talk about families first so it was a little disingenuous. On every question is was pivot pivot pivot pivot....basically political bullshit. These Punjabi, Cantonese, and Mandarin Clark is running are pretty fucking slimy and that was talked about. Overall, I think this $1200 child fund\RRESP thing is total bullshit and the way she is going about using it as a political challenge to Dix is dick move. Her "balanced" budget was called out several times and she denied that its bullshit which was annoying because it clearly is.

NDP= not the best speaker and was pretty shaky when he started off. didn't have a lot more to say that what his platform is...which was released last week so it was kind of old news. consistently pointed out how the NDP were not running attack ads and whenever Clark took a jab at him he would revert back to this. He was pushed a bit on how he would pay for his spending: raise taxes for those over $150k and apply the carbon tax to the natural gas industry (who are currently exempt). Yes, he is spending a lot of money and fully admits he will be running a deficit with no plans to get out. Pretty much what you expect from the NDP. This $1200 child thing is a hot debate between him and Clark (which I pointed out above) but other than that, there was not a lot of argument between the two that was note-worthy. Oh, he was the only candidate that is in favor of decriminalizing marijuana....or at least, he is the only one who gave a straight answer.

Overall, the mood was Dix will win and Clark is pushing to be the opposition. They seem pretty set with that, but Cummings is not giving in at all....dude wants your votes and short of offering money he seems like he would do anything to get it. Sterk knows she has no chance to the point where her party isn't even investing time or money in developing a platform. She basically said, "I dunno...we need to look at the books after we win and ask BC how they want us to send money". It was pretty sad.

So yeah....I've rambled enough. Didn't sway my vote at all, but was alright to watch.