Keeping Martin in the dark
From Hebert's column:
UPDATE: Martin was asked about this by a reporter today and his response was that he does read the newspaper - that he sometimes doesn't agree with the stories - that he didn't read the newspaper yesterday because he was busy. I'm serious. That was his answer.Since last week, Martin is being spared the daily onslaught of negative news and numbers, the better to focus on what has become a life-or-death campaign.
Thus, the Liberal leader is presumably unaware that his post-debate counteroffensive has so far been a bust. He is not kept abreast of the editorial support that is starting to come Harper's way. He may not know that his message is as routinely derailed by Liberal gaffes as Conservative leader Harper's was in the last campaign.
But Martin cannot ignore the new tack of the media queries. Since the debates, he is being asked daily whether he would resign rather than serve as leader of the opposition and whether he regrets that he waited so long to engage in the campaign.
Martin also knows he is spending a lot of time in Liberal strongholds, places no Liberal leader has had to go to shore up support in the dying days of a campaign in the recent past.
He is well aware that no Liberal plan ever envisaged the notion that he would spend the last stretch of the campaign in Quebec fighting Harper rather than the Bloc Québécois.
