Pauline: Sarah, Nik,

I have been on the ground in Quebec this weekend, speaking to a broad range of people, from artists to political operators and so-called "ordinary" people.

What I wanted to know was how a smooth Harper machine could have thrown such a gorgeously wrapped present to the Bloc Québécois as the $45-million cut to the arts and the prime minister's subsequent dismissive remarks about culture.

I was speculating that perhaps there was an element of vindictiveness to it — revenge for the arts community's outcry over Bill C-10, with its potential for censorship; sabotage for the Governor General's efforts to leave a legacy of placing the arts at the heart of Canadian life.

Well, apparently, it's somewhat simpler than that. I am told that Dmitri Soudas, the PMO's communications guru, was attending his mother's funeral in Greece when this particular discussion took place. That left the red-meat types in charge — and they thought this would be a great idea.

As you know, it's not playing well in most Quebec ridings. The Conservatives believe they will hold on to all their current Quebec seats, with the support of Mario Dumont's ADQ machine. But their gains are likely to be substantially slowed by the arts cuts and the controversy over sentences for youth crime.

For the first time, Quebec observers are talking about a "made-in-Canada" Conservative majority that owes very little to Quebec. That would be a very interesting scenario that few would have predicted just a few days ago.

Sarah: Pauline, are you saying that had Soudas been in the country these cuts would not have happened? I guess the "red-meat" types thought no one would notice or care.

Sadly in B.C., these cuts haven't attracted much attention. I was lucky to come across this gem of an ad from Quebec. Nothing similar has been broadcast in B.C., at least not to my knowledge.

While the tough-on-crime proposal is apparently a hit with everyone outside of Quebec, what is even more surprising is that no one is expressing the chronicled failure of this approach in the United States.

Pauline: This satirical ad has been the talk of Quebec for the last 10 days. It features Michel Rivard, a famous singer-songwriter who appeared last night on Quebec's wildly popular Sunday night talk show, Tout le monde en parle, along with Stéphane Dion, some famous athletes and a few others.

Sarah, you've put your finger on one of the things that makes Quebec so different from the rest of Canada: a self-referential media environment that is so broad that it still has the power to move public opinion very quickly through "water-cooler talk." That can't happen in the same way in English Canada.

Tout le monde en parle always reaches at least 1.5 million people, and often two million. That's more than Hockey Night in Canada except in the Stanley Cup Finals.

The show features a combination of popular entertainment, hot politics, stars of the literary, sports and science worlds — all mixed up together for two whole hours, and drinking wine on screen by the end. Hard to imagine in Toronto or Vancouver, isn't it?

Nik: I've noticed in the tracking for the last few days that the Tories have also thrown a tentative lifeline to the Liberals. I agree, regarding Harper's culture comments.

However, I would not also underestimate the impact of the comments of Calgary Conservative Lee Richardson regarding immigrants causing crime and also Harper's comments about Dion wanting an economic downturn.

Together, these items stopped the Conservative momentum cold and turned their 15 point margin over the Liberals into a nine- to 10-point margin.

The odd thing is, Harper was responsible for two of these factors (culture comment and economic downturn). It's been quite uncharacteristic for Harper to be off message.

He's given the Dion Liberals some fodder for the debates that are coming up this week. For those debates, I'll be focusing on where the attacks are directed because they will likely inform us of the dynamic for the close of the campaign.

Pauline: In his French-language television appearance last night, Stéphane Dion did very well.

Although he is still deeply disliked by a large portion of Quebec opinion-makers because of his historically confrontational style, Dion was accorded a respectful hearing.

While the consensus seems to be that the Liberal party is dead in Quebec for a long time to come, I am also hearing rumblings about strategic voting to stop the Conservatives in certain ridings.

As you say, Nik, it's a combination of issues (culture and youth sentencing are more important factors in Quebec than the Richardson comments, which didn't get much coverage here).

But here, it's what people feel those signals are telling them about the kind of Canada a majority Conservative government would serve them up.

Opposition campaigners of all parties are raising the spectre of restricting abortion and repealing same-sex marriage as examples of the kind of measures that might be in store under a Conservative majority.

I heard several people refer to Harper as the "new Duplessis" this weekend. In Quebec, social conservatism harking back to "La grande noirceur" is just not on. Nobody wants to go back to the 1950s.

Nik: I also think there might be a risk for the Conservatives to start floating the idea of a majority mandate too early in this campaign because it will re-shift the focus from the Dion Liberals to the Harper Conservatives.

From my experience, whoever the campaign is about has more difficulty.

The narrative for the first part of the election so far has been about Stéphane Dion and the Liberals floundering. A shift to a focus on a Conservative majority would change the dynamic in my opinion.

Sarah: Certainly a focus on a Conservative majority will make many people a little more wary, but with so much vote splitting among the left it might not make a difference to the outcome.

It may be time to start seriously considering a Liberal/ NDP …: Green? coalition. I don't expect it to happen over the next two weeks, but the next four years? Maybe.

What worries me in this election is the focus on leadership and decisiveness, something Harper apparently has and Dion lacks. In my experience, sound decision-making requires some thought and discussion and, in the case of government, input from both experts and the public. The Harper government has decided on many occasions to bypass these steps.

To me it all seems a little disappointing that we aren't moving forward at a time when discussion and conscientious debate are so important, simply because of a perceived personality vacuum.

If politics were honestly about personality, then I can't imagine that Harper would be the go-to guy either. But instead, misunderstanding and to a greater degree, misrepresentation is what seems to be driving the public's response to leadership, and that is too bad.