One of my least favourite political gimmicks is what I call the "word count". Most parties do it. Staffers search for how many times certain words — such as "health care" or "aboriginal" pop up in a speech, platform or budget. Political spinners often use the results as evidence that someone or some party doesn't care enough about a particular issue.

Word Count surfaced tonight in North Bay, Ontario, where Stéphane Dion rallied with a boisterous crowd of supporters. Party workers circulated a handout called "Platform Priorities???"

It features two columns that tally up how many times words are mentioned. For instance, "poverty" comes up 24 times in the Liberal platform and 0 times in the Conservative plan; "women" appears 34 times for the Liberals and once for the Conservatives, and so on.

The only number on this sheet where the Conservative number exceeds that of the Liberals is when it comes to the leader. In the Liberal platform, Stéphane Dion is mentioned six times. Stephen Harper's name shows up 100 times in his plan.

What does this all boil down to? Well, it makes for poor science. But it did afford Dion the opportunity to crack a joke tonight. He said with so many pictures and so much Harper name dropping, the Conservative leader's plan is all about "me, myself and I."

— Allison Crawford