At the finish: Brass knuckles
Dan Leger | CBC Online News | Aug. 3

My, how things have changed. With the vote now little more than a day away, the campaign is taking on a different complexion. And it's not a pleasant one. Everything is on the line. There's no time for any party to tweak the strategy – that passed long ago. Now, with the last of the undecided voters making up their minds in the campaign's final hours, the level of anxiety and subterfuge has been ratcheted up. The parties feel they are virtually tied and so this is no time for half measures.

Go back for a second to the campaign's genial opening. There was almost a holiday atmosphere in the earliest days. This beautiful province was lush in its summer finery and no big crisis was clouding our days, so why not? The contenders set off, Tory Leader John Hamm and Liberal rival Danny Graham swaying away in their boxy RVs and Darrell Dexter of the NDP motoring off in a proletarian minivan. Aside from the usual nitpicking with each other's policies and tub-thumping for their own, the parties played by the rules. Their jabs hit the gloves, mostly, and no blood was spilled.

Even the televised leaders' debate was gentle and restrained, in keeping with the campaign's general aura.

But late last week, the campaign underwent a tonal change. By then it had become clear that voters were about to deliver a split decision and no single issue was dominant. A few percentage points could make the difference between government, opposition or third party status. Suddenly, the accusations started.

The Liberals complained that somebody was conducting "an American-style push poll" against their leader in Halifax Citadel. Push polling is a bare-knuckle campaign tactic pioneered in American politics in which call centres phone targeted voters in close districts. They're looking for swing voters and when they get them on the phone, they badger them with loaded questions. Grits complained that it was propaganda attacking Danny Graham. They muttered darkly about dirty tricks and underhanded Tory tactics.

Trouble was, the Liberals could only produce one witness to the foul deed and he was a card-carrying party activist. The Tories denied having anything to do with such shenanigans, feigning deep offence at the mere suggestion.

Then there was the behind-the-scenes fuss over poll leaks. All three parties tried hard to get inside information before the CBC and ATV polls were released in the campaign's final days. News organizations were on guard after someone in the Liberal or the NDP camp leaked the main results of the first CBC-Herald poll to the Daily News. Both those parties accused each other of the faux pas, while hotly denying any involvement of their own.

Next came the Liberal attack ads, released late in the campaign's final full week. Danny Graham's criticisms of the NDP became harsher and more directed. The NDP had been bought out by the Tories, suggested the ads, which portrayed Darrell Dexter in an unflattering light. This time, the NDP's spinners cried foul to their contacts in the media while Dexter himself donned a mask of wounded nobility. This kind of regrettable excess happens sometimes in politics, he said, but it wouldn't bother him.

By the weekend, it was getting personal. Friends of Kings South Liberal candidate Maura Ryan claimed that her NDP rival, David Mangle, had made sexist remarks about her. This is a very serious allegation against a political candidate in 2003, especially in a province where women are sorely under-represented in all three parties. Mangle denied it, but it was too late. The allegation was front-page news in the Herald on Sunday.

There's a lesson in all of this and it's too simple to say that things got dirty because politics is blood sport. We can't talk about polls any more because the election is almost here, but it's safe to say that the parties believe they are locked in a virtual tie. The tightness of the race means that every last vote is going to matter to someone on election day. It's not a cliché. For many candidates, a few votes will make the difference between a seat in the legislature and the obscurity of third place.

For the parties, that crucial last-minute edge will define the future for years to come. Victory means power, the perquisites of office and life in the limelight. Defeat threatens the job security of leaders and puts party faithful on the sidelines indefinitely. Every vote counts now. That's why the sleepy summer campaign went from clean to mean.

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