On diversions

I suppose the Saskatchewan election campaign was bound to have some late surprise. But I for one wouldn't have expected the Sask Party to take one of the least successful pages out of Paul Martin's playbook, making up new promises at the end of the campaign in an apparent attempt to shift public discussion away from topics which it doesn't want to have to discuss.

Of course, any reporting on Wall's latest diversion has been far more friendly than the media treatment of Martin's Charter pump fake. (Bob Hughes in particular is predictably salivating at being able to recycle his usual daylight savings time tirade in the lead-up to a referendum - though if the Sask Party felt a need to pander to him personally, there may be reason to think its vote in the cities is far softer than we know so far.)

Fortunately, though, it's entirely likely that Saskatchewan's voters are less gullible than the Sask Party seems to think. And if Wall's weak attempt to use a referendum on a small issue in four years to deflect attention from his own refusal to answer questions about who he would appoint to run the province's economy next week receives the attention it deserves, then the swing vote seems all the more likely to end up in the NDP's column.