Saturday, April 30, 2011

Layton Power: How leadership mattered in the Canadian politics

The rise of NDP is a testament to the star power of Jack Layton, the NDP’s charismatic leader. Where Stephen Harper of Conservatives and Michael Ignatieff of Liberals lagged, Jack Layton lead with style. The issue-less campaign has been galvanized by Mr. Layton and it is paying off handsomely for him. 

This perhaps has been the best April of Mr. Layton’s life who surpassed the prime minister in popularity by mid April (see the graph below). An analysis of the web searches conducted using Google from computers located within Canada suggest that Mr. Layton bypassed his competition as of April 13, a day after his stellar performance in the televised debate in English language with the three other party leaders.

While many political pundits did not find the leaders’ debate as a game changer, the graph below suggests otherwise. Mr. Layton did change the game in his two-hour performance on the television. Since April 21, he has been in a comfortable lead over others.

If there were an Emmy for televised political performance, Jack Layton would have won it hands (and one hip) down.

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