Electricity, gas pipelines, ships, tankers and watts…..this is all we got ever since the beginning of the electoral campaign last week.
Frankly, I don’t think that there’s any true floater out there who can make head or tails of the PL proposal and the PN’s objections to it.
I don’t think that anyone in their right mind feels competent enough to be able to hand on heart decide whether the plan is feasible or not, whether it’s possible or not, and whether Joseph Muscat will lose his head on it or not.
Those who have already made up their mind are not true floaters, they are those who would have voted blue or red no matter what the proposal consisted of.
Floaters on the other hand, are none the wiser, as it is not possible to base our decision on this complex issue.
But what else is there?
From where I stand there’s nothing concrete enough to go on yet. I’ve looked for both parties’ manifestos and only found that of the PN – a list of vague beliefs and values with ample room for interpretation and manipulation.
The PL, on the other hand, decided to go for the drip-drip method, revealing one or two proposals a day. Now I don’t know about you, but since I’ve got a life, a job and a family to keep up with, I can’t keep track of all the things they say and promise during their various events.
From a campaign management (read money squandering) point of view I can’t see any winners or losers yet.
It seems to me that both parties are floundering in the basics:
The PN’s billboards and logo are a disgrace - not only are they copied, they’re copied badly. The logo is clearly a rip off from MNBC and the billboard is a replica of the Obama and Biden campaign, except that Obama and Biden were not floating in mid air, they were anchored to the bottom, a big difference when it comes to visual impact because apart from giving the impression that Gonzi and Busutill are floating in the clouds, the hovering effect is reminiscent of funeral pictures.
The PL’s billboards and slogan are incongruous – “Malta Taghna lkoll” is pretty much stating the obvious, especially when it is accompanied by traditional, ‘normal’ looking people, the most unlikely to have felt marginalised by this Government. It would have made a tad more sense had they featured a same sex couple, people with disabilities, people behind bars, or (shock horror) immigrants, because it is this type of social injustice that needs to be highlighted and it’s these people who have felt that they’ve been left out.
Both parties are very active online, but for the time being the PN seems more consistent and professional in their approach. Having said that, the supposedly personalized email shots that are coming from different members of the party on a daily basis, need to slow down big time. In addition, the style of the text gives away the fact that they’ve all been written by the same person, calling me by my first name is unacceptable, and receiving an email from someone who at that same moment is addressing a live press conference is a tad patronizing.