Do you know the political significance of age 35, the number 801 and the margin of error in an 800-sample poll?
Do you know how the latest labour survey can be read to count 9,400 new jobs or 10,800 lost jobs at the same time?
Do you know what weathervaning is?
If you are familiar with these terms, go to your nearest mental-health clinic right now. Tell them you got caught in the election vortex and you need help. They have trained personnel who can guide you back to leading a productive life.
People who've been following the 2013 campaign got everything they needed in the first two weeks. The parties got their platforms out early and voters got a clear idea of the differences. Then the major parties ran out of gas. The last half has been dominated by inane, marginal trivia.
It's the voters themselves who've been making the news over the home stretch, with an unmistakable shift. Nothing much has happened since the TV debate to prompt that move. It looks like they digested the platforms, contemplated the debate and then gradually made up their minds. And a significant number have decided to give the Liberals another look.
The leaders are mostly just reiterating points that they've made countless times before. And the rest of the campaigns, particularly the social-media warriors, are locked in absurd arguments about issues that only they care about.
Example: During the TV debate, NDP leader Adrian Dix mentioned in passing his age -- 35 -- at the time of the faked memo 14 years ago. Liberals lifted that clip -- despite an agreement not to use debate footage -- and built a YouTube video around it.
The NDP complained about breaking the rules and the Liberals responded with a release about "The video Adrian Dix doesn't want you to see."
On the life list of things you don't really need to worry about, this is way up high.
Even higher is the "delicious twist of irony" the Liberals noted earlier this week. The NDP is proposing a new tax on banks and credit unions. Yet Dix held a Kamloops rally at -- gasp! -- the Interior Savings Centre arena. Liberals desperate for ammunition churned out a news release portraying that as an issue.
Yawn.
Earlier, the NDP attacked Liberal environment minister Terry Lake. He said at one point that Kinder Morgan originally wanted to increase pipeline capacity by 150 per cent, then added an extra 18 per cent, for a 168 per cent increase.
But the NDP said the original proposal was for a 152 per cent increase, and the revision increases capacity by almost 200 per cent.
So there.
"They'll say anything to get elected including wrong pipeline math," says an indignant NDP release.
It's a sad state of affairs when a province with a rich, colourful political history is reduced to watching an argument about the hypothetical increased capacity of a hypothetical pipeline expansion.
Both camps used up all their heavy artillery in the first two weeks. Then they had to rely on small-arms fire for the last half.
The NDP dragged the HST -- that old thing -- through the streets yet again. And the Liberals returned to their obsessive interest in the NDP government of the 1990s.
It's remarkable to see voters quietly taking the agenda away from the campaigns. Repeated polls show significant numbers have backed off the overwhelming NDP support of the past two years and are returning to the Liberals in strength large enough to make Tuesday night interesting.
Just So You Know: A column this week about a freedom of information request to do with marijuana policy said part of the information was redacted because it could have harmed law enforcement. It was actually redacted under a different section, related to legal advice and solicitor-client privilege. My apologies.
