Thursday night's second major candidates' debate at Bristol provided a lively one hour and thirty-one minute exchange of the issues as Labour Party Prime Minister Gordon Brown focused verbal guns on Conservative leader David Cameron.
Seeking to look ministerial and adopting a strategy of "I am already working on this" in his role of incumbent, Brown attacked Cameron on the Tory position on health care policy in asserting that the Conservatives plan to make cuts in the National Health Service budget.
This attack was carried forward at a Northhamptonshire rally on Saturday. Meanwhile Cameron and his party responded in the manner that the Tory prime ministerial aspirant had on Thursday in Bristol, calling the charge a "scare tactic" and arguing that it spoke of desperation from a party falling behind.
While Brown on Thursday night revealed himself as someone not exciting and charismatic but experienced, well informed, and capable of confronting Britain's problems, Labour generated a note of excitement at the Saturday rally by having an Elvis impersonator perform, tackling a rendition of "The Wonder of You."
As for Nick Clegg, the question is whether he received a Ross Perot bounce reflective of the third party Independent's candidacy during the 1992 U.S. presidential race.
On that occasion Perot, like Clegg in the current British campaign's first debate, received a solid bounce from his effort. In the manner of Clegg, Perot sharply criticized the two major parties, headed in that race by incumbent President George H.W. Bush, and the ultimate winning candidate, then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, for failing to produce results.
Perot's impressive post-first debate bounce gradually shrank leading up to the election. Labour received some good news as polls in the Sunday British papers showed some slippage for Clegg and his Liberal Democrats, but there was a dose of bad news as well.
The current updated polls reveal that there has been Labour slippage as well and that the beneficiary has been Cameron and the Conservatives.
The Labour strategy heading into next week's final candidates' debate and up to the May 6 national election is clear, sharply train the verbal and campaign ad guns on Cameron and the Tories.
The interesting wild card is Clegg and what strategy the Liberal Democrats will pursue in the important run-up to the election.
So often, as in the case in the U.S. 1992 election, as crunch time draws nearer alternative parties see support dwindle while voters ally themselves to one of the traditional major parties.
As for the Lib Dems, Clegg and other spokespersons will surely argue that the point raised by traditional leading parties of throwing away a vote by supporting third party candidates is no more than a tired scare tactic and that by holding firm and voting for substantial change a new political order can emerge.
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