It’s half-time in the election campaign, and the game so far has been a painful one to watch. As the action came to a temporary halt, the focus had narrowed to the inevitable one of Canadian politics: national unity. Nothing wrong with that. Except that the play is so shoddy, you’d think the high school team got onto the field instead of the pros.

First Paul Martin, in what looks like a desperate pass very early in the game, said that if the Bloc gets more than 50 per cent of the vote in Quebec, it will constitute a referendum on sovereignty. I couldn’t believe it.

What is he going to say if he remains as prime minister after January 23 and if the Bloc actually gets what the polls now give it — 60 per cent! — with even hard-core federalists in Quebec jumping the Liberal ship?

Then we had Stephen Harper coming up with the bizarre notion that Martin actually wants separatists to win in Quebec so he can look good fighting them (the fact that he doesn’t look good fighting them now should knock that one down without further ado).

Underlying all this is a real issue, but so ineptly addressed that it’s like saying there’s coal under Cape Breton and the way to get at it is with kitchen cutlery.

If Martin and Harper were coherent, what Martin would be saying is that he’ll defend the principle of a strong federal government at all costs (a reversal of position — he used to criticize Jean Chrétien for doing just that) and Harper would be going for more flexible federalism (also a reversal of earlier positions).

Assuming we were arguing rationally, the strong central government case would be counterbalanced by the “fiscal imbalance” argument made most strongly by the Quebec government, but by others as well — that is, that Ottawa is racking up surpluses by the tens of billions while the provinces and municipalities are starved of money for public services (and while the federal parties fall all over each other promising to cut taxes).

This is a very good point that, indeed, ought to be properly ventilated, if we could only keep from hyperventilating.

And Harper’s newfound flexible federalism, in which he would limit Ottawa’s big spending and let Quebec participate at international conferences as an equal, would raise questions as to how far all this is going to go — especially if to survive as a minority government, he had to deal with the separatist Bloc Québécois.

And speaking of the Bloc, it rounds out the whole peculiarly superficial business. Leader Gilles (“meet me on any street corner”) Duceppe has been in the news recently because one of his grandfathers was British-born, as if to underscore his vision of a multi-ethnic independent Quebec. He even expects an independent Quebec to be part of the British Commonwealth, and the remains of Canada to be part of La Francophonie.

Jeez, how can you be against a guy like that?

In fact, to compound the oddity, Bloc support groups have been sprouting up here and there in the rest of Canada — St. John’s, Fredericton, Edmonton — made up of real Anglos, not expatriate Quebecers.

So, voilà, another political science study to be done: how not having any political responsibility can make a political leader truly popular.

Then, in counterpoint, we have the sad but illuminating story of Jack Layton and the NDP. Layton has been sticking doggedly to the nuts and bolts of the issues, trying to give some uplift to our grim politics, being a gentleman, and avoiding Martin/Harper-type overkill.

His reward is that he’s got the highest approval rating of the three national leaders, at 61 per cent as of a poll last week, with Martin and Harper below 50 per cent.

The bad news is that, for him, being well regarded doesn’t translate into voting intentions. The NDP’s poll numbers don’t rise. Southern Ontario, in particular, flirts with the NDP and scurries back to the Liberals at the slightest breeze.

So maybe that’s part of the problem — it’s us, without the courage to follow through and actually vote for the one deemed to be doing the best job.

But, as I say, it’s only half over. Maybe we’ve just suspended belief on the whole spectacle. Things will surely improve in the new year — calm and mature debate, clear visions for the road ahead, an uplifting sense of purpose that will impress the world.

Perhaps that will be our belated Christmas gift, do you think?