Memo to Ignatieff

To: Michael Ignatieff

From: Agitated Voter

Re: How to Win
---------------------------------------

I don't like you. There, I've said it. You are charismatically challenged; you have an inauthentic demeanour; and I'll never forget your stance on the Iraq war. I suspect that millions of other Canadians feel pretty much the same way about you.

But I plan to vote for you. I want your party to win. I want you to beat Harper. However much I don't like you, I despise Stephen Harper and his Tories.

I worry that you're going to be a Canadian John Kerry. I worry that you're going to allow yourself to be swift-boated because of some misguided effort to occupy the high road. In your recent profile published in the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik claims that you're transformed. But if anything, Gopnik's profile shows how little you've changed. You say that you now realize that politics is about theatre (as if journalism and academia somehow are not!), but it's only party theatre: the other part is warfare.

Your summer slumber hurt you. Like millions of other Canadians, I don't care why you allowed yourself to miss an opportunity to attack Harper, but you did. I'm sure there is some complicated PowerPoint presentation somewhere that says that doing nothing for months was the right move. At this point, it doesn't matter.

At this point, you need to attack. Attack, and then attack again. You are not Barack Obama, no matter what your advisors and Annex scuppie friends tell you. You are never going to generate mass popular appeal. The public is never going to love you. On a charisma scale between Dion and Trudeau, you're somewhere in the middle. You need to recognize this for what it is: a tactical advantage over Stephen Harper, who Canadians really do not like. But they know Harper, and the jerk you know can sometimes become the jerk you live with.

So you need to know your limitations. Don't make your campaign autobiographical. Don't make the rhetoric too ambitious. You need to emphasize change. Change is what Canadians desperately want. Not change we can believe in, but change we can tolerate. Most voters want moderate change. They will vote for centrist change. Your slogan should be "Change you can vote for." You are lucky in one instance: Harper has given you a target rich environment. You will be on firm ground when you hammer away at his unpopular positions on wedge issues such as regional development, CBC and the arts, university granting agencies, science funding, or the environment. In harder areas such as the economy, you need to tread very carefully.

You will be on shaky ground if you try to attack Harper's position on Afghanistan or the deficit. In the case of the former, the Liberals are too complicit in the war to have much credibility, and you in particular will have no credibility because of your mistake over Iraq. Just say bland, centrist things, sound worried, and let the news stories do the work for you. Your strategists and professional pollsters may tell you otherwise, but real voters will tell you that this election will not be won or lost on foreign policy. Foreign policy will be, at most, a significant election issue; more likely, it will fade to minor status once the campaign starts.

In the case of the deficit, the public is not as stupid as you might think: they realize that some deficit financing was necessary as the recession took hold and they will tolerate it until the US recovers; the fact that Canada is doing better than most other countries means that Harper's economic record is not his achilles heel. This is one area where you can rely on what's left of the Liberal brand: you need to keep repeating the mantra that the Liberals will be a centrist, smart, moderate government that will manage the economy prudently.

You can bank on one thing: the Tory attack machine will stop at nothing. They will throw just about anything at you in the hope that something will stick. Because of this, you can afford to go negative, too. In fact, if you don't attack Harper, you will be seen as the type of weak, latte-drinking elitist that the Tories want to paint you as. When someone like Tim Powers attacks you for being an arrogant elitist, your staff needs point out the hilarious irony of Powers calling someone else arrogant or elitist.

Powers was not the first to play the arrogance card and he certainly won't be the last. It's something you will have to learn how to deal with, and sooner or later, your campaign will have to devise an effective counter-punch. The most depressing line in Gopnik's profile came after he summarized the smallness of the English Canadian elite. (Such a summary is necessary for Americans; Canadians know full well how small their cultural establishment really is. Only in Canada could John Ralston Saul, a prince of the establishment, safely rail against elitists). After explaining the peculiar form of Canadian elitism, Gopnik observes, "This smallness means that highbrow reputation and political plausibility can be twinned: a brilliant man [sic] from a well-known family who gives a good lecture and gets the notice of a few big people can become a party leader more of less overnight." Gopnik is more right than he realizes: it can indeed be surprisingly easy to become a party leader. Becoming Prime Minister is an entirely different story. It's been more than a generation since Trudeau left politics: over the past quarter century, the only two successful Prime Ministers were Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien, neither of whom fits Gopnik's template.

Don't make your campaign all about you. I know that you like autobiography. It's clear that you love talking about yourself, your family, your past. But you need to realize that it's not all about you. In fact, if your campaign makes it all about you, the Liberals will lose. One of the many weaknesses of Stephen Harper is that he has a weak cabinet by design. He doesn't want strong ministers. You need to demonstrate that you are a team player who will have a strong cabinet filled with people who do not believe in creationism. (You would do well to spend more time speaking with Chrétien and less time chatting up writers for American magazines).

Keep in mind that this election will be about retail politics. It will be about agitated voters frustrated with the status quo; voters who tell pollsters that they support Harper, even though they don't like him; voters who don't trust Layton and the NDP; voters who worry about the Bloc. These voters liked Harper's Australian-style, retail-politics tax cuts; but they are no Barry Goldwaters. They represent the big, fat, mushy middle, filled with people like myself who want to be persuaded that there is a genuine alternative to Harper.

You need to focus on local operations, volunteer organization, constituency offices, and getting the Liberal vote out. Many people forget that Obama's success was due far more to his campaign discipline, organizational prowess, and local networking than his masterful rhetoric or debating skills. Many people also forget that while Obama himself eschewed nasty attacks on Hilary Clinton and then John McCain, his supporters and surrogates never hesitated to exploit their opponents' weaknesses.

You need to stop talking like a cosmopolitan. Talking about Isaiah Berlin in interviews is fine as it goes, but often the reader gets the scary impression that you genuinely believe that this election will be an existential struggle between variants of liberalism, between the forces of individualism and the imperatives of collective rights. If you pander too much to Quebec nationalism, you will lose, no matter how intellectually complicated your rationalization may be.

Please keep in mind the fate of the ill-fated Decembrist coalition. Please keep in mind that more than anything else, your smart avoidance of the Decembrists was what got you the leadership in the first place. Do not forget how the Tories pounced on the so-called pact with the separatists. Do not think that you can somehow semantically skate around separatism. "So-called" doesn't matter in elections.

Stop talking about the Balkan civil war as if it was your war. You need to stop using it as an intellectual touchstone. If you tell Canadian voters that your position on nationalism was forged by Blood and Belonging, you will lose. If you tell Canadian voters that, as a result of the Yugoslavian tragedy, "I got out of my system a certain kind of cosmopolitism that's highly individualistic," you will lose. Talking like that is precisely what cosmopolitans do. Talking about your self-reinvention, your personal transformations, or how you've decided to try on a new brand of cosmopolitanism will not get you elected.

Keep in mind that you are not, and will never be, Trudeau. Keep in mind that he had more charisma in his left arm than you have in your entire body. Keep in mind that he was smart enough to know how to talk smart. Keep in mind that whatever else, he projected authenticity -- you knew who he was, even if you didn't like him -- and, because of that, he gained respect. Keep in mind that Trudeaumania was never as deep or as wide as Liberals make it out to be. Keep in mind past Liberal minority governments, past defeats, past missteps. Keep in mind that unlike Trudeau, you face an opponent who is as smart as you. Keep in mind that unlike Trudeau, you face a Tory attack machine that makes Tim Powers look positively refined.

I want to vote for you. I really do. And millions of other Canadians want to, too. They want the noise and uncertainty of minority government to go away. They want to push the spectacle of last year out of their collective memory, and they want to pretend that the whole prorogation soap opera never happened. You can help them do that. You may have supported the Iraq war, but you never became a fully committed Decembrist. Your relatively clean slate is one of your best friends in the next election. The other is Stephen Harper.

Keep in mind that however low you stoop, he will stoop lower. This does not mean that you should not jump into the mosh pit of political mud-slinging. Far from it. It means that because of their nastiness, you can afford to attack. It means that you are in the fortunate position of facing a nasty politician who has tried repeatedly, and failed repeatedly, to get Canadians to give him a majority. You may not have a lot of personal charisma, but he has far less.

You need to pass the elevator test, i.e., the leader with whom the voters, if given the choice, would prefer to ride the elevator. Voters like to talk more about how politicians are jerks than about the legacy of Isaiah Berlin. And while they tell pollsters that they don't like negative campaigns, the truth is that politicians use attack ads because they work. Remember what Machiavelli said about fear and love.

Trust me on this. Just because voters place such a high premium on perceptions of strength and authenticity does not mean that they are stupid (nor does it mean that all ordinary Canadians drink double-doubles, by the way), but it does mean that they can spot a phony or a bully a mile away. You're facing a bully in the next election; for the sake of the electorate, please leave the role of the phony to Jack Layton.

Good luck. And stop giving interviews to the New Yorker.

Narcissism Index

Narcissism is everywhere these days, it seems. It seems to be all the rage in pop psychology, as commentators look for something to blame for the mess we're in:
http://www.slate.com/id/2213740

For those not inclined toward psychology, there is an omnipresent cultural disease out there as well: "Mad at the bankers? Don't be. They are us," proclaims Konrad Yakabuski:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090321.wcoessay21/BNStory/specialComment/home

So I was thinking that if narcissism is so popular, then this must explain Harper's web site.

If they are us, and he wants to appear just like us, then appearing narcissistic should get him a landslide -- right?

According to his web site, he's doing well:
http://pm.gc.ca/eng/default.asp

Not one, not four, but eight photos of the unphotogenic PM on his homepage. He's got one with the cat, another on the phone, and another with the hard-hats.

And, knowing that you just can't get enough, one of the photos links to a video, while the other links to a photo album. On the photo album page, you'll find fifteen more photos, which (you guessed it) link to more photos, which link to more photos. You get the picture.

When Smart People Do Even Stupider Things

Just when you think Harper has reached his stupidity nadir, he reaches again. I've already chronicled some of his attempts to be the stupidest PM in Canadian history:
http://orwellianspin.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-smart-people-do-stupid-things.html

But his quest for political stupidity seems to reaching Feithian levels. Perhaps he's looking for the type of legacy that only a Tommy Franks diatribe can inspire:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Feith

Either that, or the Pepsi has finally rotted out his cranium. Whatever the cause, today's Globe offers a fascinating account of how far Harper will go to in his quest to prove he's an epically moronic tactician:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090319.wharpereconomy19/BNStory/politics/home

Instead of letting the Dodge story drift away into that good media night, Harper apparently could not keep himself from raging against the dying of the news cycle.

So what did he decide to do?
1) Start a pissing match with former Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge.

2) Box himself into a corner by insisting that Canada is in fine economic shape.

3) Bet against an unprecented global meltdown.

Let's start with number 1. No doubt that the federal Tories were mad a Dodge for his earlier comments. So what? Suck it up and move on. The last thing you do is feed the media another news cycle. The fact that Dodge didn't predict the recession is neither here nor there. He's not exactly the type of person you want to be seen attacking. You're not going to be able to start a witch hunt against a former Bank of Canada Governor. Stupid, but not fatally stupid.

Now for number 2. The Globe notes that Harper has backed away from his reckless claim that Canada will lead the G-pack out of the recession. But he has still left his political behind twisting in the political wind, and pointing out that economic forecasts are "all over the map" will hurt rather than help him down the road. Canadians remember that this is the same economic genius who responded to the beginning of the meltdown last fall by saying that it presented great buying opportunities. Harper's one claim to fame was that he understood economics; once that claim is burnt, he has nothing to fall back on except the ineptness of the Liberals, who will surely get their act together before the economy recovers.

Harper seems to believe (perhaps sincerely) that the health of the major banks will act as a type of galactic force field that will protect the Starship Canada from the evil subprime borg. He is, of course, completely deluded. Since its genesis in the financial sector, the meltdown virus has mutated into a global tsunami that has cut a path of destruction straight across national economies, from consumer demand to export markets. Canada is, among the G-7, unusually dependent upon commodities and export markets, and our manufacturing base is heavily dependent on the auto industry. The destruction of demand for everything from softwood lumber to lobster (not to mention base metals and oil) will severely undermine Canada's capacity to bounce back as quickly as more diversified economies. A smart politician would have realized his mistake and kept quiet.

As for number 3, who in their right mind would bet against this tsunami? In terms of a costs/benefits analysis, this one is a no-brainer: whatever benefit you might possibly get from being Mr. Economic Optimist is far outweighed by the risk of getting it wrong.

If things get worse before they get better (as they likely will) today's Globe may have written Harper's political epitaph: "Mr. Harper stood by his relatively confident take on the Canadian economy yesterday despite Mr. Dodge's forecast in The Globe and Mail that Canada and the world are facing a long and deep recession that will alter the nature of capitalism."

Iggy must be pinching himself.



Recession Update:
Yup, we're doing just fine...
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090324.wemployment0324/BNStory/Business/home

The National Pap

As far-fetched as it seems, the National Post seems to lauching some sort of wingnut jihad against the Globe for reporting Goodyear's moronic statements. It sounds an awful lot like parody, but the commentaries are evidently serious attempts to say really, really stupid things.

1) Here is Don Martin: "The clash between religious creationism and political correctness flared briefly in the headlines again this week." Political correctness? Really?

You know the wingnuts are out of ammunition when they have to toss out that tired canard. This whole thing truly is a throw-back to the 80's. Martin accuses the Globe of launching a smear campaign, while he himself smears those who are genuinely concerned about Goodyear's commitment to science. Not only is his column singularly lazy and poorly reasoned, but he shows that he has just an amazing sense of humour:
"Perhaps Mr. Manning has the right idea. Mr. Harper should call all the whitecoats together and put them in a room until their 180 IQs devise a worthy scientific stimulus experiment for the sector’s $5-billion boost in government spending.
If nothing else, they always could salute Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday by declaring as one voice that dinosaurs were indeed wiped out 65 million years before the age of homo sapiens. Except Barney, of course."

Yeah, Don, you're absolutely hilarious:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/03/17/don-martin-the-goodyear-brouhaha-evolves-into-oblivion.aspx


2) Not to be outdone, Martin's colleague Jonathan Kay was positively apoplectic, calling the Globe story a "FRONT PAGE SMEAR ON RELIGION!" Kay attempts the amazing feat of conflating personal religious faith with the public views of the Minister of Science about science.

Like Martin, he is left without a relevant argument to pursue, so he decided to bring out the big rhetorical guns to blast the whole issue into submission. Whereas Martin ended with Barney, Kay goes for the full Monty:
"There is a broader issues at play here. So permit me to leave the fishbowl of Canadian politics for a moment. Seventeen years ago, in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a plurality of U.S. Supreme Court Justices wrote these soaring words: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State."

Quite the rhetorical flourish, with an appropriate American touch. Too bad it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Globe story that got him so sweaty in the first place:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/03/17/jonathan-kay-on-the-globe-amp-mail-s-appalling-front-page-smear-on-religious-christians.aspx

With friends like these at the National Post, Harpoid won't need enemies. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that they're on the Liberal payroll. Keeping the Goodyear story alive for another news cycle -- now that's tactical brilliance.

He Blinded Me With Science

I didn't have the Reformeisters pegged as 80's music fans, but they're sounding an awful lot like one of those hit radio stations that pander to Generation X. Expanding the Tories' reach among forty-somethings must be Harpoid's latest brilliant strategy.

As their performance over the past couple of days demonstrates, the Reformeisters' repetoire spans the best from the decade that brought us the mullet.

Exhibit A
Here's Preston Manning in today's Globe:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090316.wcoscience17/BNStory/specialComment/home

I know, it's a sordid piece of drivel -- even skimming it could harm your brain. So here's one of the best bits from his Hooray for Sciency mission:

A good starting point would be to organize, within the next six weeks, a one-day, high-profile gathering in Ottawa of the country's top science practitioners, administrators, entrepreneurs, investors and communicators. The purpose would be to showcase what they and their peers can contribute to all of the above, especially economic recovery.
This event would be organized by a professional event-planning company, not an agency or company with a vested interest in federal science spending or policy.
Attendees would spend at least half their time in as many meetings as could be arranged with MPs, senators, senior civil servants and media representatives to convey a single, positive, amply illustrated message: Canada's science and technology community stands ready and willing to do its part to assist in coping with the recession if given the direction, opportunity and resources to do so.

Yay! Scienticians can now grab their rightful place alongside the professional scientists in elitist universities. Now what would that gathering look like? Well, Manning is clearly channeling Thomas Dolby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlHgbOWj4o

All you have to do is make Manning's voice an octave lower, and he's a dead ringer for the old dude on the video who exclaims, "Science!!"


Exhibit B
Here's Gary Goodyear in today's Globe:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090317.wgoodyear16/BNStory/National/home

I'm sure he's at a loss to explain why his evolutionary skepticism is creating such a fuss. Like Manning, he's twitching with excitement about all the sciency learning that will enable us to learn truthy things:
“I do believe that just because you can't see it under a microscope doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It could mean we don't have a powerful enough microscope yet. So I'm not fussy on this business that we already know everything. … I think we need to recognize that we don't know.” Asked to clarify if he was talking about the role of a creator, Mr. Goodyear said that the interview was getting off topic."

But his rhetoric soars even higher than Manning's high-pitched call to arms. For Goodyear, the fate of the free world depends on our scienticians:
“Now I have got a portfolio that I am absolutely passionate about and frankly connected to,” he said, adding that his days of experimenting with engines in high school automotive class gave him an appreciation for what it feels like to come up with something new.
“When I was in high school, we were already tweaking with a coil that would wrap around the upper [radiator] hose and it got an extra five miles to the gallon. … So I've been there on this discovery stuff.”
Commercializing research – the focus of the government's science and technology policy – is an area where Canada needs to make improvements, he says.
“If we are going to be serious about saving lives and improving life around this planet, if we are serious about helping the environment, then we are going to have to get some of these technologies out of the labs onto the factory floors. Made. Produced. Sold. And that is going to fulfill that talk. So yes, we have to do all of it, we have to do discovery … but it can't end there.”

Passion, commercialism, engines, saving lives, and a whiff of scientology...if you think that combination sounds familair, you're right. Like Manning, Goodyear is channeling another one-hit wonder from the 80's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyEo-P4zik

As another pop-culture star who got his start in the 80's once said, "It's funny cause it's true."

But there's no doubt that Goodyear's creationism will take your breath away.


News Cycle Digestion Update:

Well, this news cycle got digested before bedtime. Not sure what's more pathetic: having your Science Minister being forced to say he believes in evolution (did he say what type of evolution?); or having your Industry Minister being forced to say that his research and development includes the humanities.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090317.wevol0317PTR/BNStory/Front/home

National Non-News News

This just in...

Liberals tone down election talk

The Canadian Press
March 6, 2009 at 1:33 PM EDT

OTTAWA — Liberals are dialling down the volume on the spring election answering machine. Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale says his party wants a time-out. They are offering their lunch money to avoid a fight with the Tory government over a $3-billion squishy fund aimed at quickly stimulating the sputtering government. He says that Harper is galactically wrong about everything and the Tories have an evil plan to destroy life as we know it, but the polling-winds are just not blowing hard enough right now. According to one expert strategist, "We've stuck our finger up and determined what's blowing where."

The Liberals plan to send a note during Monday's class to ask the government to reveal details about the secret AT-AT Election Walkers rumoured to be in production. They even plan to say pretty please and promise even more lunch money if Harper will agree. Mr. Goodale says they won't even debate the motion or force a vote on it until late March, giving Liberals and Conservatives several more weeks to do polling and get away to the Caribbean.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said the fund is a matter of confidence in his evil doom machine and has warned that opposition parties will find themselves banished to Hoth if they don't hand over the lunch-money before recess.


For further details, see today's Glib:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090306.wliberals0306/BNStory/politics/home




HUMINT Update:
Received via email a link to a report on the new Harpoid weapon:

"Forged at the Kuat Drive Yards, the same production facility that crafted the Empire's prodigious Imperial Star Destroyer, the AT-AT walker is the perfect embodiment of Imperial philosophy. It favors fear over function, as the immense craft is more a weapon of terror than a completely efficient combat vessel."

Fear over function...sure sounds like Harpoid. For a complete description, see:
http://www.starwars.com/databank/vehicle/atat/