It's another sign of the times that the Opposition feels that its most effective tool (perhaps its only effective tool) against the Williams regime is poll numbers. In the current political culture, any form of low polling is seen as kryptonite.
This past week we witnessed a political scientist trotting out the tautology that Williams faces no threat because he is popular, and he is popular because he faces no threat. In other words, Williams is popular because he is powerful and powerful because he is popular. As I've before, it's funny 'cause it's true. It is therefore unsurprising that when the Liberals finally manage to get some positive media coverage, they place all their political eggs in the popularity basket. To invoke a different metaphor, polls have become the water in which our political fish swim.
Of course, there are numerous problems with this culture of poll et impera. There are not only the issues of poll goosing and media manipulation, but also the question of popularity versus actual support. Williams' popularity may be a mile wide, but how deep is it outside the Tubble, i.e., the Townie Bubble? (And, to take the Teletubbies analogy a bit further, both rely on an inane optimism replete with creepy sun-king).
I'm sure that the Tories' internal polling shows that their support is alarmingly shallow in some areas off the Avalon, and I suspect that they are worried about the byelection. The problem for Williams is not only that he must win but that he must win big-time. For Williams, mere victory is never enough; it must be über-victory, a crushing demonstration of total supremacy.
Even a relatively close victory could deflate the popularity bubble, if only a bit, and Williams knows that his power rests on the image of pop-omnipotence. He must be seen as not just popular, but heroically popular. Thus it was important for Dunn to insist that Williams occupies a popularity summit unknown to mere mortal premiers like Clyde Wells.
Sustaining this popularity feedback-loop requires as much time and energy as actual governing, which is why we've seen such an explosion of PR advisers, media handlers, communication hacks, and call-in teletubbies. And whatever you want to say about the Williams government, it has been remarkably candid about its belief that it can govern by polling fiat.
For Williams, the beauty of popularity politics is that it's self-reinforcing. People tell pollsters that they support Williams in part (perhaps in large part, in some areas outside the Tubble) because there is no viable alternative. So he is popular because the Liberals are not. And vice versa. Getting out of this Teletubbie loop is easier said than done, but trotting out poll numbers won't do the trick. As they demonstrated during the showdown with the nurses' union, the Williams government knows when to make a tactical retreat, which has just been announced. Jerome Kennedy has become for the Tories what Roger Grimes was for the Liberals, and he will do what needs to be done (Kennedy better watch out that he might get what he wishes for). And to take the analogy further, we should point out that it took a party civil war and a bitter leadership convention before the Liberals began their final decline -- and even then Grimes had two years in power.
In a post on Nottawa, I speculated about who, if anyone, would play the role of Leo Barry in the Williams regime. I was referring to the question of whether anyone would dare cross the floor. Because the way things are going, it will take a floor-crossing or two before things begin to change. While we have entered the period of Late Williamsism, we need to keep in mind that this period could last as long as the Liberals remain in disarray. As I said before, in NL governing parties tend to rot from within before they fall, but they still have to be pushed.
Showing posts with label Liberals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liberals. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Iggy Popped
I've received a couple of emails this morning asking about my missing post on Jeffrey Simpson. I had written a piece earlier this morning, but then I deleted it after reading the final version posted online.
I was going to point out that Simpson's patronizing column (I guess patronizing is redundant here) is part of a larger problem whereby policy gets conflated with politics. Simpson proposes a rather sensible policy -- raising the GST by two points to deal with the federal deficit -- but he is willfully deaf to the timing and the politics.
I was going to point out some of the errors in Simpson's argument, but I'm getting sickened by the feeding frenzy that we're witnessing. In less than a month, the media's feast on Ignatieff has helped to propel the Tories to near-majority status in the polls.
Today's Globe offers readers another generous serving of roasted Ignatieff: a lead story on his gender problem, plus a Wente parody, poll numbers, two other Liberal-negative columns, and a gratuitous media review. It's getting too rich a diet, even for me. As I said last month, I don't like Ignatieff, but I plan to vote for him.
Most of these pundits profess a desire for a change in political culture, but after watching the relentless feeding frenzy for several weeks, it seems to me that they are actually enjoying what amounts to a political homicide. (Whether the homicide is suicide, manslaughter, or murder is best left to forensic historians).
Which brings me back to Simpson and his advocacy of tax increases. Simpson loves to rant about the need for prudence and planning, and he never ceases to chide politicians for their recklessness.
But here's a couple of questions for the oracle of Ottawa. Is it reckless for pundits to participate so gleefully in the destruction of Ignatieff? And is it reckless for a political columnist to propose a policy (tax hikes), during a recession, which would be political suicide? (Bonus question: by the way, what's the plan for when the destruction of Ignatieff is completed?) . Taking Ignatieff down a notch is one thing; taking him out is quite another.
Simpson has the luxury of dealing with politics as it should be; Ignatieff has the burden of dealing with politics as it is.
Should have googled it first update:
As I should have known, I'm far from the first person to pun Iggy Popped. But the fact that Rick Mercer ranted on Ignatieff shows just how easy a target he is. I stopped watching Mercer a couple of years ago, so I didn't see this until I googled. The funniest google result was this.
I was going to point out that Simpson's patronizing column (I guess patronizing is redundant here) is part of a larger problem whereby policy gets conflated with politics. Simpson proposes a rather sensible policy -- raising the GST by two points to deal with the federal deficit -- but he is willfully deaf to the timing and the politics.
I was going to point out some of the errors in Simpson's argument, but I'm getting sickened by the feeding frenzy that we're witnessing. In less than a month, the media's feast on Ignatieff has helped to propel the Tories to near-majority status in the polls.
Today's Globe offers readers another generous serving of roasted Ignatieff: a lead story on his gender problem, plus a Wente parody, poll numbers, two other Liberal-negative columns, and a gratuitous media review. It's getting too rich a diet, even for me. As I said last month, I don't like Ignatieff, but I plan to vote for him.
Most of these pundits profess a desire for a change in political culture, but after watching the relentless feeding frenzy for several weeks, it seems to me that they are actually enjoying what amounts to a political homicide. (Whether the homicide is suicide, manslaughter, or murder is best left to forensic historians).
Which brings me back to Simpson and his advocacy of tax increases. Simpson loves to rant about the need for prudence and planning, and he never ceases to chide politicians for their recklessness.
But here's a couple of questions for the oracle of Ottawa. Is it reckless for pundits to participate so gleefully in the destruction of Ignatieff? And is it reckless for a political columnist to propose a policy (tax hikes), during a recession, which would be political suicide? (Bonus question: by the way, what's the plan for when the destruction of Ignatieff is completed?) . Taking Ignatieff down a notch is one thing; taking him out is quite another.
Simpson has the luxury of dealing with politics as it should be; Ignatieff has the burden of dealing with politics as it is.
Should have googled it first update:
As I should have known, I'm far from the first person to pun Iggy Popped. But the fact that Rick Mercer ranted on Ignatieff shows just how easy a target he is. I stopped watching Mercer a couple of years ago, so I didn't see this until I googled. The funniest google result was this.
An Observation and a Prediction
Observation: Rob Antle's story in today's Telegram illustrates two trends in NL politics. First, over the past year or so, physicians have been getting increasingly frustrated with the Williams government on a number of issues that go far beyond the Cameron Inquiry. They have become increasingly media savvy, and they constitute one of the few independent political forces that can effectively challenge Danny Williams.
Second, over the past year or so, Lorraine Michael has consistently outperformed the Liberals. She has got out in front of key opposition issues and used the media far more effectively than Yvonne Jones. Rob Antle relies on a letter provided by the NDP, but the fact that he quotes only Michael is not unusual. In many CBC and Telegram stories over the past year, Michael has either monopolized the media coverage or marginalized the Liberals. Political insiders will know why this is the case, but it's a clear trend.
Prediction: Antle's story will prompt a TASS communiqué within 48 hours. With the pressure of a byelection, it might even prompt a scrum. But it won't prompt another rhetorical shooting. Threatening to shoot civil servants is one thing, but Williams won't dare to threaten a surgeon publicly -- so it will be interesting to see who gets blamed.
Predictable Update:
Just in case you don't buy my observation about how Michael is running media laps around the Liberals, here is the latest example.
Second, over the past year or so, Lorraine Michael has consistently outperformed the Liberals. She has got out in front of key opposition issues and used the media far more effectively than Yvonne Jones. Rob Antle relies on a letter provided by the NDP, but the fact that he quotes only Michael is not unusual. In many CBC and Telegram stories over the past year, Michael has either monopolized the media coverage or marginalized the Liberals. Political insiders will know why this is the case, but it's a clear trend.
Prediction: Antle's story will prompt a TASS communiqué within 48 hours. With the pressure of a byelection, it might even prompt a scrum. But it won't prompt another rhetorical shooting. Threatening to shoot civil servants is one thing, but Williams won't dare to threaten a surgeon publicly -- so it will be interesting to see who gets blamed.
Predictable Update:
Just in case you don't buy my observation about how Michael is running media laps around the Liberals, here is the latest example.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, July 31, 2009
If a report falls in July, does anybody hear?
If an economic report falls in July, does anybody hear?
It's no surprise that the latest economic forecast from the Conference Board of Canada received ample attention in the Globe and Mail and the Telegram.
It's also no surprise that it's being ignored by the Williams government and VOCM.
But it is surprising that the Opposition is so quiet. While the Telegram's report that "Finance Minister Jerome Kennedy could not be reached for comment," is de rigueur these days, surely the Liberals could have got a word in somewhere? Couldn't the Opposition be reached for comment?
Stop the Presses Update!
It looks like the state of the economy cannot compete with an enraged cat.
It's no surprise that the latest economic forecast from the Conference Board of Canada received ample attention in the Globe and Mail and the Telegram.
It's also no surprise that it's being ignored by the Williams government and VOCM.
But it is surprising that the Opposition is so quiet. While the Telegram's report that "Finance Minister Jerome Kennedy could not be reached for comment," is de rigueur these days, surely the Liberals could have got a word in somewhere? Couldn't the Opposition be reached for comment?
Stop the Presses Update!
It looks like the state of the economy cannot compete with an enraged cat.
Friday, July 10, 2009
How not to be an Opposition critic
How not to be an Opposition critic, from the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/07/09/gros-opposition-709.html
Liberal critic Kelvin Parsons said the Gros Morne hydro corridor is a bad first option, saying he thought it was another case of the premier "shooting from the lip."
However, Parsons said he could possibly support the plan under certain circumstances.
"Right now we have a UNESCO site there. There should be no transmission line through there unless it is absolutely necessary to go through there. And we don't know that at this point," he said.
Why on earth would Parsons open the door, even a crack, to the possibility of supporting such an utterly stupid idea? It's not a "bad first option," it's bad. Period.
What could the Liberals possibly gain by giving Williams an inch so he can take a mile? It doesn't take a genius to figure out how political expediency can be skewed to appear as absolute necessity, if the power line lunacy continues. What we don't know at this point is how reckless the Williams government will be, not whether the power lines will be absolutely necessary.
If there is any issue on which the Opposition should take an unequivocal stand, it's this one. The Liberals never seem to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. (Yes, I know it's an Abba Eban quote).
Now is the time for them to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Danny Williams. I'd trade the "shooting from the lip" quip any day for an unqualified rejection of Williams' (or is it NALCO's?) Gros Morne power line propaganda.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/07/09/gros-opposition-709.html
Liberal critic Kelvin Parsons said the Gros Morne hydro corridor is a bad first option, saying he thought it was another case of the premier "shooting from the lip."
However, Parsons said he could possibly support the plan under certain circumstances.
"Right now we have a UNESCO site there. There should be no transmission line through there unless it is absolutely necessary to go through there. And we don't know that at this point," he said.
Why on earth would Parsons open the door, even a crack, to the possibility of supporting such an utterly stupid idea? It's not a "bad first option," it's bad. Period.
What could the Liberals possibly gain by giving Williams an inch so he can take a mile? It doesn't take a genius to figure out how political expediency can be skewed to appear as absolute necessity, if the power line lunacy continues. What we don't know at this point is how reckless the Williams government will be, not whether the power lines will be absolutely necessary.
If there is any issue on which the Opposition should take an unequivocal stand, it's this one. The Liberals never seem to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. (Yes, I know it's an Abba Eban quote).
Now is the time for them to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Danny Williams. I'd trade the "shooting from the lip" quip any day for an unqualified rejection of Williams' (or is it NALCO's?) Gros Morne power line propaganda.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The Road From Perdition
With a number of journalists and commentators speculating about if/when Williams will step down and what stage of Dannyism we've entered, it might be a good time for the Liberals to take stock. As I said in an earlier post, if history is any guide, real change in NL politics will come when the governing party rots from within: http://orwellianspin.blogspot.com/2009/03/long-view.html
As we weigh the different political predictions, I think we should keep three things in mind. First, Williams will not leave office with the Lower Churchill left undeveloped. As I've said many times, the road to Newfoundland nationalism runs through Labrador's hydro power, and I cannot envisage Williams stepping down without signing the Mother of All Deals. So either he'll have to be defeated in an election, or he'll step down once the hydro deal is signed.
Second, the Tories, like the Liberals, are neither a monolithic nor uniform entity. Rather, they comprise a coalition of different groups and peoples brought together for different reasons in a drive for power. For any party to govern effectively, it has to cross traditional sectarian and geographic boundaries. In the case of the Tories, they were successful because they extended their appeal beyond their traditional Townie and Catholic bases of support. They managed to do this in a number of ways (e.g., effective local recruitment in ridings, an appeal to nationalist sentiment and fed-bashing, and capitalizing on Liberal weaknesses); however, they never really succeeded in re-branding Williams, whose flashy suits and corner-boy style are as Townie as you can get.
There is an undercurrent of anger in many fishing communities and in Central Newfoundland. There is a real fear of being left behind, while the St. John's bubble continues to grow and grow and grow. The first place that the Tories will falter is in rural Newfoundland, where Williams' style has never been as popular as the polls indicated. In many parts of NL where people haven't felt the benefits of oil revenue and the government-spending boom, Williams' support is still a mile wide, but it is only an inch deep.
Third, the shift in power will begin only when the Liberals re-brand themselves as the party which cares about the little guy, the working people who feel left behind, the fishermen, and mill workers -- the people who feel screwed over and who never had a shot at a comfortable civil service job. They're not going to do this with Dean MacDonald in charge, or by returning to Tobinism. If the Liberals think they are going to be able to out-Danny Danny by annointing a slick new heir apparent, they should think again. In my humble opinion, Yvonne Jones has done a good job under difficult circumstances: she deserves to play a central role in deciding how the Liberals organize for the next election.
Above all, the Liberal Party needs to heal the fractures from 2001 and the fallout from its civil war. It needs to reintegrate the powerful tradition of rural populism that it lost when Efford was defeated, but it needs to do this without returning to Tobinism, which wore thin remarkably quickly. Tobinism was, in many respects, Dannyism without the petrodollars. It was slick and media-savy, though it was also inauthentic. One of the reasons why Danny remains relatively popular is that, whatever he is, he is seen as authentic. Many voters overlook his outbursts not because they like him but because they don't see him as inauthentic.
I've seen commentators make unfair comments about Jones' accent and her style, and I think the Liberals could turn this into a political opportunity. They need to brand themselves as the authentic voice of the majority of the population who do not spend their free time planning their next vacation to Cuba, loading up their new Camry at Costco, or calculating how much their East End back-split has soared in value since Danny took down the Canadian flag. Instead, the Liberals need to adopt what I would call the "Shearstown litmus-test." They need to rally around a leader, a style, and a platform that generate genuine enthusiasm in a traditional Liberal heartland like Shearstown. They have to start with the base of the party and work from there. If they can fill a hall with a speaker comfortable with the Shearstown brass band, that's a start.
The Liberals need to decide what they want to stand for: they need to find their own voice and forge a distinctive brand. And they cannot wait for the next election to get around to it.
As we weigh the different political predictions, I think we should keep three things in mind. First, Williams will not leave office with the Lower Churchill left undeveloped. As I've said many times, the road to Newfoundland nationalism runs through Labrador's hydro power, and I cannot envisage Williams stepping down without signing the Mother of All Deals. So either he'll have to be defeated in an election, or he'll step down once the hydro deal is signed.
Second, the Tories, like the Liberals, are neither a monolithic nor uniform entity. Rather, they comprise a coalition of different groups and peoples brought together for different reasons in a drive for power. For any party to govern effectively, it has to cross traditional sectarian and geographic boundaries. In the case of the Tories, they were successful because they extended their appeal beyond their traditional Townie and Catholic bases of support. They managed to do this in a number of ways (e.g., effective local recruitment in ridings, an appeal to nationalist sentiment and fed-bashing, and capitalizing on Liberal weaknesses); however, they never really succeeded in re-branding Williams, whose flashy suits and corner-boy style are as Townie as you can get.
There is an undercurrent of anger in many fishing communities and in Central Newfoundland. There is a real fear of being left behind, while the St. John's bubble continues to grow and grow and grow. The first place that the Tories will falter is in rural Newfoundland, where Williams' style has never been as popular as the polls indicated. In many parts of NL where people haven't felt the benefits of oil revenue and the government-spending boom, Williams' support is still a mile wide, but it is only an inch deep.
Third, the shift in power will begin only when the Liberals re-brand themselves as the party which cares about the little guy, the working people who feel left behind, the fishermen, and mill workers -- the people who feel screwed over and who never had a shot at a comfortable civil service job. They're not going to do this with Dean MacDonald in charge, or by returning to Tobinism. If the Liberals think they are going to be able to out-Danny Danny by annointing a slick new heir apparent, they should think again. In my humble opinion, Yvonne Jones has done a good job under difficult circumstances: she deserves to play a central role in deciding how the Liberals organize for the next election.
Above all, the Liberal Party needs to heal the fractures from 2001 and the fallout from its civil war. It needs to reintegrate the powerful tradition of rural populism that it lost when Efford was defeated, but it needs to do this without returning to Tobinism, which wore thin remarkably quickly. Tobinism was, in many respects, Dannyism without the petrodollars. It was slick and media-savy, though it was also inauthentic. One of the reasons why Danny remains relatively popular is that, whatever he is, he is seen as authentic. Many voters overlook his outbursts not because they like him but because they don't see him as inauthentic.
I've seen commentators make unfair comments about Jones' accent and her style, and I think the Liberals could turn this into a political opportunity. They need to brand themselves as the authentic voice of the majority of the population who do not spend their free time planning their next vacation to Cuba, loading up their new Camry at Costco, or calculating how much their East End back-split has soared in value since Danny took down the Canadian flag. Instead, the Liberals need to adopt what I would call the "Shearstown litmus-test." They need to rally around a leader, a style, and a platform that generate genuine enthusiasm in a traditional Liberal heartland like Shearstown. They have to start with the base of the party and work from there. If they can fill a hall with a speaker comfortable with the Shearstown brass band, that's a start.
The Liberals need to decide what they want to stand for: they need to find their own voice and forge a distinctive brand. And they cannot wait for the next election to get around to it.
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