Out of touch to the very end.

In the all-important last week of the campaign, when voters finally are paying full attention, Harper, Iggy and to a lesser extent Duceppe have gone or stayed negative. 

Surely by now their teams know this campaign switched two weeks ago into a likeability contest, and that Layton was winning it.

The solution they hit on - and this script could only be written by scabs during a writers' strike - was to become even less likeable by going entirely negative with attacks on the NDP.

For two weeks, the MSM has been correctly asserting that the "angry man" pose has been backfiring in this campaign.

It's at this point you have to wonder if anyone with influence in the Harper and Ignatieff camps ever talks with everyday Canadians. Or monitors the MSM, never mind Facebook and Twitter. Because Canadians have been anything but shy in the messages they've been writing on each other's FB walls and in their Tweets and in what they tell TV reporters on the Sparks Street Mall and the jogging trail in Stanley Park. They crave something different from what the two mainstream parties have been saying - some imagined possibilities. 

Lee Atwater discovered one day in the summer of 1988 that Willie Horton, a recidivist convict released on parole by an ill-advised Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis, was all the talk among everyday Americans. Atwater first learned this in a bowling alley. He then checked out a few donut shops, VFW posts and other spots where "real" Americans congregate to confirm this. Immediately on returning to his office at presidential candididate George H.W. Bush's campaign HQ, Atwater ordered up a series of devastating Willie Horton ads. And to this day, Willie Horton is part of the political lexicon, a term to describe how a mediocre candidate can beat the daylights out of a popular opponent.

The talk of Canada these past two weeks has been of (a) change and (b) a more optimistic future for the world's most nearly-perfect country. And of how conventional politics has been stale and to some extent dysfunctional in failing to embrace this more challenging vision for the country.

Canadians recently saw dramatic change among our only neighbors. And they want it here, where Barack Obama still has an 80% approval rating. Obama, you notice, doesn't do "angry man," except when a distinguished historian and friend is arrested for the crime of being in his own house.

Canadians are plain sick hearing about limitations to what Canada can achieve. And they're numb to, and angry with, being told what to do by perceived elites who threaten them with the End of Times if they vote the wrong way.

We were told in 1988 that our prosperity would evaporate if we failed to embrace free trade with the U.S. We were told in 1992 that Canada would break apart if we didn't vote for the Charlottetown Accord on constitutional accommodation of Quebec nationalists. (We defeated it anyway, and Quebec hasn't separated in the 19 years since.) 

We were told in the early 1990s that the IMF would have to bail us out, Greece- and Ireland-style, if we didn't accept collective sacrifice and hardship in erasing our admittedly outsized deficit. In the mid-1990s, every municipality in the GTA opposed amalgamation in a referendum, and Tory premier Mike Harris smashed them together anyway.

The NDP warned us throughout the 2000s that free trade was killing upward of 200,000 manufacturing jobs in Ontario alone. Which was true, and compounded the misery of the Great Recession of 2008-09. In response, we were told by the elites - the two mainstream political parties, the MSM, and the Chamber of Commerce types - that globalization is inevitable, beyond human control, and good for us.

Those same elites - a toxic combo of celebrated Fortune 500 cover-boy CEOs given to piratic impulses and lax government regulators - cratered capitalism in 2001-02, and then very nearly euthanized it altogether in 2008-09.

Of that we were told that everyday North Americans and Europeans were largely at fault, having lived beyond our means, and allowing ourselves to be talked by unscrupulous mortgage brokers into buying more house than we could afford. Millions of those homes have been foreclosed upon, and harsh austerity has been imposed on us. And the reckless speculators truly to blame captured their windfall riches before the collapse and inexplicably were spared orange jumpsuits. None of the lax regulators were fired. Their ilk have stayed on to maladminister workplace safety at the Big Branch Mine disaster and BP's Deepwater Horizon drill-rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

We are, in a nutshell, sick of being lectured too. Yet this, in the final hours of the campaign, is what the Tories and Grits have chosen yet again to do. More proof to those restless for change that (a) the Tories are arrogant and out of touch. And that (b) the Liberal alternative must be a clone of the Tories, since it's also arrogant and not interested in what we have to say. 

It's not that Layton is a fresh face, as Obama was. He's been on the national stage as NDP leader for eight years. In town halls and the stump, Layton has not been as quick on his feet and passionate as Iggy. He still doesn't have the gravitas that Harper has achieved simply by being PM for five years. The national NDP could easily have been kept to its niche-party status. But its three principal rivals this time collectively held the door open for it. Or perhaps it's the times that have changed, and the father-knows-best approach that used to work just doesn't this time out.

In any case, the Tories, whether returned to government or not, will be held, as always in its history, to 40% of the vote, more or less, in a best-case scenario for that party. And the Grits will have self-destructed by slipping for the first time in Confederation to third-party status.

That didn't have to happen, of course, and I'm kind of stunned it has. I grew up with Trudeau and Keith Davey, who could regain the momentum in a faltering electoral contest - or a losing 1980 Quebec referendum campaign - in the third period. Mulroney did the same in the bitterly contested FTA election of 1988. In truth, politicians have been conditioned to rapid-response techniques long before the MSM began only in the Internet age to adopt them. 

You ask how this most unlikely 2011 outcome could have happened? We'll read the entrails soon enough.

But one thing we have known since Harper first appeared on the national scene, and from the time of Iggy's first, failed Grit leadership bid, is that neither man takes advice easily. I've mentioned in previous posts my 20-year friendship with Layton. I'm no close friend of the NDP leader. When we're out together shooting pool once or twice a year, I have noticed (a) how strangers feel so comfortable chatting him up in subway stations, sports bars and variety stores, almost always addressing him as "Jack." And (b) how intently Layton listens to everybody. It's the way we act when we don't know where the next great idea is going to come from, a crossing guard or a lawn bowler. When we don't see this inclination to listen in certain of our acquaintances, family, co-workers, these become people to avoid. They know all the answers. To talk with them is to waste their time.  

Heaven help such folks if someday they do need something from you. Your vote, for instance.  

 

 

Comments

[Darwin O'Connor]

Like the Ontario NDP, an Federal NDP government could end up taking the blame for the incompetant economic policies of the previous Conservative government.

The Free Trade deal devistated the Ontario manufacturing base exactly as critics predicted, causing Ontario to be hit harder by the 1990s recession.

Canada's real estate bubble is poised to burst. The NDP could again end up taking the blame.

[Rob]

The NDP would be a disaster for Canadian economy.
Taxes and fees paid for by the worker will increase, a lot. That's who has to pay for these things, the working person.
Plus the NDP would kill foreign investments and hurt business from coast to coast. There would be a lot fewer jobs.
Think about the working person Liberals and vote Harper to stop this train wreck that Layton would bring to Canada.

[Darwin O'Connor]

Rob, can you do anything but spout talking points? If you really believe this stuff, provide more detail on exactly how all these things would happen.

[cangar]

Actually, Layton was very negative, but mainly against Ignatieff and not Harper. Lots of negative ads in some targeted ridings too.

Probably Ignatieff didn't go negative soon enough. When Layton and Harper ran attack ads against Ignatieff in 2009, he probably should have fought back then. Also during the election, he waited until after the NDP ran a couple attack ads against him, before responding. There is likely an advantage to being the first to attack and Layton seems to know that.

I'm curious about Parkdale and whether Nash's negative campaign will win or not. I'd like to think just going negative is not a winner, but we will see.

[Rob]

Darwin, the NDP will raise taxes on everybody that works.
Not talking points just the truth.
More taxes on businesses - less investmment and fewer jobs
A cap & trade tax to hurt the oil industry - less investmment and fewer jobs
Raise GST - more taxes for workers to pay
Raies Income tax - more taxes for workers to pay
$70 Billion in programs that have to come from taxes. Workers will pay for these.
You wait and see.
If Jack gains control I will publish ALL taxes, fees and the performance of the economy both Before Jack and After Jack. Perhaps in 2 years look at these numbers then see where Jack took us.
The working person will suffer.

[Darwin O'Connor]

"More taxes on businesses - less investmment and fewer jobs"

The increase in business taxes are mostly going to be returned to businesses that hire people which should stimulate job growth much more effectively then spending it on a bunch of free riders.

"A cap & trade tax to hurt the oil industry - less investmment and fewer jobs"

The effect of the cap and trade a small compared to changes in the world price of oil. Besides that tar sands where profitable at $40 a barrel. I doubt the price of oil will drop below $100 even again.

"Raise GST - more taxes for workers to pay"

Not in anyone's platform, and the NDP aren't crazy enough to do that.

"Raies Income tax - more taxes for workers to pay"

Not in anyone's platform. If the NDP ends up doing this, it will be only on the people with the highest incomes.

"$70 Billion in programs that have to come from taxes. Workers will pay for these."

Workers will also benefit from these programs.

[Rob]

You look at what you are going to receive as a worker from Jack's Programs VERSUS what a worker will pay in higher taxes for everything and being taxed in everyway (more GST, more income tax, carbon tax, etc.). The worker will not be helped but harmed.
And fewer jobs and less revenue because Jack's policies hurt business and drive some business out of the country.
A carbon tax/ cap & trade is just another transfer of wealth from Alberta to Ottawa. Alberta sends Ottawa plenty as it is now. The Cap & trade will NOT lead to less carbon in the atmosphere only another tax.
What you do not understand and will not address as an Ontario Leftie is: ALBERTA will not allow this new transfer to happen. NO MORE NEP. Give it a try Jack; it will lead to Alberta leaving Canada. I know that is not important to you but it is to me.
What is "highest incomes"? They are workers too but this tax on the "highest incomes" will only mean these people have less money to put back into the economy which means fewer jobs.
You can't live off the work of others Darwin unless you are a Socialist. The worker will be the one harmed and the worker has to pay A LOT more under PM Jack.

[Darwin O'Connor]

"only mean these people have less money to put back into the economy which means fewer jobs"

Do you think the money that goes to taxes gets dumped into a shredder? It goes back into the economy, usually the Canadian economy rather then a foreign one.

"Darwin unless you are a Socialist"

Why yes, I am.

[Rob]

A socialist would believe that the government spends money well. No waste or mismanagement with the government, eh?
People work for money. This money belongs to them. Not the governement.

[Darwin O'Connor]

"No waste or mismanagement with the government, eh?"

No waste or mismanagement in the private sector, eh?

It's hard to tell with no access to information laws and no media and opposition board members trying to dig up every little scandal.

"People work for money."

Some people work because they enjoy it. Some people work because if they don't they will suffer and die. Only a few people work because they want wealth and power. Not surprisingly, some of those few get wealth and power and use it try to reshape society in a way that reflects their beliefs.

Now we are getting down to brass tacks.

[Rob]

Stay home and I will send you a cheque from my work, no problem.
OR better yet I will stay home and you can send me a cheque from your work.
SOCIALISM.

[Darwin O'Connor]

How about we both work and share our pay cheques. That's the kind of thing businesses do all the time.

[Rob]

uh....no.....Darwin, businesses are out to maximize profit. One of the ways they do this is to minimize mismanagement and inefficiencies.
The government has no mandate to do anything but spend the taxpayer's money.
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Let's say you work harder and longer than I do. You are much more educated; your job requires much more education than my job.
The value of what you produce is much greater than what I produce.
Should we take home the same amount of money?
Socialism.