Larry Strong said:
Altair said:
Weak Conservative lineup a reflection of Harper’s leadership
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Jeffrey Simpson
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Oct. 02, 2015
That the Conservatives have trotted out former minister Stockwell Day and retiring minister James Moore to campaign in British Columbia illustrates fundamental and revealing facts about the party.
The Conservatives have the weakest cabinet in living memory, its weakness deepened with the death of Jim Flaherty and the decisions of Mr. Moore, John Baird, Shelly Glover and Peter MacKay to not seek re-election.
The Conservatives also have a painfully thin back bench, with very few MPs anyone might consider serious ministerial timber. And they have the poorest lot of local candidates in this election.
Of course, there are some notable exceptions to this observation. But travelling across the country, and studying the backgrounds of candidates for all parties, leads inescapably to the conclusion that the Conservative list is the weakest.
Any party in office for nine years will experience churn. People get tired, burned-out. They look for a different, less-stressful life. No more jet planes; no more public meetings; no more hassles. That those well-known ministers bowed out, as did a couple dozen other Tory MPs, could be considered normal.
But for two observations. First, being a cabinet minister under Stephen Harper is to have so little leeway for initiative, the government being controlled by him and his advisers, that being a minister isn’t what it used to be. Ministers, at least the top rung of them, used to be somebodies. Now, they lie between being somebodies and nobodies, closer actually to the latter than the former.
Second, either the party made little attempt to recruit strong candidates (except in five or six ridings in Quebec, where such candidates did appear), or the party tried and failed, since very accomplished people would have heard how things work inside the Harper government and decided being told what to have for lunch wasn’t for them.
Think back to cabinets of yesteryear, Progressive Conservative and Liberal. Even the most forceful of prime ministers had a bevy of strong ministers. For Pierre Trudeau, it would have been people such as Allan MacEachen, Marc Lalonde, Jean-Luc Pépin, Donald Macdonald, John Turner (for a while), Lloyd Axworthy and many others. For Brian Mulroney, his strong ministers would have included, among many, Don Mazankowski, John Crosbie, Michael Wilson, Flora MacDonald (for a term), Jake Epp, Joe Clark.
Today, in the Harper cabinet, is there even one Mazankowski or Lalonde, or anyone close to their standing, influence and reputation? The question is rhetorical – with the possible exception of Defence Minister Jason Kenney, who is a spear carrier of enormous energy and verbal dexterity, obviously running to become leader of the party post-Harper.
This is the Harper Party. He, more than anyone, created it. He runs it with an iron fist directly or through his subalterns. His is the public face and voice of the party, such that there is almost no room left for anyone else. To the Prime Minister will go entirely the credit for victory and, if it comes to that, will come the entire blame for defeat.
The hollowing out of Conservative talent might not be fatal in a general election where local candidates generally can sway up to only about 5 per cent of the vote. If, as regularly happens, Tory candidates across the country refuse to do media interviews or do not show up for all-candidates’ debates, such no-shows are regrettable but not all that damaging. Given their thin résumés and preference to read from scripts or talking points, perhaps it is better that they do not show up.
Moreover, there are about 100 or so ridings in which the Conservatives won by so much – 25 points or more – in 2011 that the proverbial “yellow dog” could have won.
A recent and careful poll of Manitoba by Probe Research (with a sample size of 1,000) illustrates the point. It shows the Conservatives are 14 points provincewide below their share of the vote in 2011. But outside Winnipeg, in rural Manitoba, where the Conservatives topped the Liberals by 64 to 7 per cent in 2011, they now lead by “only” 16 points, 49 to 33. These are the “yellow dog ridings” where the quality of Conservative candidates counts for almost nothing. (The New Democratic Party is down everywhere in Manitoba.)
Strong leader. Weak cabinet. Poor backbenchers. Generally ordinary candidates, at best. There are exceptions, to repeat, to this characterization. But they are exceptions. So bring on Messrs. Day and Moore to campaign.
E.R. Campbell said:
E.R. Campbell said:
E.R. Campbell said:
As NDP lags in polls, what’s Mulcair’s next move before election day?
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Adam Radwanski
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Oct. 02, 2015
They won’t quite admit it, as they try to play down their precipitous drop in the polls. But talking this week to New Democrats working on their party’s national campaign, it is clear they believe salvaging what was once an enormously promising chance at winning power will require a more energetic and aggressive effort than the one they have run so far.
As they break away from the cautious manner of campaigning that appeared to assume front-runner status, or at least a comfortable advantage over Justin Trudeau’s Liberals as the favoured alternative to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, here are some of the strategic and tactical efforts Canadians can expect to see from Thomas Mulcair’s party in the election’s final 2 1/2 weeks.
A combative debate performance
The immediate imperative for Mr. Mulcair is to stop the bleeding in Quebec, where the NDP’s double-digit lead over the nearest party has eroded.
His imminent make-or-break opportunity is Friday’s French-language debate – the final time the leaders will converge on stage this campaign, and possibly the most-viewed such event because it will be on Quebec’s popular TVA network. (Also crucial: an appearance on the highly influential TV show Tout Le Monde En Parle, to air on Sunday.)
There is never any way to know how politicians will perform under that kind of pressure.
But Mr. Mulcair will likely display a more fiery demeanour than in some of the other debates so far. While the NDP tried to get away from the “Angry Tom” image earlier in the race, many members of his campaign team now say they think that worry was overblown, and that he’s better to be passionate than overly calm.
Beyond tone, Mr. Mulcair seems set to adjust his debate message.
Needing to shift focus away from the firestorm around the niqab, which has played a big part in the NDP’s recent troubles, Mr. Mulcair will spend more time attacking Mr. Harper’s economic and ethical record in hope of refocusing Quebeckers on replacing a prime minister most of them don’t like.
A post-debate bounce of even a few percentage points in Quebec would go a long way toward helping perceived competitiveness nationally. Any more slippage there, and the party’s national numbers could slide to the point where the rest of the NDP’s strategy becomes moot.
A busier tour schedule
This Sunday, Mr. Mulcair will conduct a “whistle stop” tour of Southwestern Ontario, appearing in six ridings in a region where the NDP needs to break through. That seems partly a defensive move, countering the Liberals’ hope of projecting momentum the same day with a Toronto-area rally that will be the campaign’s biggest event staged by any party so far. But the accelerated pace – if not quite that accelerated – will continue thereafter.
Under different circumstances, the NDP might not have intensified their efforts that much until the campaign’s final week. But competing for votes with a rival opposition leader using youthful energy to his advantage, Mr. Mulcair has obvious incentive to show some extra vigour of his own.
Attack ads
In hindsight, it might have been a mistake for the NDP to avoid advertising much during the campaign’s first month, since big Liberal ad buys during that period helped erase the NDP’s edge. But backloading its spending means Mr. Mulcair’s party will now be all over the airwaves, especially with the NDP claiming to have raised $9-million in the past three months alone.
The NDP’s hope was probably to seal the deal with positive spots featuring Mr. Mulcair. Under the circumstances, it’s going heavy with attack ads. In English Canada, that includes a trio of radio commercials that take aim at Mr. Trudeau for his past acceptance of speaking fees, his support for Bill C-51 and (in the aforementioned Southwestern Ontario market) his party’s views on the auto sector.
Quebeckers are likelier to see or hear scandal-focused attacks on the Tories, which to some extent are running in the rest of the country as well.
A strategic voting pitch
At the doors, over the phones and digitally, the New Democrats are stepping up attempts to convince voters they have a better chance than the Liberals of beating the Conservatives.
Broadly, that means highlighting that because they entered the campaign with nearly three times as many seats as Mr. Trudeau’s party, they have an easier path to power. And in some ridings, it means making the case (based on last election’s results or current polling) that they’re close enough to ousting Conservative incumbents that a few hundred would-be Liberal votes could make the difference.
The NDP’s hope is to pivot even more to this message in the campaign’s final week, including through advertising. Whether it’s able to credibly make its strategic-voting case will depend on how its other strategic gambits pan out.
Remius said:
Remius said:
