Election Fever!

Looks like Steve is going to pull the plug possibly as early as Sunday. Mike Brock who has decent “inside the CPC” wiring was kind enough to have me co-host the Al and Mike show (link up later) and told me that the CPC is thinking of running on two themes:

The CPC is the best party to lead through a recession and, wait for it, Senate reform. Ah yes, the old Canadian chestnut the Senate. I love Senate reform. It puts my poli sci brain to work. Rep by pop but not too much. But, as an election issue it is a true snoozer.

Now, “best party to lead through a recession”. Big problem with that is that officially there is no Canada wide recession. Ontario wide, perhaps, but out West things are ticking along, the Rock is doing OK and much of the Maritimes is just fine thank you. Quebec is looking alright….so where is this recession the CPC will be so good navigating?

Second problem, why would the CPC be the preferred party in a recession? Do they have the Keynesian cred that Canadians will likely want to “smooth the business cycle”? Well, they certainly seem to like spending money and are more than willing to measure government spending using the bogus yardstick of % of GDP; but will Canadians, long told that the way out of a recession is for the government to spend money, actually believe that the CPC will cut the cheques? I don’t know but it is not an issue which is screams “elect us”.

Meanwhile, M. Dion looks as goofy as ever with the Kyoto albatross hanging limply ’round his neck and the Green Shift lunacy convincing even Torontonians that spending more for gas, food and heat may not be quite what they want to do even if the West will be paying most of the freight. (In the West we are already getting used to having been written off by the Grits.)

Dion’s best move, in my view, would be to quietly drop the Green Shift and make stump speeches about a glorious - if detail light - Liberal future. The trick being to have as his warm up act none other than Justin Trudeau. It is not as if Justin will have to spend a single day in his absolutely safe Montreal riding. And the man speaks coherently in both of Canada’s official languages. Having been a school teacher he can, no doubt, quiet unruly media - not that there will be any unruliness: the tongue bath awaiting Justin from the Canadian media will make the canonization of Obama by the American media look insincere.

M. Dion can look professorial, say several incoherent things and point at Justin. The crowd, and there will be crowds from one end of the country to the other, will love it.

I fear that Steve has no one in his caucus or running with quite the star power of a Trudeau. Ben Mulroney? Do we really want to go there?

Elections are strange things. They acquire their own dynamic, their own issues and, ultimately their own logic. At the moment there is nothing terrible to nail the CPC with. Neither is there any CPC accomplishment to particularly single out for praise. So the Liberals have the opportunity to run their own campaign on their own issues and, more importantly, on the intriguing possibility that they are really going to renew themselves.

It will be interesting.

Written by jay on August 27th, 2008 with 6 comments.
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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Sean
#1. August 28th, 2008, at 2:42 AM.

All the CPC has to do is run videos of Dion eating a hotdog with a knife and fork on national television. A thousand Justin Trudeaus couldn’t save him from the contempt and derision that would stir up.

“The man can’t even eat a hot dog properly and he wants to run the country?”

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Hans
#2. August 28th, 2008, at 4:39 AM.

Interesting speculation. I wonder if Justin Trudeau figures into any Liberal plans at the moment.

I have to agree that the idea of “best party to govern through recession” is a questionable strategy. That fits with the general global theory that voters prefer a “conservative” regime during tough times because of the equation that conservatives=fiscal restraint and liberals=tax and spend. Aside from not actually being true, the Canadian Liberals have a well-known track record of deficit reduction and budget surpluses which they can point while the CPC, as you say, doesn’t have much accomplished in that or any regard.

P.S. I love your line: “…the tongue bath awaiting Justin from the Canadian media will make the canonization of Obama by the American media look insincere.”

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com EBD
#3. August 28th, 2008, at 10:30 PM.

I don’t know, Jay, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those who describe Senate reform as a boring issue also happen to be opposed to Senate reform. Bureaucrat-journalist Peter Mansbridge once introduced Susan Bonner’s obligatorily-covered report on the issue — obligatory because Harper addressed the issue in a public-enough forum — with this: (verbatim)”A national vote on the future of the Senate — sound exciting?”

Then he handed off to Susan Bonner “for a bit of context.” She began “You could be forgiven for wishing that some debates would just remain shut away….”

Well, you can always tell what the Liberal position is, or what their next talking point is to be, is by watching The National, but why should this remain “shut away” from the toothless proles, aka the voters? The Senate is just a cesspool of utterly unqualified patronage appointees. Many of these overpaid plums have an attendance record — showing up one day a year, eight days a year — that’s not just a slap in the face to Canadians who aren’t part of the racket, but a fist up the ass.

Tres continental, but this isn’t France or Italy. The Senate is a joke, not in it’s conception, but in it’s execution. There no excuse for it. Liberals have excuses for it, and Red Tories have excuses for it, but maybe, just maybe, the voters, not being in on the racket themselves, merely paying for it, won’t be able to find any excuses for it.

It’s worth a shot, and whether it’s boring or not, it’s going to require a mandate, meaning, the Cons will actually have to campaign on the issue, as one of many issues. It will give Canadians who are only nominally political to a chance to see where Harper’s coming from, and — the bonus light’s on — Stephane Dion will surely, at some point, perhaps in the debates, have to explain to the Canadian people why it’s absolutely critical for Canada to maintain a law-making chamber full of unelected, largely Liberal patronage plums of questionable provenance, as opposed to letting the voters, in some manner, have a say. Tough gig for Mr. Dion, but only if Mr. Harper brings it up.

BTW Jay, are you suggesting that the Conservatives would be ill-advised to campaign on Senate Reform because it’s boring? I can’t tell, because in addition to describing it as boring you wrote, “I love Senate reform. It puts my poli-sci brain to work.” Are you in favour of Senate reform and love the idea of Senate reform, but think it’s too boring as an election issue, or do oppose Senate reform because, even though you love the idea, you don’t want to bore us, or….

Hay-ulp! Haaay-ulp!

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com jay
#4. August 28th, 2008, at 10:58 PM.

EBD, I love Senate Reform. I just don’t think it is a vote grabber or a real world possibility.

Were it up to me I would have a 24 member Senate, elected for six years, with each province/territory having two members (or would that be 26….whatever). I would keep the current powers more or less intact.

Small and smart, it’s a start.

Imagine how well that would go over in Ontario and Quebec. But for the rest of the country it would be a huge improvement.

The Senators would be elected at large in their respective provinces and would, I suspect, become the equals of MPs in short order.

This does sound a bit American but, come to think of it, the US Senate produces Presidents and Vice Presidents in abundance.

And, of course, this is precisely the reason why Senate Reform in Canada is doomed from the go. Real reform, the idea of an equal voice for each of the provinces, would reduce central Canada’s artificially dominant position within the Confederation and will simply not be tolerated.

Which is why the issue is actually a snoozer. Nothing will change and the entire enterprise will be a purely academic, electoral, exercise.

Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com EBD
#5. August 28th, 2008, at 11:40 PM.

Well, if you love Senate reform, do you love it enough to support it, or is the potential boredom of voters who, due to, ermm, governmental circumstances, haven’t really taken a serious look at it, enough to scare you off?

Your scenario suits me fine — it would have my vote, but as a realistic prospect what you’re suggesting would not be a small or incremental change. It seems like you’re saying “I really don’t think we should go to the moon, because we won’t get there, but we should build colonies there.”

The Senate in your scenario would be smaller, better, there’d be a more intelligently and reasonably selected group of lawmakers, but again, that’s an end result, which means we should be asking now, how do we get there from here? Well, a reasonable — small and smart — change, a real-world possibility, might entail, oh, say, some grass-roots spawn prime minister — who, by the official-embeds estimation, is just filling in poorly during our Natural Ruling Party’s time out — making some room, piece by piece, to the extent he’s able and where he’s able, for voters in selected areas where their Senator’s time is up, for one reason or another, to have the….special privilege to vote for their own brand-new elected Senator. It’s catchy, as a concept, and — you’d have to assume — hardly an outrage to voters. Sure, they might be bored — or they might not. Maybe they’ve just been told it’s boring, until they actually have a chance to look at the mindset that wishes to keep this nursing-station alive.

Small incremental change would be a start, the planting of a seed, which might have repercussions for not only the institution, but for voters’ attitudes about the Senate and the nature of government in this country. If we have to go from here to there, and we’re told we can’t get there, well, then we just start walking and see what the local denizens further up the road have to say about the possibilities.

I don’t think the issue is doomed, Jay. Keep hope alive.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com J Weller
#6. September 3rd, 2008, at 6:43 PM.

WTF….Kenysian theoary wrecked the economy in the late 60’s and 70’s/ .. Runaway inflation was the response to Gov’t spending to stimulate growth. Keep in mind this was spending for “make work” only , not something that actually works like a War Effort.

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