Metalleaf
New member
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
[video=youtube;I_diLy8lF94]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_diLy8lF94[/video]
[video=youtube;I_diLy8lF94]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_diLy8lF94[/video]
OT: American Politics
- Thread starter MindzEye
- Start date
Altair
Well-known member
Metalleaf
New member
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
With a name like that, you're clearly in charge of the marketing.
With a name like that, you're clearly in charge of the marketing.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
With a name like that, you're clearly in charge of the marketing.
With a name like that, you're clearly in charge of the marketing.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Volcanologist
Well-known member
blacksheep
New member
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
I bet the "balanced budget" turns out to be in reality not so balanced...
I bet the "balanced budget" turns out to be in reality not so balanced...
IrishWolfman
New member
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
What Happened?
The Gods of the Electorate are not to be Mocked
Governments of a certain vintage just develop bad habits. There are some symptoms that are common to all parties. One of them is treating taxpayers like a personal piggy bank.
When the Duffy scandal hit a couple years ago, there was a right way to handle it and there was every other way to handle it. The government picked the latter. Once Nigel Wright was involved, and the communications team in the PMO was involved and the Issues Management team in the PMO was involved, the jig was up.
Sometimes, the Gods of the Electorate have a way of telling a political leader when to exit stage right (or left). Gordon Campbell, Jean Chretien, Margaret Thatcher and Dalton McGuinty all got that one. Their parties all won elections after they stepped down.
If Stephen Harper makes his exit at the end of the spring session of parliament in 2013, he may have spared his party. Because from that moment on, there was five to ten percent of the electorate that had simply given up on the Tories.
The One-Eyed Man is King
The other thing that happens with governments of a certain age is a natural constriction in their policy goals. Governments that always have something to do are governments continually presenting a new vision to the electorate.
What Tories are prone to – as evidenced by Mike Harris previously – is the natural limitations of their particular ideology. The mission to cut taxes and/or privatize assets works for one election, maybe two. After that, voters expect you to at the very least address other issues as well. There are only so many taxes that you can cut and so many assets you can privatize.
Part of the problem, particularly for conservatives, is that pivoting away from those two issues tends to anger a part of your voter base who think you’re “selling out” to big government
What it primarily shows is a lack of imagination. A generation ago, Preston Manning was leagues ahead of his federal colleagues on democratic reform when it came to the Senate, direct democracy and the role of the MP. Revisiting some of those ideas – particularly with regard to reforming Question Period, allowing more free votes, introducing a new Whipping system to the House, would have been consistent with the Canadian conservative tradition and would have wrong-footed the opposition.
But the Tories stuck to their message track and they are where they are.
Bench Strength
From 2011 to 2014, Harper lost Jim Prentice, Lawrence Cannon, Josee Verner, Jim Flaherty, John Baird, Peter MacKay, James Moore, Stockwell Day and Chuck Strahl to retirement, defeat and death.
That’s not unusual over the course of a long running government, but it does necessitate active succession planning that the Harper team just never did.
As senior roles came available, stability was valued over talent. So, Jim Flaherty was replaced by Joe Oliver instead of Lisa Raitt or Kellie Leitch. Peter MacKay was replaced by Rob Nicholson instead of Erin O’Toole.
It took these Tories too long to promote the youth on their bench and, as a result, the Prime Minister was left without any real reinforcement on the campaign trail. Michelle Rempel, it should be noted, has done an admirable job doing media for the Tories this election and has probably surpassed Rona Ambrose as the most prominent conservative woman from the West.
Too Much Runway
A 77 Day campaign was always a bad idea. A 77 Day campaign during which the Duffy Trial was going to play a role was a catastrophic miscalculation.
But it wasn’t the only problem with the 77 Day campaign.
The whole premise of the Tory message track heading into the campaign was that Justin Trudeau wasn’t ready. The problem was that the whole message was incumbent on voters agreeing with the premise. It assumed that voters had been paying attention to politics over the previous 3 years and had made up their mind about Mr. Trudeau.
As someone who works in professional politics, I can tell you to an absolute certainty that unless you are the one in government, voters make up their mind about you during campaigns – not between them. And the Tories should have known this.
The 77 day campaign allowed Mr. Trudeau too many opportunities to confound low expectations (that the Tories had helped lower) and seem like he was more ready than the Tories made him seem early on. Through a combination of solid debate performances, and cutting way back on his gaffes, Trudeau took advantage of the extended runway.
The Change Agent
I also think that it gave Trudeau more opportunity to distinguish himself from leader who were, from an image standpoint, very similar. They were two baby-boomer, buttoned down, formerly middle class, and managerial figures. Trudeau, by contrast, cut himself as this sort of Young Lochinvar figure that was radically different from his two stodgy counterparts. It’s a part, to Trudeau’s credit, that he’s played rather deftly.
It’s also here that his deficit pledge did him the greatest favour. With Mulcair and Harper both promising a balanced budget, Trudeau promised to go into deficit. Now, I will maintain that most Canadians can’t give you the macro-economic Keynesian reasons for appropriate deficit spending at this point in Canada’s economic cycle. But those voters looking for change, according to the best polling data we have, were less likely to care if the budget was balanced.
Trudeau went where the voters were. Voters wanted change, the voters who wanted change were less likely to care if the budget was balanced, but the other two parties were promising balanced budget. Marry something most voters care about (Change), subtract something they don’t (Balanced Budget) and use the natural brand advantage on Image that Trudeau has as a change agent.
(C – B) x I = Liberal surge.
The Niqab and the Politics of Values Orientation
The last Abacus poll of the campaign is the most important underlying fact here. Voters for whom the economy was the number one issue were overwhelmingly more likely to vote Tory. Voters for whom a leader or Party that shares their values was their number one issue were overwhelmingly more likely to vote Liberal.
Why?
The Niqab was supposed to be the cornerstone values issue for the Conservatives. The polls all showed, regardless of who did the poll that at least 4 in 5 Canadians agreed with the Tories on the Niqab. In Quebec, it was coming up as a priority issue for voters.
Why haven’t those voters shown up in Tory polling numbers? I can even hear you saying “Wolfie, since we started talking about the Niqab, the Liberals have surged. What the hell?”
Two things happened. First, there were voters attached to the NDP that simply aren’t natural NDP voters and those people live in Quebec. The Niqab issue scraped them off the NDP and moved them to the Tories. Thomas Mulcair arguably did the ballsiest, most authentic thing any politician did in this election when he took a position on the Niqab that he knew would weaken his party because it was the right thing to do.
But, by weakening that Quebec base, he also took the NDP out of the conversation as a replacement to the Tories. By removing them from that poll position, he sent change voters to the Liberals in the rest of Canada.
The first week or two we were talking about the Niqab, though, the Tories led the polls, so when did the ‘Values Voter’ abandon the Tories for the Liberals?
The polling data shows the shift beginning around October 4th or 5th and continuing from there. On October 2nd, the Tories rolled out their “Barbaric Cultural Practices” tip-line and the narrative around the Niqab changed. The Tories went from having a narrative that was moving values votes (particularly among suburban moms, according to sources of mine) to a campaign that was being denounced everywhere as discriminatory.
Canadians in English Canada aren’t used to these debates. In fact those moderates in English Canada are very leery of this kind of campaign. That moved those values voters to the Liberals.
In Quebec, where this kind of debate has been going on for decades, voters have a stronger stomach for it and some even have an appetite. And even there, values voters picked the Bloc over the Tories.
Liberal numbers in Ontario and British Columbia started to spike right around this time.
Gagnier, Ford and the Horse that Left the Barn
3.4 Million Canadians cast their ballots over the Thanksgiving weekend. Using the 2011 election as a baseline (14.7 million total votes), that means that about 23.8 percent of all votes were cast prior to the shenanigans of the last week of the campaign.
Most political operatives will tell you that if you have a sizeable lead in the box at the end of the advanced poll, it’s damn hard to overcome on Election Day. Not impossible, just damn hard.
Ironically, the scandals of the last week exposed the fundamental weaknesses of both traditional parties’ campaigns at a time when they were least vulnerable – when most voters had made up their mind.
Stephen Harper’s sharpened elbows were always a brand negative but the person who did the most damage to the Tories with them throughout the campaign was Stephen Harper. Harper seemed to pick fights that were either unnecessary or ill-timed. Willing to toss some base conservative principles overboard to play to a narrower and narrower base of voters. Nowhere was this more evident than in bringing Rob Ford on board in the last week.
Justin Trudeau’s great weakness was that he was, and is, a typical politician to his core. He is a typical say anything, do anything Liberal to his core. And nobody really jumped on that – which amazed me! That was the NDP’s play against Trudeau and it always should have been.
The most effective negative ads are ones that either amplify brand weakness (Tory style) or undermine brand strength. The NDP, should have done the latter. Outline the ways Justin Trudeau is just a typical politician. It’s a classic voter suppression tactic against a change agent. I’m amazed the NDP waited until the horse had left the barn to finally go there.
What Happened?
The Gods of the Electorate are not to be Mocked
Governments of a certain vintage just develop bad habits. There are some symptoms that are common to all parties. One of them is treating taxpayers like a personal piggy bank.
When the Duffy scandal hit a couple years ago, there was a right way to handle it and there was every other way to handle it. The government picked the latter. Once Nigel Wright was involved, and the communications team in the PMO was involved and the Issues Management team in the PMO was involved, the jig was up.
Sometimes, the Gods of the Electorate have a way of telling a political leader when to exit stage right (or left). Gordon Campbell, Jean Chretien, Margaret Thatcher and Dalton McGuinty all got that one. Their parties all won elections after they stepped down.
If Stephen Harper makes his exit at the end of the spring session of parliament in 2013, he may have spared his party. Because from that moment on, there was five to ten percent of the electorate that had simply given up on the Tories.
The One-Eyed Man is King
The other thing that happens with governments of a certain age is a natural constriction in their policy goals. Governments that always have something to do are governments continually presenting a new vision to the electorate.
What Tories are prone to – as evidenced by Mike Harris previously – is the natural limitations of their particular ideology. The mission to cut taxes and/or privatize assets works for one election, maybe two. After that, voters expect you to at the very least address other issues as well. There are only so many taxes that you can cut and so many assets you can privatize.
Part of the problem, particularly for conservatives, is that pivoting away from those two issues tends to anger a part of your voter base who think you’re “selling out” to big government
What it primarily shows is a lack of imagination. A generation ago, Preston Manning was leagues ahead of his federal colleagues on democratic reform when it came to the Senate, direct democracy and the role of the MP. Revisiting some of those ideas – particularly with regard to reforming Question Period, allowing more free votes, introducing a new Whipping system to the House, would have been consistent with the Canadian conservative tradition and would have wrong-footed the opposition.
But the Tories stuck to their message track and they are where they are.
Bench Strength
From 2011 to 2014, Harper lost Jim Prentice, Lawrence Cannon, Josee Verner, Jim Flaherty, John Baird, Peter MacKay, James Moore, Stockwell Day and Chuck Strahl to retirement, defeat and death.
That’s not unusual over the course of a long running government, but it does necessitate active succession planning that the Harper team just never did.
As senior roles came available, stability was valued over talent. So, Jim Flaherty was replaced by Joe Oliver instead of Lisa Raitt or Kellie Leitch. Peter MacKay was replaced by Rob Nicholson instead of Erin O’Toole.
It took these Tories too long to promote the youth on their bench and, as a result, the Prime Minister was left without any real reinforcement on the campaign trail. Michelle Rempel, it should be noted, has done an admirable job doing media for the Tories this election and has probably surpassed Rona Ambrose as the most prominent conservative woman from the West.
Too Much Runway
A 77 Day campaign was always a bad idea. A 77 Day campaign during which the Duffy Trial was going to play a role was a catastrophic miscalculation.
But it wasn’t the only problem with the 77 Day campaign.
The whole premise of the Tory message track heading into the campaign was that Justin Trudeau wasn’t ready. The problem was that the whole message was incumbent on voters agreeing with the premise. It assumed that voters had been paying attention to politics over the previous 3 years and had made up their mind about Mr. Trudeau.
As someone who works in professional politics, I can tell you to an absolute certainty that unless you are the one in government, voters make up their mind about you during campaigns – not between them. And the Tories should have known this.
The 77 day campaign allowed Mr. Trudeau too many opportunities to confound low expectations (that the Tories had helped lower) and seem like he was more ready than the Tories made him seem early on. Through a combination of solid debate performances, and cutting way back on his gaffes, Trudeau took advantage of the extended runway.
The Change Agent
I also think that it gave Trudeau more opportunity to distinguish himself from leader who were, from an image standpoint, very similar. They were two baby-boomer, buttoned down, formerly middle class, and managerial figures. Trudeau, by contrast, cut himself as this sort of Young Lochinvar figure that was radically different from his two stodgy counterparts. It’s a part, to Trudeau’s credit, that he’s played rather deftly.
It’s also here that his deficit pledge did him the greatest favour. With Mulcair and Harper both promising a balanced budget, Trudeau promised to go into deficit. Now, I will maintain that most Canadians can’t give you the macro-economic Keynesian reasons for appropriate deficit spending at this point in Canada’s economic cycle. But those voters looking for change, according to the best polling data we have, were less likely to care if the budget was balanced.
Trudeau went where the voters were. Voters wanted change, the voters who wanted change were less likely to care if the budget was balanced, but the other two parties were promising balanced budget. Marry something most voters care about (Change), subtract something they don’t (Balanced Budget) and use the natural brand advantage on Image that Trudeau has as a change agent.
(C – B) x I = Liberal surge.
The Niqab and the Politics of Values Orientation
The last Abacus poll of the campaign is the most important underlying fact here. Voters for whom the economy was the number one issue were overwhelmingly more likely to vote Tory. Voters for whom a leader or Party that shares their values was their number one issue were overwhelmingly more likely to vote Liberal.
Why?
The Niqab was supposed to be the cornerstone values issue for the Conservatives. The polls all showed, regardless of who did the poll that at least 4 in 5 Canadians agreed with the Tories on the Niqab. In Quebec, it was coming up as a priority issue for voters.
Why haven’t those voters shown up in Tory polling numbers? I can even hear you saying “Wolfie, since we started talking about the Niqab, the Liberals have surged. What the hell?”
Two things happened. First, there were voters attached to the NDP that simply aren’t natural NDP voters and those people live in Quebec. The Niqab issue scraped them off the NDP and moved them to the Tories. Thomas Mulcair arguably did the ballsiest, most authentic thing any politician did in this election when he took a position on the Niqab that he knew would weaken his party because it was the right thing to do.
But, by weakening that Quebec base, he also took the NDP out of the conversation as a replacement to the Tories. By removing them from that poll position, he sent change voters to the Liberals in the rest of Canada.
The first week or two we were talking about the Niqab, though, the Tories led the polls, so when did the ‘Values Voter’ abandon the Tories for the Liberals?
The polling data shows the shift beginning around October 4th or 5th and continuing from there. On October 2nd, the Tories rolled out their “Barbaric Cultural Practices” tip-line and the narrative around the Niqab changed. The Tories went from having a narrative that was moving values votes (particularly among suburban moms, according to sources of mine) to a campaign that was being denounced everywhere as discriminatory.
Canadians in English Canada aren’t used to these debates. In fact those moderates in English Canada are very leery of this kind of campaign. That moved those values voters to the Liberals.
In Quebec, where this kind of debate has been going on for decades, voters have a stronger stomach for it and some even have an appetite. And even there, values voters picked the Bloc over the Tories.
Liberal numbers in Ontario and British Columbia started to spike right around this time.
Gagnier, Ford and the Horse that Left the Barn
3.4 Million Canadians cast their ballots over the Thanksgiving weekend. Using the 2011 election as a baseline (14.7 million total votes), that means that about 23.8 percent of all votes were cast prior to the shenanigans of the last week of the campaign.
Most political operatives will tell you that if you have a sizeable lead in the box at the end of the advanced poll, it’s damn hard to overcome on Election Day. Not impossible, just damn hard.
Ironically, the scandals of the last week exposed the fundamental weaknesses of both traditional parties’ campaigns at a time when they were least vulnerable – when most voters had made up their mind.
Stephen Harper’s sharpened elbows were always a brand negative but the person who did the most damage to the Tories with them throughout the campaign was Stephen Harper. Harper seemed to pick fights that were either unnecessary or ill-timed. Willing to toss some base conservative principles overboard to play to a narrower and narrower base of voters. Nowhere was this more evident than in bringing Rob Ford on board in the last week.
Justin Trudeau’s great weakness was that he was, and is, a typical politician to his core. He is a typical say anything, do anything Liberal to his core. And nobody really jumped on that – which amazed me! That was the NDP’s play against Trudeau and it always should have been.
The most effective negative ads are ones that either amplify brand weakness (Tory style) or undermine brand strength. The NDP, should have done the latter. Outline the ways Justin Trudeau is just a typical politician. It’s a classic voter suppression tactic against a change agent. I’m amazed the NDP waited until the horse had left the barn to finally go there.
blacksheep
New member
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
Stockwell Day for CPC leader! lol
Stockwell Day for CPC leader! lol
blacksheep
New member
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
Harper at the mic now...
Harper at the mic now...
axlsalinger
Well-known member
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
"Friends, I will now attempt to set the world record for most times saying the word 'friends' in a political speech. And once the speech is done friends, I invite you to remain in the room, where we will Netflix binge-watch season 1 of Friends on the big screen behind me."
"Friends, I will now attempt to set the world record for most times saying the word 'friends' in a political speech. And once the speech is done friends, I invite you to remain in the room, where we will Netflix binge-watch season 1 of Friends on the big screen behind me."
blacksheep
New member
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
Well, he didn't announce retirement, but I can't imagine he will stick around.
Well, he didn't announce retirement, but I can't imagine he will stick around.
blacksheep
New member
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
I bet they were the biggest swing in this election. He did such a great job dealing with them... NOT!
I bet they were the biggest swing in this election. He did such a great job dealing with them... NOT!
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Re: OT: Canadian Politics
Ding dong the witch is dead, which old witch? The wicked witch!
Ding dong the witch is dead, which old witch? The wicked witch!
