Liberals Look to 2006 Strategy After 2008 Disaster?
November 26, 2009 · By Matthew Campbell
The Liberals, and their cheerleaders in the Toronto media, simply don’t get it! From a strictly strategic point of view, I’ve seen this time and time before in the business world — a former market leader, trounced by a new and innovative successor, tries something new for the sake of new and falls flat on its face before coming to the conclusion that the bland, old ways of doing things can work again if only the effort is really sincere.
Enter Lawrence Martin, whose political insights are so honed, that he’s joining Frank McKenna in giving the Tories the upcoming Red playbook months before the next election! Misjudging 2008’s election results as too ideologically fought, the Liberal Party of Canada has, following McKenna’s lead, abandoned the principle notion for the good ol’ strategy of fear-mongering. “Just bring out Harper’s old quotes!” they say, as if that is some magical panacea that will bring the Liberals back above 100 seats in the Commons.
Just as Yahoo!, Eaton’s, Sony and MySpace all found out though, times change! It’s one thing to, for example, refer to a 1997 quote from the Prime Minister about our need to get rid of the Canada Health Act, but another to follow the argument though on why this means the incumbent entering his fourth year in office needs to be turfed. Garble up the “second tier” quote as they will, the Liberals will also have a hard time explaining how their leader was more recently condoning the use of torture. This isn’t 2000 anymore…for that matter, it isn’t even 2006 anymore where the Liberals could still rely on a certain level of incumbent comfort among the electorate.
In this new era, it is the Tories who can, and have been, making the arguments against the unknown and untested. Unlike the Liberals though, they haven’t been tied down with a scandal as big as the Chretien-era AdScam issue, and still have some degree of principle over the Liberal Party. The best that a Liberal scorched earth campaign could do is, perhaps, spook a few voters in Toronto, for all the good it will do. The rest of the country, nay world is concentrated right now on the bread and butter issues. Chretien survived the Somalia Inquiry without a scratch; Harper will get by these torture issues just fine. As for what will win the election — taxes, jobs, stability — what have the Liberals said, other than a leader’s musings last April in Cambridge (Ontario, not Mass.; just needed to make that clear!) about the need to raise taxes. That’ll be a winner…for a 2nd tier party competing with the NDP right now!
Taxes, jobs and stability. Don’t forget the deficit.
If I were in the liberal war room, I’d try to make this election about the economy. If they make it about the torture issue, without having all of the facts, it’s a crap shoot. Maybe we’ll find out that the government had no idea what was happening in Afghanistan. Even if they did, it’s going to be denied infinitely since nobody would admit to sending people to their deaths.
They should make this about the economy.
55.9 billion as a deficit is a hard fact.
Flaherty revising the deficit 3 times is a fact. and it made him look incompetent.
Reducing the GST and demonstrating how that has impacted the deficit would also be a better angle to use than to simply talk about raising taxes.
If the Liberals have a chance to gain ground, it will not come from targeting the suddenly less wooden Stephen Harper (who apparently likes to get high with a little help from his friends).
Target Flaherty, point to the economy, make comparisons between Flaherty and Paul Martin and scream bloody murder that it’s the fault of the conservatives and swing votes could be gained. Unemployment is up across the board nowadays, not just in Ontario and managing the economy will resonate with voters.
Just some armchair quarterbacking.
Gee RD, the hardest hit right now is Alberta.
Singing the sorrows of big oil country is going to win Liberals votes?
Everything else you mentioned, they have been doing for months.
Plus cheque-gate, logo-gate, bogybag-gate and war crimes-gate.
The GST reduction is stimulus.
And with the uproar over the HST in Liberaland,
that’s the feds defence, they cut the federal portion of the HST.
Now that Climategate-’hide the decline’ is world wide,
bringing up Harper’s call that Kyoto was a socialist money grab from wealthy nations, might help him.
No, the Libs will have to go all nasty and call Harper fat, or a Beatles wanna-be or….
“Hitting back at an absolutely damning development”
What is it in particular that was “absolutely damning”? If you can supply quotes, all the better.
Trying to get federal Liberal votes in Alberta right now would be like getting klansmen to volunteer for ACORN. I think they’re priority will be the swing votes in the 519, and in BC.
Again, the biggest issue they should hammer the conservatives on is the record deficits and the speed with which they went from surpluses to record deficits. I’m not going to debate the merits of these arguments since the economy tanked but I think that this issue has the best optics for them to pull votes from the conservatives.
The real problem with the Liberals is the leadership. First Dion, now Ignatief lack the credibility to match up with Harper. Even though its a party system, the focus will always be on the leader.
Who knew Harper could sing? If he had pulled that stunt earlier, he might have taken down Paul Martin sooner:)