Reflections on the Election in Canada Right Hook JJ McCullough, OP Columnist Well exams are over, Christmas is over, boxing day is over, and now New Year’s Eve is over. Amidst all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season you can be excused for having overlooked that other thing that recently concluded—the 2005 phase of the federal election campaign. It’s too bad, really, because amid all the studying, shopping, and boozing, some very inter- esting political developments were happening in the background. Here are my reflections on what’s transpired over the last couple of weeks: 1) The Conservative Party (CPC) has waged a really, really good campaign. Even among the most jaded analysts there seems to be little denial about this. Since day one, the conduct of the CPC has greatly exceeded the low expectations everyone had for them. Whereas pundits predicted an excessively angry Conservative campaign—dominated by constant bitching about the Sponsorship mess and little else—Harper et al have instead surprised many with their consistently upbeat, heavily policy-driven campaign. Thanks to the party’s clever “policy-a-day” scheme, the CPC has successfully and repeatedly dominated the Canadian news cycle with a flurry of clear, attractive proposals which have in turn done a great deal to help re-brand the party’s image. No longer the scary party with the vague hid- den agenda, the Conservatives can now be clearly defined as the party of GST cuts, an elected Senate, and a $1,200 baby bonus, among other things. Such keystone policies are conservative in ideology, but also ptimarily populist in their appeal. In other words, pre- cisely the sort of politics that can convert the undecided. 2) The media has been fair. That’s one sentence I did- n’t expect to be typing, but alas, it’s true. This obvious- ly may change as the weeks progress, but to date I can honestly say that, for the most part, the mainstream outlets of the Canadian press (the CBC, The Globe and Mail, etc.) have not been nearly as biased in their elec- tion coverage as one would have expected going in. Part of this, of course, is simply due to point number one. The Conservatives have done a great job getting their campaign messages out early (often through morning press conferences), and, as a result, have successfully managed to get their messages to dominate the headline-hungry news cycle for much of the previous month. The Liberals, by contrast, have been relegated to the role of defensive reactionaries, sought out by opinions 7 reporters only after the latest Conservative declaration and asked to justify the embattled status quo—not a position most candidates are comfortable in. Such defenses have often been badly bungled —the “beer and popcorn” declaration of Paul Martin’s communi- cations director being the most infamous. But in gen- eral, the Liberals have never come off looking too hot when the Prime Minister is forced into a corner explaining why the GST should be preserved or why Canadians should not be allowed to elect their own senators. There have been no overblown stories about out- of-context quotations from obscure CPC party bureau- crats, few attempts to dig up dirt on Harpet’s past, and far fewer of the once-common headlines where Conservatives are implicitly assigned all sorts of nega- tive characteristics. “Tories Struggle to Abandon Redneck Bigot Image,” for instance. Neutral reporting should be the rule, not the exception, yet in Canada this has sadly not been the case. The fact that we appear to be witnessing something of a fundamental change in this regard can thus mean one of two things: either the Liberals have become increasingly indefensible, even among their traditional media allies, or this is merely the calm before the storm. 3) Lastly, despite the fact that the planets seem to be aligning in the Conservatives’ favour, we have seen lit- tle reflection of this in the polls. As I write this, the National Post is proclaiming “Tories Take the Lead.” But upon closer investigation, this so-called lead is at best a 2-3 percentage point sliver, well within most continued on pg. 9 ~~ Blogsmack! ~~ Left Overs lain Reeve, OP Loser Wowza! What a little election we have ourselves here. It's hard to decide what to write about when one comes back after a month off in the middle of a crazy campaign, but there is one trend I have certainly noticed. Blogs have become a big part of any modern elec- tion campaign. Besides being a good posting board where major candidates can let their faithful know which rural farm or city center they will be visiting, blogs let us get to know our candidates and party staff on a more personal level. We get to see all the little goods, bads, and uglies that define our candidates as people rather than political campaigning machines. Parties dig their own graves via Internet There is a brutal honesty that often occurs in blogs that you just won’t find anywhere else. This is exactly why party hacks are no doubt cursing their existence during this campaign. The Liberals have had the most self-inflicted dam- age done by their bloggers thus far. The Executive Vice President of the Ontario wing of the party, on his per- sonal blog, made some pretty wicked comments about Jack Layton and his wife, fellow NDP candidate Olivia Chow. While Jacky boy got off easy, being called an ass- hole, a picture of Olivia was placed beside a picture of a chow-chow dog with the tagline “separated at birth?” Yikes! Of course, the Liberal spin machine was quick to point out that a personal blog does not reflect the views of the Liberal party, but the media was damning nonetheless. The second shot was made by, of all people, Jamie Elhirst, president of the Liberals in BC. On his cam- paign blog he posted that industry minister David Emerson claimed Jack Layton had a “boiled dog’s head smile.” What’s with all the NDP bashing? Poor Jack must be just dousing his hotel pillows with tears nightly. Add to this one “beer and popcorn” fiasco and one Conservative campaign manager who claimed he and his associates in Alberta would move towards separation should the Liberals win (good riddance?), and we may soon see “Loose Lips Sink Ships” posters up beside those of leader’s mugs in campaign offices from the Pacific to the Atlantic. As with everything in politics, honesty seems to ruin everything. Well for all the people crying bloody murder over these incidents, I have three words: get over it. Take the beer and popcorn incident, for instance. A Liberal stooge claims that some parents would use the Conservative child-care rebate on things besides child- care, like beer and popcorn, and suddenly fire is falling from the sky. The fact is some parents, like everyone else, are losers and will spend any coin they can squeeze out of their kids on anything but their kids. I don’t get all up in arms when a new youth crime initiative gets announced. I don’t claim the parties are calling all youth criminals; they're claiming some are and that something should be done about it. In a political age where honesty and frankness have given way to spin, false representation, prepared speech- es, and question dodging, I respect anyone who will go out and give an honest opinion, pretty or ugly. While I do not condone senseless name calling—that’s not proper political discourse—more parties and candidates need to fearlessly state their true feelings. Mama Reeve always said honesty is the best policy; she never said anything about an exemption for politics. That kind of stuff got me grounded, so maybe we should start grounding politicians who don’t do the same.