Lessons From The North
I have a long-held eccentric interest in Canadian politics, so like Ken Baer I'm intrigued by the similarities between the political strategies adopted by the Conservative Party in Canada and the Democrats in the USA faced with an entrenched, corrupted incumbent party:
What they will have is a record of corruption that surely rivals that of Canadian Liberals. The lesson for Democrats is that while scandal may tarnish the opposition, anger and revulsion is not enough to win an election. No matter where they live, people want national leadership that can offer a vision of where the country should be going, and that is unencumbered by the battles of the past. For instance, arguing about what went wrong with the intelligence leading up to the war is important; but it's politically worthless if Democrats can't put forward a plan to stabilize Iraq and present a coherent view of America's proper role in the world. Sweeping the bums out is not enough: You must say what you will do once you occupy the capital. And if the vision offered is neither in sync with the times nor the underlying public philosophy of the country, it will go nowhere--no matter the depth of the opposition's misdeeds.
Canadian Conservatives learned this lesson in 2004. Now they will try to use the politics of reform to dislodge one of the most successful political parties in Anglo-American history. If they pull it off, Democrats in Washington may come to see this strategy as a roadmap to victory in 2008--and the best thing to come out of Canada since their beloved Nationals.
I largely agree. Indeed, the mirror-universe nature of Canadian politics is in some ways stronger since, like the Democrats, the conservatives face an electorate that's specifically skeptical of their cultural politics and foreign policy orientation. That said, I would caution against hanging too much on the specific question of whether or no the Conservatives "pull it off." Boring details follow below the fold.
The basic problem is that despite the curious convergence of election strategies, Canadian and American politics are pretty fundamentally different. Notably, Canada has two minor-major parties, the left-wing New Democratic Party and the separatist Bloc Qu
"Under that scenario the voters swing left but the results swing right."
This is exactly what happened in the UK [See analysis here and here]. The Conservative party did gain about .5% in the popular vote, but the Liberal Democrats picked up 3.0%. Meanwhile, the Tories gained 31 seats from Labour, and in 60% of those races, the defections from Labour to the Lib Dems provided the margin of victory. Liberal Democrats did gain seats at the expense of Labour and the Conservatives as well, but in terms of a raw number of seats gained, the Tories fared better. So the shape of parliament is now a bit more conservative than before.
I think there's a real chance for a Conservative-BQ government that just tries to tear the whole federal system to shreds.
November 30, 2005 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's as much a question of people as policies. Do you trust what they're saying?
Harper is seen as having a (barely) hidden social conservative agenda -- witness his opening the campaign yesterday with a promise to re-open the gay marriage "question." If people thought they could vote Conservative and get a basically centre-right government, I think they would have last year, and may still this time out. But the Conservatives have a strong core from the old Reform Party whose members regularly challenged immigration, minority and women's rights, and some pretty basic social programs. And Conservative politicians still pop out some pretty amazingly retrograde comments, especially under the pressure of a campaign.
There's a general feeling in a lot of urban places that apart from a few reasonable people, the Harper Conservatives want to tear up the country and create America North -- ultra low taxes and god-fearing, low-service government...
If Harper's going to win, he's going to have to articulate a pretty substantial (and centrist) platform. Not just articulate it -- make people in urban and central Canada believe that he believes it. That's a tall order, but that's the only way he'll earn any trust. (And I sincerely hope he doesn't.)
Democrats on the other hand aren't fighting from that kind of perceptual hole -- no one (no one serious, anyway) believes that they're an extremist party (like the Communists) in sheep's clothing.
The shambles left by the Bush republicans will be bad, and any reasonably competent but real politician will work for the Dems in 2008 -- not a Gore, Kerry or Dukakis, who were basically tone deaf, with no honest political instincts.
November 30, 2005 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually think the Tories have no chance until they dump Harper as leader and bring on a leadership (and not just a PM) without ties to Reform/Alliance. I wouldn't be surprised if the Liberals actually gain seats in this election: I'd see that as more likely than even a Conservative minority, which would have to depend on the Bloc, and thus is fundamentally unacceptable in Ontario. It wouldn't thus be "just" a center-right government, or even just a GOP style right government, but a GOP style government more or less committed to destroying the country. The current polling tends to bear this out, with the Liberals holding anywhere between a 6 to 8 point national lead and a 10 to 14 point lead in Ontario. Any support that drifts from the Liberals tends to go over to be from their Left flank (thus to the NDP), not their right flank.
I think most Canadians simply view the "new" Conservative Party as basically a vehicle for the old Reform Party, which leaves it not much more than a regional party still. A lot of the old PCers simply went over to the Liberals after the hostile takeover Harper's gang pulled. A move made easier by the fact the Liberals have moved somewhat rightward economically over the last 20 years or so.
November 30, 2005 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
The rebuttal offered by John Kerry does not exactly answer many questions. This was a very bland, monotonous rebuttal on the part of Kerry and the Dems. After reading the document, the first thing that stands out is the lack of alternatives mentioned. Like his failed Presidential campaign, nothing NEW was offered.Rather, he merely berated the president and his administration on why "they" will fail. It is exactly this polarizing, separatist attitude which has aliented the Democratic Party to most main stream Americans. Why else could Bush have some of the lowest approval ratings of any president ever and yet his opposing party have very little by way of political gains
November 30, 2005 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
scooter --
Yeah, I think this is exactly right. The regional character is of course an ever-present factor of Canadian politics. (Though contrary to Matt's suggestion, I think the NPD is a national party--just one that gets screwed by the first-past-the-post system. Look at their percentage of the popular vote accross the country from the last election. They're everywhere other than Quebec. And these days, not even the Grits are in Quebec in significant numbers.)
But the real reason the Liberals have turned into the "Natural Governing Party" is that they occupy the perfect compromise sweet-spot on the Canadian political spectrum. They're the centerist party: a little to the left on social issues and foreign policy and a little to the right on fiscal issues. (Centrist Dems, hold your salivation: it's all still way too left for your tastes.)
Add to that the fact that Canadians are mostly employed, have cheap and easy access to great education and healthcare, and you've got a population that's not really looking to make big changes.
In that politcal environment, for the Conservatives to make big gains, they'd have to tack hard to the center. Now of course, their strategy will be precisely to appear to be doing that. But would anyone believe them? After all, they are the Conservative Party for a reason, and everyone knows it.
Now, never underestimate the Canadian voter's willingness to cut off her nose to spite her face when tossing a bad government out of office. But for the Conservatives to capitalize on that tendency, they just need to be all AdScam, all the time (contra Baer's claim).
November 30, 2005 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's what I'm wondering about:
Let's say the Conservatives actually win a plurality of the vote. They're not going to win a majority, right? So they need to ally with one of the 3 other parties to gain a majority in parliament. Who? BQ?
And what happens if the Liberals don't win a plurality, but the Liberals plus NDP wins, in the aggregate, a majority?
November 30, 2005 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
"What they will have is a record of corruption that surely rivals that of Canadian Liberals."
Whoa there, sonny. Did you just compare
against
(Disclaimer: I'm Canadian and I vote NDP.)
Sébastien Loisel
November 30, 2005 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then we'll have a parliament remarkably like the one that was just dissolved.
November 30, 2005 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a good chance that the Conservatives will improve their showing over the vote in 2004. In 2004, many Canadians were afraid of Harper because they considered him 'Bush lite', and Bush was (and still is) hated in Canada. However, Bush's political capital is pretty much spent, and Canucks will not be as concerned about moving slightly right. Harper himself will avoid appearing to be a Bush fan because it screwed him in 2004, and Harper learned the lesson, and he also realizes that Canada, under the Chrietien Liberals, were dead right about avoiding anything to do with Bush. Canada has been on the right side of the Iraq issue from day one, and Harper will have to gracefully acknowledge that during the coming campaign. If he doesn't he won't stand a chance.
November 30, 2005 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the wierd thing about Candians: we actually trust our government. The famous "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness" bit is replaced by "peace, order, and good government." So when the government does things that transgress the boundaries, Canadians tend to bitch very loudly and then shrug.
The most significant thing I learned about politics when I moved to the U.S. from Canada eight years ago is that Americans seems to have an almost pathological fear of their own governement. Canadians don't. It has significant historical roots (Pierre Berton's very short and funny book Why We Act like Canadians, a fictional letter exchange btw a Canadian and American, covers it well), but the upshot is that generalizing from one to the other on the basis of our responses to anything government does. We have all Patriot Act all the time, and don't really care. Our government is corrupt and self-serving, but if they seem to doing their jobs reasonably well in the process, then we bitch and then shrug.
It has always struck me that the Reform Party's (and the Conservatives are still Reform) chief political is that they campaigned in a very American style, which Candians don't respond to.
Another important point is that our MSM is much less sensationalist and dominated by paid mouthpieces. But they are also even more interested in the status quo than their US couterpart because they are so used to the Liberals. If someone could duplicate what happened in Ontario in the early 90s when the entire press turned on David Peterson, that would be a political coup. It's also the only way the Conservatives will ever win.
December 1, 2005 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
the sentence "...the upshot is that generalizing from one to the other on the basis of our responses to anything government does" is supposed to end with IS A MISTAKE. Sorry.
December 1, 2005 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
<span class="Apple-style-span">"In that politcal environment, for the Conservatives to make big gains, they'd have to tack hard to the center. Now of course, their strategy will be precisely to </span><span class="Apple-style-span">appear</span><span class="Apple-style-span">to be doing that. But would anyone believe them?"</span><span class="Apple-style-span">
</span><span class="Apple-style-span">I a</span><span class="Apple-style-span">bsolutely agree. If Peter MacKay were their leader, I think a Conservative victory would be, to use George Tenet's favourite phrase, "a slam dunk." I have no idea if he is more personally/politically moderate than Harper, but being a former PC, the media certainly portrays him that way. </span><span class="Apple-style-span">
</span><span class="Apple-style-span">It's going to be interesting, seeing how all these factors play out: general apathy; a general dislike for the "arrogant and corrupt" Liberals; a particular dislike for Harper; the renewed (and somewhat inexplicable, to me) separatist sentiment; and Layton's quasi-makover of the NDP's media image. </span><span class="Apple-style-span">Especially with so many in the media saying it's going to be like 2004 all over again, I have a funny feeling that something quite diferent will happen -- like the Liberals getting completely wiped out -- or winning a slim majority...</span>
December 2, 2005 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink