Saturday, December 02, 2006

Here's why Harper is Happy

Good for Canada; bad for the Liberal Party.

That's how I would sum up the results of the Liberal leadership contest.

Stéphane Dion seems like a decent person, but I doubt he is the guy who will help restore the former glory of the Liberal Party.

Pierre Trudeau he aint.

I mean most Canadians are likely saying "Stephane who?"

And he isn't exactly a fiery campaigner.

What it all adds up to is he will probably not help the Liberals grow in the West nor I suspect will he help them break out much beyond their Ontario and Montreal strongholds.

So why did the Liberals pick him?

Simply because he was acceptable to both the Chretien and Martin factions, who fought each other to a standstill in this race.

They decided to call a truce and elect Dion as a kind of a place holder leader until they can resume their combat after the next election.

In my view, the candidate Harper should have feared the most was Bob Rae.

Yes he was a disaster as Ontario Premier, but he is an excellent campaigner, articulate, media savvy and experienced.

And politicians who have experienced both victory and defeat usually make the toughest opponents.

Fortunately for the country, the Liberals didn't figure this out.

Finally, there's poor Michael Ignatieff, who a friend of mine once described as a "prodigal, self-nominated matinee idol."

Remember how the media gushed over this ex-Harvard professor?

Well they forgot one thing: eggheads don't make good politicians. You don't win elections with appeals to the intellect; you win them with appeals to emotion.

Of course, over the next few months the Liberal-friendly media will try and convince us that by shunning the two front-runners and electing Dion, the Liberals have pulled off a masterstroke.

Don't buy it.

I expect Stephen Harper is pretty happy right now.


6 comments:

Brian said...

What it all adds up to is he will probably not help the Liberals grow in the West

How many times did he say sustainable energy in his acceptance speech. He was already blowing off the west.

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

I wouldn't be so sure. In the West, it is true he won't be popular in the Prairie Provinces, but British Columbia is the only province in the West the Liberals have a strong prospect for growth and it is probably the most environmentally conscious province so I think he could gain seats in BC.

I think Rae was a much bigger roll of the dice. Yes he could have done better than Dion, but he could also do much worse. With Dion as leader they have a very good chance of winning and if they don't win at least they will form a strong opposition.

Logos said...

Bob Rae’s brother John ran Bob’s campaign to get elected as Liberal Party leader. John Rae was leading strategist for Prime Minister Chretien's election campaign. Was Executive Vice- President of Power Corp. and Paul Desmarais' right-hand man.

http://www.canoe.ca/mb2/messages/cnewsf/13290.html

The Liberal Old Guard is sidelined. Had Dryden given his support to Kennedy after the first round of voting, Kennedy would then have beat out Dion on the next ballot. The majority of Dion’s people would then have supported Rae and Rae would be King instead of Dion. Rae’s defeat must taste all the more bitter on account of this miscalculation by the Rae strategists! There is a God. He lays awry the best-laid plans of mice and men.

The masters of the deception appeal to the trusting young: “ We can save the planet. We gave you Kyoto. Vote for us.” Meanwhile, once they get control of the levers of power, they further their own interests above those of the nation.

Will Dion be able to purge the old establishment boys or will he sell his soul for the promise of a crown? The people of the land are watching.

Anonymous said...

If Dion gets into power, make no mistake, it will be the end of Canada as we know it.

His policies include:

* NEP2 on Alberta

* The corrupt Quebec organizers of Chretien and the backroom boys are the only people that can get the Libs ready for an election in 6 months. The bottom line is that Dion cannot run a campaign w/o these people. Make no mistake, he is not his own man.

* "Tax cuts are useless" quote in the HoC. This is code for raising taxes

* Dion is a Liberal and separatists get energized about the Machievllian BQ-Lib provincial-federal dichotomy that Harper described last election. Harper has a triangulation strategy that is less offensive to Quebec nationalists and reduces polarization. This makes it harder for the seppies to whip up voters for another referendum.

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

Ace - Wrong on all counts

1. Dion has made clear, none of his environmental plans will punish any province. In addition Alberta can reduce GHGs and have a prosperous economy. Even Dinning and Stelmach support doing this. Only dinosaurs like Morton and Harper still have their head stuck in the sand on this issue.

2. People are generally tired of the Liberal elite so the fact Dion won without them is if anything an asset. Lets remember, Harper wasn't backed by any of the major power brokers and one. You win elections by promoting ideas that reasonate with Canadians, not through big money. With the new campaign finance laws and the accountability act, winning elections based on big money is over with.

3. Dion does in fact support tax cuts where they will increase Canada's competiveness. This was in reference to the GST, in which case he was right. All of the possible tax cuts, the GST is the least effective in stimulating economic growth.

4. Dion is quite respected in his own province and his Clarity Act was popular. It is the elites who dislike him since most are separtist or sympathetic to their cause. There are still many federalists and that is where Dion will get his votes in Quebec.

The idea of saying Canada will come to an end if elected is plain fearmongering. If anything the Liberal claim Canada would come to the end if the Tories won was probably closer to the truth as their ideology does run in contrast with the dominate idelogy that both the Liberals and PCs held in the past.

Anonymous said...

1. Environmental plans cost money. Where will the money come from? Alberta has money and a lot of emissions. Light bulb goes on in dim-witted 'Liberal' mind. We can redistribute wealth and reduce emissions!
b) the NEP has helped advance global warming...all the carbon-sequestering technology that could have been developed in the 1970s and 1980s was stopped by the Liberals destroying businesses and delaying progress by around 20 years
c) Alberta's 'neo-con' 'far-right' PC have already adopted the most extensive environmental legislation dealing with climate change in the country and the environment should be a provincial responsibility(as it's closer to the grassroots than the federales)
http://www3.gov.ab.ca/env/climate/plan.html

2. Do you have a clue how govt. actually operates? How a campaign is organized or are your American buddies from moveon.org teaching you how to lose? People need friends and allies(even Harper) to get into power and Dion got his position through ABI(anybody but Iggy). This means he has the Rae/Power Corp fellas in his camp and France Desmarais Chretien in tow.

3. Miles, any govt. that doesn't cut taxes every year is raising them. The govt. is protected against inflation and the taxpayer isn't. Since Dion doesn't seem to have any economic policy other than the status quo, there is no reason to think he won't raise taxes if he gets into office.

4. "Dion is quite respected in his own province and his Clarity Act was popular."

First of all, Harper wrote the Clarity Act and Libs stole it. Second, you've inadvertently conceded my point. The nationalist elites get excited about Dion. It's much better to have them sit down and shut up by having a less polarizing figure like Harper than Martin, Chretien, Gagliano, Dion, etc. etc. who represent federalism at its most despicable.

"The idea of saying Canada will come to an end if elected is plain fearmongering."

Alberta WILL separate. Canadian business will remain uncompetitive, unable to produce jobs, and hobbled by Kyoto. If you thought the sponsorship scandal was bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet. And Russia will slide into more barbarous dictatorship as we buy hot air credits from them. And Power Corporation will remain defacto ruler of Canada. And polygamy will be legalized.

As for 'right-wing' neo-con ideology:

"the role of government [is] [...] not to force action in any one direction but to remove barriers to man's own efforts to undertake personal and social improvement [...] Man must be free to seek his own improvement and be responsible for his own destiny."
- Sir Wilfred Laurier

"Ready Aye Ready" - Sir Robert Laird Borden

Yes, I'll keep an eye(roll) on it.