Recently on his NRO blog, David Frum put a hyper-postive spin on the Conservative Party's electoral victory.
This led me to send him an email offering a "dissenting" opinion.
He asked if he could post my comment on his blog and I said sure, so check it out.
He said:To win re-election in the midst of the worst financial panic since 1929, with your soldiers taking casualties in a costly war on the other side of the planet, with a recession visibly gathering, and with your local currency dropping against the US dollar - that alone is an achievement. Actually to gain more seats (even if not as many as one might wish): well that's an astounding achievement.
ReplyDeleteI think this speaks more to the weakness of his opponents and their inability to capitalize on such things as opposed to his party running a strong campaign. It's obvious by the low turnout and popular vote that people were not only looking elsewhere, they were not enthused a bit by his brand of conservatism.
In the US, Harper's foreign policy views are commended, and here in Canada, they are viewed as weaknesses...
ReplyDelete...not only by the mainstream media, but by the Harper conservatives themselves.
If there is one thing Harper can set out in his third Thrown speech, it is that he is a proud conservative and won't run away from his ideological roots.
Seems easy to argue from a positive or negative side of the 2008 conservative party election results. If this were a business they would be celebrating growth, and would plan to support the growth while working to address the areas of weakness. That is always the challenge.
ReplyDeleteThe landscape will change and the conservatives will have to adopt to new realities.
I'd suggest that 2-3 years is too short a time for the liberals, or any party, to rebuild a winning team given their current status.