Liberals and NDP Work Hard To Lose

IT'S A BIT DEPRESSING READING THE POLLING NUMBERS from EKOS today. But what's most depressing about the Tories building their lead is just how unnecessary it all is. With the Tories now in striking distance of a majority government expect Harper to act as though he had a majority already. Anything that makes a slimeball like Harper and his neo-con toads happy is enough to make you pour yourself a stiff drink.
But we shouldn't get too miserable. After all, the Tories have been here before, on multiple occasions. Back in September, 2008, as the election approached in October, the Tories were at 39 percent, only to fall back to 34 percent by the beginning of October. When the election finally happened the Tories won 37 percent of the popular vote, which was up by 1 percent over the previous election but they actually received 165,000 less votes. It just so happened that the Liberals received 835,000 less than the previous election. Because, well, they sucked under Dion (unlike the roaring charisma of Ignatieff the neo-con professor). The bigger news was probably that the most people ever didn't even bother to vote.  Nearly a majority came to the realization that not only did Dion, with his incoherent and deeply uninspired Green Shit platform, suck - so did everyone else.
All this brings me back to where we started. The truly depressing thing about the Tories temporary climb in the polls is that this is the result of a lack of leadership on the part of any opposition party (I can't speak to the Bloc in Quebec because I'm not familiar enough with what's going on there but the Bloc has kept its support pretty stable, it seems).
The Liberals spent the better part of the last several years propping up the Tories by voting for whatever horribleness they were passing in the House. Their recent reversal looked exactly like what it was - a pathetic and opportunist attempt to take advantage of a heartbeat of growth in their support. No surprise that their unprincipled threat to bring down the government lost them support instead of inspiring it. It doesn't help that Ignatieff not only looks indistinguishable from pretty much any well educated Tory across the House. He is indistinguishable. It just so happens that he has the misfortune of sitting beside a turncoat weasel like Bob Rae.
As for the NDP, ah, well, I weep for the NDP. I received a fundraising email from them in the days following their grotesque about-face on supporting the Tories. Suddenly they were no longer the only party that stands up to the Tories. Now the Liberals were "playing politics" and they were the only party trying to make Parliament work. "So, let me get this straight: you want me to send you money so that you can vote for Stephen Harper's EI bill, which will actually screw workers?"(See page 8) I hate to say I told you so but I did, back when Jack was having tea with Stephen. You could smell it - and it wasn't bread or roses.
All this sounds a bit of a downer but have hope - it's Friday! And the Tories will sink again, as they always do. And next time you say something bad about Quebec sovereigntists, remember that if it weren't for the Bloc, the Tories would already have a majority.

Take This Poll. Please.

Who the hell is answering political surveys these days? With three polls out in the last two weeks and all three showing different results, I have to wonder what’s going on. As dishonest as I think polling is, fundamentally, I don’t think they’d outright lie. But something is up.
See, I got up this morning and read in the Globe & Mail that the Tories were rising again in popular support such that they were in “majority government territory” at 39 percent. Well, you can imagine that pretty much ruined my day. I considered climbing back into bed until spring with a plan to renounce my citizenship and move to somewhere warmer, somewhere where I don’t speak the language and can maybe even forget that my fellow humans are dumb as posts.
But then it seems that the Grope & Wail poll is contradicted by a Harris-Decima poll, which shows the Conservatives and the Liberals running neck and neck, 35 to 33 percent, respectively.
And just last week, an Ipsos-Reid poll had the Tories dropping from 37 to 36 percent with the Liberals stuck at 29 percent.
As for the NDP, well, let’s just not talk about that because it’s ugly.
Anyway, what I really wanted to know is my original question: who is taking surveys? I have a theory that the only people who take surveys are the kind of people who call up talk radio to rant about immigrants. The rest of us with caller display don’t answer. Hell, is it just me who gets at least three phone calls per day from telephone solicitors? I’m not even polite enough to say “no thanks” any more – I just hang up right away.
I’m sure not all of those phone calls are from people who want to clean our carpet (don’t have any) or offer us a “free vacation” if we just go to a time-share condo seminar. Some of them must be from Ms. (or Mr.) Ipsos-Reid herself calling for my highly valued opinion. So, the only way to get included into one of these so-called “scientific” polls is to listen to every solicitor who calls. And who does that? Not the kind of people we want to be shaping our government or our national political discourse.
I don’t have any answers to how to solve this other than banning telephone soliciting (please, God). While we’re at it maybe we could ban stickers on fruit.
However, I do have some advice for the sad sack Liberals: Hey dummies, if what you’re doing isn’t helping you succeed, maybe you want to think about what you’re doing wrong. The Martin-Chretien civil war certainly took its toll but you know, when you end up on the same side of the political fence as the Tories on every important question of the day… well, let’s just say that people prefer the devil they know. And people just don’t know Stephane Dion because the guy doesn’t have a personality. What’s to know. Even Michael Ignatieff’s torture-is-ok-when-it-doesn't-leave-marks line at least makes him memorable – ghoulish, yes, but memorable.
As for Bob Rae – did I mention the NDP’s poll numbers? When was the last time they were really respectable in the polls? That’s right, before Bob Rae was premier of Ontario. I’d think twice before taking his advice on anything other than a legal career.
But here’s the crown jewel of my suggestions to save the Liberals from themselves: kick out John Manley – not for being a turncoat, after all his views on Afghanistan are in line with the Liberals views, it just so happens that the Liberals views are in line with the Tories. No, kick him out because he’s an ass-kissing weasel who was too lazy to even work for this promotion to UN special envoy to Afghanistan for which the Tories are apparently mooting him. After all, he plagiarized most of the so-called Manley Commission report directly from an earlier article he wrote. But more importantly, kick him out to show that the Liberals are going to take a radically different position than the Tories on Afghanistan – one that is in line with the views of the vast majority of Canadians. Of course, I only know that because of polling, which is to say, I don’t know anything. But I do have a suspicion that Canadians would thank you for offering them a choice other than Tory lite. It can't be any worse than what you've got right now, whichi is Stephane Dion listening to Bob Rae listening to the polls. Need I say more?

Dissecting Tory Election Schemes

All of a sudden Mr. Harper is gung-ho to force an election. Whatever could be on our evil little gnome’s mind? Could it be this: a small case of the panics?
You see, the Tories have been stuck in the polls since they won their minority government back in 2006. And, frankly, they only won what they have now because the Liberals were tearing flesh off of each other in the media and Quebec nationalists were in the doldrums with an inept (and right wing) provincial leader of the PQ managing to thoroughly alienate their base of support.
Those conditions no longer prevail and the window is quickly closing on the possibility of repeating even a minority government.
As of last summer the Tories were at 33% according to a Strategic Counsel poll conducted in August, 2007 and which I analyzed at the time.
Now, according to a Nanos poll, the Tories have slumped another two percent to 31 percent nationally. But in the key province of Quebec they are down to 23 percent, from 29 percent at the last election – and all that support has returned to the Bloc.
In Atlantic Canada the Tories have collapsed even further, from 30 percent on November 8, to 22 percent today. All of that – and a 6-point drop for the Liberals – has gone to the NDP and the Green Party.
Even in the West they’ve been hovering around the 40 percent mark from their high of 49 percent at the last election.
So, why is Harper throwing all these confidence motions at Parliament right now? Why does he appear to be trying to force an election?
REALIZATION
What the Tories must have realized is that, by and large, most Canadians think they are odious but bearable creatures. Their only attraction is creating a polarizing issue on their terms, which bumps their numbers. These electoral adrenalin shots quickly subside but they can be enough for an election.
That explains the three things that Harper has said will force an election. The first is an omnibus crime bill. North Americans are notoriously crime paranoid. Conservatives always love the law and order button because it’s irrational and bears no relation to reality. And they are, after all, a movement built on irrational fear and scapegoating. They are the Crazy Party.
If the Tories can grab the mantle of being the law and order party, find some gullible victims of horrendous interpersonal violence, and put them on a stage, their numbers will climb. If they can say that the Liberal dominated Senate is blocking their kooky crime bill, their numbers will climb. It’s a sad truism about western societies, which I’ll save for another day, we’re crime crazy.
The second confidence issue is the budget, which they must bring down soon. Budgets are always confidence votes because they set the major priorities for any government. The Tories already cocked up any political capital they might have gotten from the budget. They did this by refusing to release provincial payments worth $1 billion to help out the rapidly de-industrializing regions of Ontario and Quebec. The condition they placed on the payment was that the budget had to pass, thinking that the Bloc would be forced to support the Tory budget. When they realized that everybody else saw this as crass and vindictive they backed off but the damage was already done.
I suspect that the Tories are hoping they don’t even get to the budget but instead go to an election on either crime or the other confidence motion – Afghanistan.
Now, the Tories are the party of irrational craziness but generally their own strategy is more akin to being crazy like a fox – at least since they ditched Stockwell “Jet Ski” Day as leader. However, I have to wonder if this isn’t equally crazy.
The Conservatives have put forward a motion to extend the mission in Afghanistan to 2011, if NATO comes up with an extra 1,000 troops plus some equipment commitments, like helicopters. Now, as of last August 63 percent of the population felt that their support for the Tories would rise if they pulled troops out of Afghanistan immediately. And a poll on February 6 indicated that opposition is still running high:
“An Angus Reid poll Wednesday shows 76 per cent think Canada is shouldering too much of the burden of NATO's mission and 58 per cent want the mission to end in 2009.”
This comes on top of a report by the Senlis Council think-tank, which says that Afghanistan is on the brink of “state failure.”
But what the Tories are counting on is a promise by the French government of an equally right-wing dirt-bag, Nikolas Sarkozy, that they will pony up more troops and equipment.
They hope that the motion is voted down at the same time the French make the announcement, then they can play it as “the Liberals want to let down our allies in the fight for democracy just as they are stepping up to the plate.” It will become a question of honour and betrayal.
Frankly, it’s a big gamble on the part of the Tories. But big gambles are the product of, if not panic, at least a sense of being backed into a corner. The attempt to burrow into the mainstream has failed and now it’s going to be the single-issue, dirty fight.
The conclusion to all this? Well, there’s an international week of action in the lead up to March 15 – the fifth anniversary of the launch of the war against Iraq. If you want to see the Tories out, the protests on March 15 have to be as big we can make them. They have to help hold the mood steady and stiffen the spines of politicians who are apt to choke at the idea of taking a real stand during an election.
We are propping up a corrupt, vile regime of human rights abusers and druglords using billions of dollars and barrels of blood. It’s the Tories weak spot and we need to hit them where they are weak.

Spinning Tories

I don’t remember who said that there are three kinds of lies - “lies, damn lies and statistics” – but surely we’d have to include opinion polls as a fourth kind of lie. For instance on the cover of today’s Globe & Mail newspaper is a half-page article on the "Stephen Harper paradox"; ie. how the Tories are doing great at solidifying support and winning us to their agenda but Harper can't quite win our hearts and minds. I will only point out here that the Tories now stand at 33% in the polls. However, in May, 2006 the National Post was creaming its jeans that the Tories - then at 43% - had enough support for a majority. Great job indeed.
With every day bringing more bad news from Afghanistan and the hardening of opinions in opposition to Canada’s involvement over there, it seems funny that the Globe & Mail – which made a special effort to lick Tory butt in the last federal election – decided that now is the moment to tout the "growing support" for the Conservatives. Funny as in suspicious.
So, I went and had a look at the poll on the Strategic Counsel website.
First of all the questions they ask are pretty vague in relation to the Conservatives. For instance “I disagree with the Harper government’s approach to Afghanistan” – 44% agree with the statement, 47% disagree. Well, Harper has been sending out mixed signals recently in relation to Afghanistan. He’s now saying that the troops will come home at the end of their mission in 2009 if there isn’t support. So, people go, ‘ok, he’s listening to the opposition and he’ll bring the troops home.’ And, of course the response from most of the opposition, NDP aside, is to say “oh yeah, well, you better bring the troops home in 2009.” Not exactly hard-hitting critique.
The same basic thing applies to the question on climate change: “The Harper government has shown that it is serious about starting to deal with global warming” – 48% agree and 46% disagree. Well, Harper has worked hard – and done a pretty good job with the help of a compliant media and pathetic parliamentary opposition – to deflect and diffuse their way out of the early controversy over their opposition to any notion of stopping climate change (remember when Harper claimed that Kyoto was a socialist plot? Ah, those were the good old days...)
However, what is more interesting than the confusion that these numbers indicate both because of the questions and the spin of the Harper Tories is how steady is the opposition to the main political thrust of the Tories – and this stuff is revealed deeper in the survey, after the meaningless nonsense about “Stephen Harper is somebody I like – agree or disagree”. Here people were asked whether their opinion would improve or worsen if the Tories did a series of things. The numbers were as follows:
Get us out of a combat role in Afghanistan immediately – 63% (vs 28%)
Standing up to George Bush – 77% (vs 13%)
Meeting Canada’s Kyoto targets to reduce global warming: a WHOPPING 83% vs 13% are down with the socialist plot. Even in Western Canada, that supposed bastion of oil burning conservatism the numbers were 78% vs 13%. So much for that myth.
Putting significantly more money in public transit – 78% vs 8%.
The list goes on. And it’s not all unproblematically left-wing – a larger minority would have their opinion of the Tories improve if they lowered corporate taxes than not (47% vs 39%). And, as usual, the fear of crime drives 81% to want to see the Tories get tough.
Overall, however, the results show clearly that the Tories are WAY to the right of the general population, even in Alberta. In fact, looking at a mid-July survey by the Strategic Counsel Tory support has fallen the most in two regions: Quebec and the West. In the West they have slumped from 49% in 2006 to 40% today – and remember, that’s in the middle of a massive oil boom in Alberta.
If you can’t hold your support in a boom, well, it doesn’t bode well.