Categories: Andrew Coyne, Capital Read

My eerily prescient call

by Andrew Coyne on Monday, October 13, 2008 1:01pm - 0 Comments

Fascists 133

Crooks Notaleaders 88

Commies 34

Traitors 51

Tree-huggers 0

Loners 2

Tags: Election Watch

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Ti-Guy

I hope there is a crash cart near wherever Ti-Guy is.

You better hope Harper has a crash cart nearby when the Democrats remember who provided the Bushies with a billion dollar slush fund.
http://skinnydips.blogspot.com Skinny Dipper

I thought I read “boners.” I always love watching “Growing Pains” on the Christian channel, especially when Mike Seaver talks about his special friend, Boner. You can’t say “fugunicula” on CTS. Yet, you can say “boner.”
Geiseric the Lame

“The Liberals have kept the story-line on how right-wing and frightening the Conservatives are, letting Coyne lampoon that as “Fascists”,”

boohoo

a party with no platform and a personality cult has the lead. take it from there.
Cow

It’s probably a sign I’ve read too many American editorials where I’m not sure whether ‘commies’ and ‘traitors’ are the NDP and the Bloc, or vice-versa.
hosertohoosier

Style, you are certainly right. Dion is a weenie is a craptastic attack – the fact that Dion’s dream of dreams is to do better than Paul Martin in 2006 (the second worst result in Liberal party history) supports this view. Dion’s “best Prime Minister” numbers staying consistently below Jack Layton’s are another reason why this wasn’t an effective line of attack.

You see that was the Liberal plan all along. Let expectations get so low that Dion not crying during the debates would be seen as a victory. Then SURGE from 22% support to 26 or 27%. And remember that Dion clobbered Harper in the polls when first selected as leader.
Finn

To Calgary Junkie:

Alberta as a paradigm for Canada as a whole? I hope not. There just aren’t any unknowns in Alberta politics.
Wassim

I generally agree with your predictions, though I think you are under-estimating the Bloc support.
http://ADMS.ca cms

Peter,

That’s assuming that Elections Canada doesn’t come down on CPC first.
Style

Maybe the fact that Dion is not very good explains his low numbers? I am willing to be persuaded that the Tory war-room is more effective than the Liberal’s, but it will be a tough go. Every time Harper opened his mouth, the Liberal war-room was able to attack him as a right-wing demagogue – either saying “sure, he says that now, but what’s his real agenda?” or “see, this reveals his true agenda, even if you have to misinterpret what he’s said or ignore the facts”. With Dion, the Tories couldn’t keep attacking him without being accused of overly personal attacks or classlessness. Every time Dion saw a modest boost in his favourability ratings, it seemed the story was all about how off-base the Tory attacks had been. Dion hasn’t helped his party, but I’m not convinced the Tory war-room helped theirs either.
Francien Verhoeven

Fascists 133

Crooks Notaleaders 88

Commies 34

Traitors 51

Tree-huggers 0

Loners 2

commandeers
mouse-ears
oversteers
bombadiers
disappears
and…
volunteers

Cheers!
Ti-Guy

With Dion, the Tories couldn’t keep attacking him without being accused of overly personal attacks or classlessness.

And being accused of lying, don’t forget that one.

Hey, if the Conservatives hadn’t been so transparently personal, classness or dishonest in their attacks, I suspect the Liberal “war room” would have had a much harder time.
Style

Where have the Conservatives been dishonest? On the other hand, Dion has an ad running saying Harper plans to “slash the social safety net” and nobody blinks.
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Style

Many Lib supporters seem to think playing footage of Dion shrugging his shoulders, and moaning about how hard it is to make priorities, is a lie somehow and everything they say, no matter how outrageous, is fact/fair comment.
Hazzard

Finn….you beat me to it. Having been here on past a decade now, I really fail to see how Albertans provincial polling/voting habits has any realtion to that of the rest of the country. You could make Layton the leader of the Provincial Cons here and he’d still win a majority.
Ti-Guy

On the other hand, Dion has an ad running saying Harper plans to “slash the social safety net” and nobody blinks.

Aren’t social programs and nanny-statism anathema to the Conservatives?

When it comes to political rhetoric, the lies have to be judged on their gravitas…how far they depart from objective reality. Accusing Harper, who headed the NCC for many years, an agency the purpose of which is to get rid of universal health care, of wanting to slash the social safety net seems almost an acknowledgement of principle, consistency.
Ti-Guy

Many Lib supporters seem to think playing footage of Dion shrugging his shoulders, and moaning about how hard it is to make priorities, is a lie somehow

Actually, Conservative dishonesty has less to do with the Liberals and more to do with how’s they’ve governed…Emerson, Vellacott, Fortier, In-and-Out, Cadman, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

What’s most disturbing is how silent Conservative supporters are in the face of all these outrages. I suppose a lot of you, being well, 14 year-old boys, think is how the game is played, but…it really isn’t, not for very long, anyway.
Archangel

Hazzard,

Alberta voters must be the bovine equivalent of sheep. They are reminiscent of African Bongos, the “only Tragelaphid in which both sexes have horns.”
Calgary Junkie

Finn: “Alberta as a paradigm for Canada as a whole? I hope not. There just aren’t any unknowns in Alberta politics.”

To Finn and Hazzard, you are reading more into my posting than I intended.

I’m basically posting an interesting little tid-bid–Klein’s small majority/big minority prediction. And recalling Love’s Calgary Herald op-ed. You all can make what you want of Klein’s prediction and Love’s observation. They are what they are.

I’m not putting Alberta up as a paradigm for Canada. Not at all. I’m saying the relative strengths of GOTV machines working on election day, is a legitimate consideration for any election–at the provincial and at the national level.

And then Rod Love’s observation re “pundits GOTV blind spot” is surely worth pondering at this stage of the game. Love played a big role in getting Klein elected as mayor, MLA, PC leader, and as Premier.

In some ways, Love is to Klein as Rove is to Bush. Except Love’s political landscape was a lot more friendly to him than Rove’s political landscape. So Rove is much more the genius.
stephen

So how will the Harper = Bush thing work when Bush is no longer President. Hmmm Harper = Obama…can’t see the Libs running that ad.

GOTV is key, its the one thing that the long term planning and resources of the Tories and NDP will payoff with. The rusty Liberal machine just isnt there and the Greens are too small, and arguing over whether their Robo Dialer should say

“Vote Green, unless the Liberals are in the lead or if the NDP has a chance…but vote Green unless you think it isnt too much trouble and might not be a waste of your vote…er …, oh eff it nevermind”
Style

“Aren’t social programs and nanny-statism anathema to the Conservatives?”

No, not really. Even on health care, Harper’s position when he was outside of politics was that Canada’s system should be more like the system in France or the UK. These are hardly fascist dystopias.
Paul

I think a win is a win. The Liberals cannot hope to bring down the Tories anytime soon due to their party finances. The Conservatives will have a de facto majority as they were seeking. It will be interesting what they’ll do with it. I find it interesting that free trade with the EU has not come up during this election. Perhaps negotiations were contingent on a demonstratable mandate. Harper will indeed go in with a strong hand if he wins. His piece about free trade with the provinces were perhaps a “getting the house in order before we enter the trading big leagues” exercise.
Pete

“If Parliament was SO disfunctional before the writ was dropped that the PM felt he absolutely HAD to call an election, and the election just returns (basically) the same House, then don’t we have to go right back to the polls?”

The Liberals won’t resist the temptation to remove Dion. Unlike Harper, who get a few stabs at it from the Conservatives, mostly because of a lack of credible leadership alternatives, the Liberals have Ignatieff. His biggest plus: he’s popular in Quebec. His biggest negative, Iraq, is now essentially a non-issue.

Mostly, it means a change in strategy the Libs absolutely have to pull off, which is a tack back to the centre. They’ve clearly not won any support by going Left, either from the NDP who are staying solid, or from the Greens, despite the fact that Dion’s pretty pro-enviro.

“I think a win is a win. The Liberals cannot hope to bring down the Tories anytime soon due to their party finances”
Actually, the only thing the Liberals can do soon IS bring down the government, the elections are free for them.
Al W

Ti-Guy

What do you have to say about the $40 Million of stolen taxpayers money that is still missing from ADSCAM and is still being investigated by the RCMP? And as you know Dion was a Liberal MP from PQ at that time and he says he knows nothing…right!

It amazes me why anybody would vote for the Liberal Party until this money is found and people go to jail.
Jenn

Paul: “I find it interesting that free trade with the EU has not come up during this election.”

It has, but so briefly I begin to think I was one of a VERY few people in the whole of Canada to catch it. The problem with free trade with the EU, at least from the Conservative point of view, is that they are most likely to require those they trade with to adhere to the EUs most/least stringent environmental policy. I’m sorry I don’t know–even now–whether they are discussing the most or the least stringent, but its almost as if there was a news blackout on this issue. The EU leaders were to have voted, I think last Tuesday or Wednesday on the issue, but I haven’t heard, or bothered to chase down, the result.

Anyway, without the Green Shift or something similar, the EU is most likely not going to look at us as trading partners.
Style

Doesn’t the EU have a cap and trade system for carbon? I’d be surprised if environmental regulation was the deal-breaker between the EU and Canada – there’s supply management, investment restrictions (particularly in the financial sector), regional development grants…To be honest, I thought Paul was right when he earlier argued that the EU is not interested in Canada as a trade partner in any event.