Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

Categories: Blog Central, Capital Read, Inkless Wells

And again, it comes down to fundraising and organization.

by Paul Wells on Friday, November 28, 2008 6:50pm - 97 Comments

“We have so much money,” a Harper aide would admit at the end of the [2006] campaign’s first week, shaking his head in amazement. “We have shitloads of money. Way more than we can spend in a campaign. In a way we wouldn’t have minded Martin’s preferred schedule, which was to go in February, because we could have run this huge pre-writ campaign” — a blitz of television, radio, and newspaper ads, and direct mail, all of it unregulated by Elections Canada spending limits because it pre-dated the dropping of the writ.

— Right Side Up, everyone’s favourite Christmas gift

When Mom says no, ask Dad. It’s a universal instinct. When Stephen Harper lost Belinda Stronach he paid closer attention to Chuck Cadman. When Vancouver wouldn’t give the Conservatives an MP Harper reached out to David Emerson. And now it happens again: He cannot win this new confrontation in the Commons. So he has bought himself another week — to reach outside the Commons to the country.

And outside the Commons, the Conservative war chest and tool kit are formidable. This will be one of the most astonishing weeks in the history of Canadian politics.

What follows is based on six years of watching Harper as a political leader, not on fresh reporting. But I think it’s reasonable to assume that email will go out this weekend soliciting fresh donations from hundreds of thousands of Conservative supporters. Direct-mail appeals (“Stéphane Dion: Not a Democrat”), Web ads, broadcast and print buys, messaging for Conservative bloggers and for commenters on other blogs, talking points for talk-radio callers and the party’s teevee spokesmen — that will only be part of it. The messaging will be concentrated against the most vulnerable MPs: If you’re a Liberal or a New Democrat who won narrowly over the Conservative in your riding, you can expect your life to be hell, beginning tonight. There could be public “We Want Our Canada Back” rallies, including probably a big one on the Hill (“Send Ottawa A Message From the Real Canada”) by mid-week. It could be massive.

At every step, the Conservatives are better funded, more experienced at this sort of thing, and a lot more scared, and therefore more motivated, than their opponents. This controversy began with Harper recognizing his advantage in grassroots fundraising and organizing and seeking to consolidate it. It will end with Harper using that advantage to the hilt.

How will it all end? Harper’s crystal ball may be broken, but the battery in mine is dead. I’ll find out when the rest of you do, somewhere between now and Dec. 8.

Tags: Total Combat

More by Paul Wells

Wascally Wabbit

Consider yourself honoured Shawn ( pity you can’t even spell your own name correctly)
Dennis F

madeyoulook, you can’t possibly be making the argument that the number of people who voted based on subsidy allocation even closely matched the number of people who voted based on the government they want. Can you?
http://www.johnwaugh.blogspot.com John W

But if Libs/NDP can ignore the short term public outcry caused by Con blitz this week, and pull it off, with Iggy as PM, they could last until spring, by which time what’s happening this week will be forgotten.
madeyoulook

I’m not making that argument at all, Dennis. I responded to your idealistic notion (which I share) that people vote in an election to, you know, elect. I’m just pointing out that the commentariat around here has a few anti-democratic elements who believe that purpose is sooo passé, when presented with the groovy notion of spreading around other people’s money, nickels and dimes at a time, to their party of choice instead. Beware of them, they’re hard to spot at first blush, they type English really well, and they only confess this silliness on rare occasions. But they’re out there.
Karol

Paul,
You beter cut down on whatever it is that you are currently smoking or shoting up.
It is Liberals who are running scared at the moment and not Conservatives.

===Desperate times call for desperate measures===

As soon as Conservatives publicly declared their intention to end subsidies for political parties they effectively cooked Liberals.

Liberals are in debt and have to borrow money in order to operate. Who is going to lend them money on commercial bases if their main source of revenue might soon be eliminated??

Harper already sent Liberals to get knee-capped by the bankers regardless if this motion it tabled at HoC next week or half a year from now.

Liberals’ only chance to avoid bankruptcy is to try to defeat Conservative government in a non-confidence motion and form coalition government.

That is a worst excuse that anybody could ever think of as a reason for trying to defeat newly elected Conservative government.

What we need now is a good editorial cartoon of Dion dressed in shorts pulled down to his ankles with his knapsack and Kyoto dog on a leash submitting loan application to a Bank Manager. Bank Manager asks: Stephanie my sunny boy but you have no income to pay us back all that money, so where is the signature of Uncle Harper?
Dennis F

So, madeyoulook, Harper is supposed to be more mindful of the overwhelming minority than the overwhelming majority?

I mean, what’s the relevance of your point?

Some of us shave every other day. So?
http://accidentaldeliberations.blogspot.com The Jurist

If a week’s lead time was enough for the Cons to launch an all-out ad blitz, couldn’t they have done that in the November 2005 pre-writ period when an election was already a virtual certainty? Not that I doubt they’ll try to leverage their money for all it’s worth to try to define any coalition that gets put together, but I’d think they have to bank on controlling the headlines rather than much of a paid ad campaign to try to scare off a non-confidence vote in the meantime.
kody

I suspect I’m not the only one who’s noticed,

that when having the standard water cooler conversation regarding the subsidization of parties issue, that even the most intelligent well informed individuals (save for hard core political junkies that frequent blogs like this) had no idea that the government actually funded political parties in such a way.

The idea was met with general outrage (as also seems to be the case in the ctv and cbc online polls).

Harper’s got the opposition by the kahunas on this one. There’s no other way to slice this.
kody

And Kady,

if you’re around,

I’m flattered that you miss me so much ; )
Andrew

Karol, please stop spamming.
kody

One more thing,

politicians rank just above used car salesmen and journalists, in terms of public respect.

Wanna know how the public takes this issue?

Imagine their response to “fast eddies used car emporium” getting millions of dollars in handouts from hardworking Canadians.
madeyoulook

Dennis, my only point was that some commenters here have confessed to not thinking very much, if at all, at the polling booth, contra your “lot to think about” argument. I agree with you that people should be thinking about electing a government there. I’m just explaining to you why there were a few quizzical looks at your message. They were far too busy considering who was worthy of $1.95, that being the far more serious democratic urge in their soul at that moment.
http://scottdiatribe.gluemeat.com Scott Tribe

Kody:

Online polls mean squat, because one thing Conservatives are good at is freeping online polls.
Ti-Guy

Yes, but you have to admit…water cooler population surveys conducted by l’il Dakota up there are très scientifique
kody

I’ll take blog comment protestations over online polls as a useful guide to what’s bad for the Libs, to be sure,

and the signs seem to be pointing to another brilliant chess move that will further weaken the left.
Andrew

kody,

It would be disastrous for Harper to lose power. It would give the Opposition the opportunity to go digging for dirt on Conservatives, most especially the lies Flaherty just produced using economic projections described by many private sector economists as ‘cooked’.
Ti-Guy

and the signs seem to be pointing

Oh, stop lying. Seriously, if you’re going to fill up these comment sections with your fabrications, I’m just going to call you a liar, Ffib.
Dennis F

It should be noted that there’s only one party that is urging Canadians to speak out about what’s going on.
http://demosthenes.blogspot.com Demosthenes

And yet all of this runs up against a simple wall: while vulnerable Liberal (and presumably NDP) MPs may be tempted to sway, the reality is that the “no public funding” cat is out of the bag.

MPs will know that they aren’t going to be any better off if their broke parties get steamrolled by the Conservative dollar machine.
http://demosthenes.blogspot.com Demosthenes

Also, I’m terribly amused that people like “Karol” there are proving Paul’s point about Harper’s legion of puppet bloggers.
Dennis F

Demosthenes, but you miss one real possibility — that the people who elected these characters have no love affair with the very subsidy they’re desperately trying to cling to.

So, are you better of fighting for the subsidy, and losing the vote that ends up providing it? I don’t think so.
Matt

The questions I have are a) what were the Tories trying to do with the financing resolution – I don’t think they expected it to pass and, if not, then what was the end game? and b) are they actually scared right now, and why not go to the House on Monday?
http://demosthenes.blogspot.com Demosthenes

Dennis, if the parties are facing an existential crisis, then no lacking “love affair” will change that.

And, besides, that’s looking at it through the prism of Harper (and his minions’) reflexive loathing of government. What this funding scheme does–and why it’s so elegant–is that it ensures that a vote always, always matters. Even if your candidate doesn’t win, you can rest assured that your vote will indirectly help your chosen party; and because the parties know that your vote directly affects their finances, they’ll pay more attention to you.

Look at the Liberals’ “308 strategy.” It’s not only a vote-getting strategy, but it’s a financing strategy, taking advantage of the fact that even “orphan” voters will have a real financial impact on the party. Harper’s scheme would ensure that the Liberals would never venture outside of areas of traditional support to fundraise, just as his party relies on the same-old same-old direct mail appeals to the far right that propelled the Republicans in America.

What’s a healthier system? One that ensures that parties court voters without fear or favor, or one that rewards parties that cater to the base?

Assuming you don’t break out in hives at the word “public”–and even Americans don’t these days–I think your appeal is less, well, appealing than you’re assuming.
http://demosthenes.blogspot.com Demosthenes

(But besides, the Liberals don’t even need to appeal to that. Harper’s ideology is as much his downfall as his politics. Slashing government spending to keep a surplus during a recession is such woefully poor economics as to defy description. It shows he is the hopeless prisoner of his own neoconservatism, and Canada cannot afford to be governed by someone so deluded.)
Josh

I have enough loose change accumulated over the past three months to more than make up for the annual cost of the subsidy. The notion that people will be up in arms about their vote translating to a $2 donation to that same party is laughable.

Of course, I think I’ll be making some donations myself soon.