I’m not impressed either.

Harper has a credibility problem; were I a Liberal I would be at pains not to confuse this issue.

Ignatieff stick to the low road, it will lead straight to a Globe and Mail endorsment next election.

Canadians say they like high-minded debate, but they have consistently re-elected leaders that have lied to them, dumb down the national debate, play games with national unity and run the best attack ads.

Then our newsmedia and “ordinary” Canadians claim “oh no, we want a respectful parliament,” etc.

I don’t blame our political party leaders at all – they focus group everything they do and give us what we want: bitter, divisive partisan politics. You can see this all the time – for instance, you can get most people to agree with you that blind partisanship is ruining this country. Yet they will almost certainly blame that partisanship along very partisan lines. “Oh, the partisanship is just terrible, that is why we need to take down Stephen Harper.” “I agree – our politicians just don’t respect ordinary Canadians. Thankfully we got rid of those Liberals and their sticky fingers.”

1988 was the last substantive election in this country. I mean look at who has been winning since – its certainly not the saints.

1993-2003
Kim Campbell suggested that Canada’s economic recovery might not be all that rapid. Chretien said jobs jobs jobs, the deficit – she take care of herself while attacking Reform’s proposed cuts (Chretien made the deepest spending cuts of any PM in history), and implied that he would eliminate the GST (he didn’t) and would implement national childcare (that didn’t happen till the Liberals were desperate, and didn’t last either). Chretien routinely used the national unity club against the Reform party, turning everything into a matter of national unity. His answer to one question about Canada’s low productivity growth was “the opposition is unpatriotic.” Up against Stockwell Day, Chretien implied he would bring in American-style healthcare (which Day never proposed) and had Warren Kinsella mock Day’s Christian beliefs. Day ran a positive campaign, but often a vapid one himself, with lots of cheesy stunts and photo ops. The result? He improved substantially on the results of the more cerebral Manning in 1997, and did far better than the competent and principled Joe Clark. Indeed, Clark was the worst performing PC leader in history.

2003-2006
What of Paul Martin? When the Gomery scandal hit, Martin acted pretty boldly in cleaning house and taking responsibility. He dropped in the polls. The ensuing election was all scandal all the time for Stephen Harper, and for the most part it worked. Martin only saved himself in the last week of the campaign by running negative ads claiming Harper would eliminate a woman’s right to choose (didn’t happen), bring in Americans-style healthcare (didn’t happen) and send Canadian troops to fight in Iraq (didn’t happen). In his ensuing job as prime minister, Martin was derided for “having many priorities”, as if one could govern a country as complex as Canada with five point plans. There was some skullduggery too, including bribing Belinda Stronach to cross the floor. However, if you look at the polls, he gained support after doing so. In the ensuing election, he lost to Harper, whose negative ad campaign was more effective. Yes, it is true that Harper spent every day of December making a policy announcement (the positive phase of his campaign). The polls at the end of December 2005 had barely moved. Only Harper’s (unfair as we now know) exploitation of the income trust leak issue and ensuing negative ads (plus Martin’s overreach) put Harper over the top.

2006-2009
In Harper’s time in office he has been periodically rewarded by the electorate for playing political games, and done most poorly when he has not. Harper has had two low-points in the polls. The first was in early 2007 when the environment became a big issue and Stephane Dion had just become Liberal leader. His first approach was to propose a plan (which was at least as comprehensive as that of his predecessors). That failed. So instead, he put Baird in charge and stonewalled on the environment, while running negative ads. Dion was trounced from that point on. The other time he dropped in the polls is more recently, as Ignatieff became Liberal leader, and has attacked the PM on the budget which Ignatieff helped create. In other words, Harper has consistently been punished by the electorate for being proactive, bold and working with others. Harper’s best moments in the polls? Harper made gains in the 2008 election, in which he promised no new policies, but attacked Dion’s plans. His other best moment was during the coalition crisis, during which he polled as high as 50%, while playing the national unity card.

Translation: the sword is mightier than the pen.

often those calling for “civility” seek to merely change the channel and prevent certain ideas from being expressed.

Most are tired of electioneering with cookie cutter politico’s smiles, non-conformist, let’s be nice while the world dissolves around us.

No wonder negative ads that have no response work.

People are dying for real news with real adult words, topics and emotions – if the CPC puts up a front of hey here we are, here is some straight talk and no one responds then guess what, they win regardless of the sophomoric thoughts and childish/juvenile emotions expressed – at least they present themselves as normal human beings.

When Iggy gets up and says he will hit back – that helps him, for example, because he then becomes a real person with a real emotional response and not a robo-politico trying not to be inoffensive.

NdP taping? Certainly i think his agent Grewal, and then the infamous driveway taping would be more damning. But then again, for certain foils in the blogosphere, Harper can do no wrong. It’s only the imaginary ‘left-wing media’ out to ensnare him…

As pure a synopsis of the CPC's policy bias and political instincts as I've seen. Thanks, Al Heck Brakes. I disagree with nearly everything in your screed, but it's nice to see the perspective laid out so neatly.