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: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

Nostalgia

by Paul Wells on Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:23am - 109 Comments

From May: Exclusive: The Liberal Plan to Respond to the Harper Ads. A highlight:

The Conservative advertising campaign against Michael Ignatieff has spurred the federal Liberals to sharply accelerate their fundraising activity so they can pay for a “focused response to the personal attacks” on the new leader, Maclean’s has learned. The Liberals are rushing ahead with a major change to the party’s organization, which only two weeks ago they had planned for the autumn, so they can be ready for a much more robust summer of activity. Emergency meetings of the Liberals’ various governing bodies are underway, with more planned for next week. The goal: a $25 million annual war chest and a vastly expanded grassroots organization to pay for it.

All this excitement was designed to allow a “focused response” to the Conservative “Just Visiting” ad campaign, then 10 days old, and a “much more robust summer of activity.” The average of public election polls in April put the Liberals two points up on the Conservatives. Since then there has been about a 17-point swing to the Conservatives.

Done messing yet?

Tags: Michael Ignatieff

More by Paul Wells

Anon Lib

The neo-cons blame the media too. They're still carping away about the "liberal media" having it in for Conservatives. And the last time I looked they won the last couple of elections. Plus they have the media so spooked that they overcompensate. So it appears to work for some "winners" doesn't it?

In any event I'm not accusing Wells of having an ant–lIberal bias really. They're just appear to be certain segments of the LPC he despises and there's a distinctly personal edge to his hosptility (must be that Paul Martin's gang didn't want to hire him. He makes a defensive little reference to this incident in his book "Right Side Up").
Anon Lib

I'm also very annoyed when the media do these collective pile-ons (last year it was Dion, this year it's Ignatieff). Again, not so much an anti-Liberal thing, as a sort of herd mentality. They decide a guy's a loser and then it's STOMP-STOMP-STOMP. Like they're working out some kind of collective frustration or something.

Not to say, of course, that Igntaieff hasn't made his fair share of mistakes and brought some of this on himself. Certainly that's the case and he's ackowledged so himself.

What I long for is some independent thinking. PW's capable of it at times.
Mulletaur

What is needed is for Ignatieff and the people around him to take a long, hard, self-critical look at what is going right and what is going wrong, and then take positive action to fix it. What is absolutely not needed is for Liberals to whine about the media piling on as if they take their lessons from the Little Shop of Tories. Wells is critical but he's fair. When things are going badly, as they clearly are, constructive criticism is the only way to improve the situation. Loser talk doesn't do anybody any good.
Anon Lib

Oh so this is "constructive criticism" and not taunting, eh? OK. If you say so.
Foreigner

It's not how *I* feel. It's what the pundits assert. In just so many words. I know. I read them.
Foreigner

It's not how *I* feel. It's what the pundits assert. In just so many words. I know. I read them.
Orson Bean

Touche, well played.

Although the difference of course is that Wells is a real journalist; Martin is not. For instance, I cannot predict with absolute metaphysical certainty, before I read one of Wells' pieces, what he is going to say. With Martin, I can, 99.9% of the time. Wells' pieces are often insightful, interesting and enjoyable to read. Martin's pieces are utterly, head-smackingly predictable, stale and boring.
Foreigner

When things are going badly, as they clearly are, constructive criticism is the only way to improve the situation.

Unless constructive criticism is aimed at the news media, for which things are going very badly indeed. Then it's not welcome at all.
Ed Bender

The Libs are still casting about for a leader with “progressive vision” that will build the country on his own personal vision like Trudeau. Harper has figured out that there is no market for that crap anymore outside of Toronto. The people want a responsible government capable of managing the things governments ought to do, so the people can be left to define and build the country. Harper is easily judged most likely and capable to do that. Ignatieff like all Libs thinks Canada is a plaything to be played with and shaped at his leisure to what he wants it to be. We tried that with Trudeau, it cost a fortune, little vesitige of it remains, good riddance to him and no more like him.

Orson Bean

Great post. I'm reminded of this rhapsodic moment in one of Jean Chretien's memoirs, in which he relates this story about how wonderful it was that he was flying in a plane or helicopter one day, gazed down, and thought it would be wonderful to create a park out of the wilderness he was looking down at. So he just went ahead and did it. For Chretien and his LPC acolytes, this kind of thing is just ducky. For me, I kept thinking that that's the kind of noblesse oblige/l'etat c'est moi thinking that got the Bourbons (rightfully) guillotined.

kcm

What's great about it? On Trudeau's lasting legacy he's completely wrong – i'm talking about the charter and multiculturalism in the main. Although i do agree that our taste for top down leadership is probably waning. If your point is it's now a conservative country – then please explan the overwhelmingly positive reaction of Canadians to Obama, consevatives included. If you think your going to get some sort of hands off little guys nirvana with this crowd you're kidding yourself. I spent a lot of years in AB and saw little evidence that the wishes of the ordinary man receives much consideration in that Con paradise. Try rocking the boat there and see what sort of reception you'll receive?

Orson Bean

I don't think either one of us said it's now a more conservative country or anything like that. If that's your impression, that's believing in a false dichotomy: either we have Trudeau Liberalism or conservatism. There are a lot more places on the spectrum than those two choices. What I was reacting to was the fact that the LPC has what I think to be a completely unhealthy fixation on Trudeau, decades after he's been gone. I honestly think the LPC would be better off in all respects if it quit looking for the Second Coming of Trudeau to save it — and I think there's a good deal of evidence that that Trudeau fixation had a lot to do with their zeroing in on Iggy as the New Savior of the party. And then look at Iggy's book, which is in some respects a pathetic attempt to make himself out to be Trudeau version 2.0, with grand nation-building schemes and all that. Trudeau was a guy who made political sense and was politically successful in a certain context at a certain time in our history. Nothing more.

Lord Kitchener's Own

Tiger's was even better, but I'd give Foreigner a point vs. Dakota as I give tiger a point vs. Foreigner.
Lord Kitchener's Own

Just for the record, if you can predict something 99.9% of the time, that's not "absolute metaphysical certainty".
Mulletaur

"All this excitement was designed to allow a “focused response” to the Conservative “Just Visiting” ad campaign, then 10 days old, and a “much more robust summer of activity.” "

Okay, so what was the 'focused response' and the 'robust summer of activity' ? In fact, what was the response at all to the 'Just Visiting' ad ? Answer : nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip.

Wells makes the point that LPC didn't do what they said they were going to do. The polls show the consequences. Yes, that is constructive criticism. Wells should be congratulated for trying to help by Liberals rather than criticised for 'piling on'.
Mulletaur

Note that Wells is not slapping down those posting here for being critical of the media. Instead, I am criticising those Liberals who are whining about the media when they should be focusing in a self-critical way on the Liberals' poor performance. If you want to make something better, the first step to figure out what you're doing wrong, what you could be doing better and what you are going well so you can do more of it. Blaming the media is self-delusional and thus very unhelpful.
officerfarva

I totally agree. It was painful to see such an honest and principled man who has more than done his fair share for his country get lambasted so mercilessly on a daily basis by the opposition, the media and his party, all because he spoke funny and could not lie with the best of them. History will be kind to Dion, as he suffered more abuse for being a principled human being rather than a ruthless politician than anyone I can think of except for Joe Clark. He was the wrong guy for the job, but I for one would have loved to have seen an honest and decent man lead this country. I became a card-carrying member of the Libs because of him, and cut up my card with satisfaction after Coderre was allowed to run rampant and dump on everyone.
It is Canada's lost that such a good man was not able to lead this country because he wasn't vile enough to succeed in this cesspool of politics.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Inkless Inkless

Part of what's so entertaining about this thread is that so many people believe a blog post is the sum of my journalistic effort. My column this week is about the new director of the Perimeter Institute. I'm working on a piece about the conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. With some friends, last night I helped organize a great dinner with the president of a large university. So it's a bit of a hoot to read motives read into a blog post.

Read properly, this post is a bit of self-criticism. The post from May that I link to is my own. It shows me uncritically, and a bit breathlessly, serving as conduit for an organized Liberal Party leak about all the ways they were going to make Conservatives rue the day they ever bought an ad criticizing Ignatieff. Now, I wasn't on the Liberal payroll in May any more than I'm on the Conservative payroll now, but if I were on the Liberal payroll I could have done no better than to breathlessly tell the world about their super-clever strategy for neutralizing the Conservatives. So the Liberals got one pro bono in May. How odd that commenters are lining up to criticize me for perceived partisanship now.
Foreigner

Blaming the media is self-delusional and thus very unhelpful.

Except when the Conservatives do it, right?

I think the Liberals' problems are their inability to explain complex problems and propose complex solutions in the form of media friendly soundites, attack ads, ten-percenters and walk-ons at gala performances. What do you propose they do about that?
http://intensedebate.com/people/psiclone psiclone

Well said and good for you! -
kcm

I'm inclined to agree with M. Complaining about the media doesn't generally work. Although cons have been so shameless about it that you could say it's worked for them. I'll start to really worry about media bias if Ignatieff picks it up and fixes some of his problems and they keep on piling on. The media are petty much a mystery to me. A bit like a pack of wild dogs. One moment they're licking your face the next thy're going for your nuts. They seem to smell blood in the water. Or maybe it's that need for a narrative thing again. Whatever, complaining seems to do as much good as bitching the sky's too blue. You have to work with what you have.
Mulletaur

People who are serious about helping on strategic and tactical matters do not provide their suggestions through Macleans discussion boards. On the other hand, there are a number of very smart, experienced people around the Liberal leader who know much better than I do what needs to be done. It's up to them to sort it out.
kcm

Hmmm, that's funny. We like to talk a lot about narrative in the media, without really considering our fondness for our very own narrative.
Mulletaur

Yup. The only thing I would add is that the Conservatives can afford to be as cruel as they want to the national media, because they are the government. The government sets the agenda. At least until the public opinion tide turns. Then Harper & Co. may well pay for their barely concealed contempt for the media.
Orson Bean

I don't think Dion was a bad guy or anything like that, but Good Gawd, I don't think a hagiography like that is in order either. Not everybody who succeeds in politics is necessarily "vile", it's like any other job — a certain set of skills is required, and if you don't have them, you will likely fail at the job.

I actually think there's a fallacy out there that says that if somebody gets their butt kicked in the political arena, it must be because they're "decent" and "principled", etc., as opposed to just being plain old incompetent at politics. Call it the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" fallacy.

There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence out there that Dion was extremely stubborn, would not take advice even when he was crashing and burning, etc. Not surprisingly, there are similar stories about Joe Clark and Kim Campbell. In such cases, their failure has to do with obtuseness and stubbornness (which Clark had in spades) rather than moral virtue.
http://intensedebate.com/people/VinceClortho VinceClortho

Wells is clearly on the payroll of anti Wells criticizers based on his last post.

He is totally in the tank against himself. Absolute proof of media's anti-Well's bias.

Come on connect the dots people. Wells is playing chinese checkers with himself while everyone else is playing brickbreaker on the Blackberry's.
Foreigner

It's up to them to sort it out.

I remember the American Democrats being in a similar situation between 2001 and 2006. The only thing that helped was having a leadership as disastrous as Bush the administration. Even after the that, the media really didn't change.

The news media *is* the problem (and not just for Liberals) whether you think it's impolitic or not to say that.
Mulletaur

Nope. To quote kcm : "Whatever, complaining seems to do as much good as bitching the sky's too blue. You have to work with what you have."