The last elected Liberal leader, that is.
Quote:
Personally, I have always been a Liberal who opposed the anti-niqab hysteria, as here.
I sure don’t recall many other Liberals saying the same thing, at the time. And I particularly don’t remember any member of caucus – say, the one from Papineau – echoing my view, either.
Royal Niblet, currently in Miami, wanted this 1977 Hot Nasties tune to learn the guitar bits. Here it is. The rest of you, carry on as you were.
We could be seeing the Heat beat the Raptors. We could be packing. We could be watching the last House of Cards thing.
Instead, we’ll be at The Menzingers, because they are one of the greatest bands on Earth. Listen.
Dear #USpoli: Fact that 60-something has trouble with an email account isn't a scandal IT'S ENDEARING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Signed, Everyone
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2015
[Here. My Mom and her art group will be happy to see me in the Whig. I think.]
SECURITY: Since fall 2014, when two Canadian Forces members were killed by jihadists, our politics have been dominated by a vigorous debate about terror – and Prime Minister Stephen Harper is winning that debate. Polls say the Conservative leader’s approach is supported by four in five Canadians. Meanwhile, conservatives always tend to sound more credible on issues like security/terror. If this is the ballot question, Harper will win.
ECONOMY: Interest rates may be low, and unemployment rates, too – but Joe and Jane Frontporch are nervous. Our retail sector and oil patch are in trouble, and a lot of our new jobs are of the temporary, part-time variety. Polls show Canadians feel Canada is heading in the “wrong direction” — mainly because of economic jitters. If the economy is the election issue, Harper’s re-election doesn’t look so clear cut.
HEALTH CARE: Historically, health care always tends to be the number one issue in public opinion polls. But not this year. Security and the economy still dominate. If either fade, look for this issue to favour Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau – because Liberals are seen as more credible when it comes to protecting our health care system.
It’s better to be feared than loved, Niccolo Machiavelli once famously observed. You cannot be both.
It’s unknown whether the Florentine philosopher’s maxim is playing on the minds of assorted political strategists, these days. But as they squint at the calendar, brooding on the weeks ahead, politicos should heed Machiavelli’s observation. Because fear is decidedly upon the land.
Take, for example, just one day in recent days. On Thursday, the morning papers were filled with the following reports:
· A survey by Pollara Strategic Insights, showing that approximately half of Canadians say they feel less safe from terrorism than they did two years ago – and with two-thirds saying a terrorist attack in Canada is likely in the next five years.
· Revelations about a video filmed by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, minutes before he commenced a murderous rampage on Parliament Hill – and in which he lays to rest, once and for all, the notion that he was merely an unaffiliated extremist, and not a committed jihadist.
· A speech by one of the accused Via Rail bombing jihadists, speaking at the conclusion of his Toronto trial to warn the jury to prepare for “Judgment Day.”
· A police surveillance tape showing two B.C. jihadists – being prosecuted for several offences – describing their plan to bomb crowds around B.C.’s Legislature, because Canada was “guilty” of crimes in the Middle East.
· Word that a former hockey-loving boy from Timmins, Ont. had recruited five others to go and fight for ISIS.
All of the above are terror-related reports taken from the news media on a single day. And all of the above terror-related reports have a clear Canadian news angle – and do not even include the daily procession of international news stories about ISIS, or al-Shahaab, or al-Qaeda, or Boko Haram, or some other genocidal cult.
Fear – and its lesser cousin, anxiety – are rather complex emotions, but also rather durable, the psychotherapists tell us. They derive from our primeval urge to survive. And, say the experts, it is fear that has most assisted us in doing so, and in getting this far, escaping various predators along the way.
So, humans (generally) – and Canadians (specifically) – can be forgiven for thinking that fear and anxiety are not always illegitimate. They can also be forgiven for shaking their heads at the facile Liberal Party talking head who was pontificating on CBC’s Power and Politics, in the aforementioned news cycle, huffing that “it is the safest time in human history.”
That may be true, statistically, but it is completely irrelevant, emotionally. In a struggle between the political brain and the political gut, the latter will always beat the former. Political choices are mainly a function of emotion, not information.
Progressives always get tongue-tied when talking about emotion, but conservatives positively revel in it. They’re good at it. And that is why Stephen Harper is presently inching towards re-election, and why Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair are not. Harper has captured the fear zeitgeist, while Trudeau and Mulcair are attempting to swim against the tide.
It can’t be done. Of all of the human emotions, fear is arguably the most powerful. And when it is validated by daily headlines – headlines which originate in Timmins or Victoria, and not some Nigerian jungle or Iraqi bunker – it is a juggernaut that cannot be stopped.
Will fear slip from the front pages, as Liberal and New Democrat strategists hope? Perhaps. No one knows. But to this writer, the present jihad rather resembles the Crusades in reverse. And the Crusades, as students of history will recall, lasted about 200 years, give or take. ISIS intend for their crusade to last just as long: just ask them. They’ll tell you.
As they peer at their election calendars, then, plotting out what lies ahead, Liberal and New Democrat strategists know – or should – that, in a contest between love and fear, fear will win.
In this, they are assisted by ISIS and the morning papers, who show no sign of letting up.
There is no comparison between 2015 and 1939. None. And Trudeau – and his speechwriter – should know that.
Oh, and Blaney’s attack on the Koran? Also inappropriate.
I suspect my old friend Brad Lavigne is playing a bit of rope-a-dope in this fun Larry Martin column – after all, which strategist worth his/her salt actually announces their strategy in the morning paper, months before the election? – but it’s a compelling read.
Will it work? Well, here’s a personal anecdote I can relate: I am an Irish Catholic, born in Montreal, and I come from a long line of Irish Catholics born in Montreal. One day, out of the blue, my Mom told me she knew Thomas Mulcair growing up. Everyone knew the Mulcairs, she said.
“Tommy Mulcair,” she called him. “Oh, he was a wild one. We’d be sitting in the Mulcair’s living room, and Tommy would be crawling over the back of the couch, driving his mother crazy.”
“Were they rich?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” my mother said. “They had ten children. His father was a salesman, and his mother raised the kids. They were poor, like us. If you had ten kids and were Irish, you weren’t rich.”
So maybe Brad was telling the truth, eh? We shall see. But one thing’s for sure: if Thomas Mulcair plans to define himself as someone who comes from humble roots – and not, say, a trust fund – he will probably be pretty successful in that.
What do you think? (Also, free journalist insider lingo: they call it “head furniture.”)
Poll here.
What do you think will be the ballot question on voting day? What will it be in the Spring? What will it be in the Fall?
Be a pundit!