Friday, September 05, 2008

Stephen Harper and the Scary Monster















Well now we know why Stephen Harper REALLY wants an election so badly.

Just the faint smell of that majority must be making the monster slobber.

I don't know what's happening in Ontario or BC. But I suspect it's got something to do with the carbon tax. We love our cars more than we love the environment or our country.

But in Quebec it's even worse. From just north of Montreal all the way along the St Lawrence to the Saguenay, soft nationalists are abandoning the Bloc and taking their chances with Stephen Harper's nation/autonomy promise. The one Stéphane Dion can never deliver...in a province where only the old and the Anglos support him.

And already some Liberals in Quebec are waving the white flag.

According to several influential Liberals the Liberal Party is heading straight for the slaughterhouse in Quebec just days before the start of a federal election. Without money, or an organization worthy of that name, and incapable of recruiting strong candidates.

"Outside of our Montreal bastions it's a desert for us....As far as preparation goes, on a scale of one to ten I give us barely a three.....In Quebec it's simple...it's a disaster."

About the only thing the Liberals can do now is launch a series of attack ads to try to shake things up and change the dynamic.

I see Liberal supporters are debating whether to go down that road.

But I don't think they have a choice. Stéphane Dion's reasonable approach has clearly been a miserable failure. The wonky professor thought he could persuade the rabble, when you need to keep the narrative really simple ....or hit a lot of them on the head... until they get the message.

Stephen Harper's attack ads were successful in portraying Dion as a weak leader. To portray him as a sinister bully would only be giving him a taste of his own medicine.

The problem is Harper is now portraying himself as Big Daddy... the Father of the Nation.


Or Great Nice Leader.

So if you attack him too hard, you could hurt yourself. Like paper trumps stone in the rock-paper-scissor game.

One way to go? Contrast the Harper in the ad with the other Harper. The mean nasty one. And then ask Canadians can you really trust a man who one day is Big Daddy, and the next day Scary Monster?

A man who if he ever got a majority would destroy the power of government. And turn Canada into a RepubliCon jungle.

I don't know if it will work. Or how we ever got to this awful place so divided and so weak

But I'm afraid history will be harsh. Because we put partisan politics ....and our cars.... before our country. And were too precious to attack these evil Cons like they attack us.

The Canada we know and love.

Could be dead in forty days ...

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