Well, I hope you've enjoyed living under Stephen Harper for the last six years, because he's finished, donezo, kaput. A slew of recent recent polls have yielded unanimously bad numbers for the prime minister -- a 35 per cent support rate here, a 49 per cent disapproval rating there -- and since we all know polls don't change over time, the only remaining loose end is determining who exactly is gonna depose him. Thankfully the pundit brigade have lots of fun ideas.
With Canadian politics being such a disjointed mess at the moment, Richard Gwyn of the Toronto Star offers a helpfully disjointed article that's practically a cheat-sheet of media truisms about how we're supposed to view the hottest not-Harpers of the day. For those in a hurry, the answers are: Tom Mulcair -- moderate, Bob Rae -- statesman, Martha Hall Findlay -- brilliant, and Justin Trudeau -- promising (though students' answers may vary on that last one). As far as summer memes go, these catchy tropes are no "Call Me Maybe," but I'm sure we'll be hearing them just as loudly and often.
Speaking of Justin Trudeau, let's speak of Justin Trudeau. Everyone else is, after all. With the Liberal leadership contest expected to "heat up" this summer, July will be a real make-or-break time for Justin to introduce himself to the five remaining Canadians who haven't already heard of him, especially if he hopes to compete with the race's latest powerhouse candidate: his dead father's baby mama. Talk about a story rich in incestuous Ottawa insider intrigue! Maybe Andew Coyne will write a column about it -- unless he's worried about offending his cousin.
Jon Ivison at the Post, meanwhile, is so far ahead of himself he's actually wondering how Prime Minister Mulcair will deal with the Senate. His conclusion, the "NDP could start to appoint its own senators," isn't exactly earth-shattering, but hey, it's still  fun to think the NDP might someday be capable of appointing people to a body higher than the Manitoba Boxing Commission.
At this point, Tory attack ads against opposition leaders are so eagerly anticipated the Conservatives may as well throw red carpet premieres. The content may be little more than cloying, manipulative drivel filled with predictable affectations and botched attempts at cuteness, but hey, some people really love that stuff. Just ask Wes Anderson.
This week saw the debut of the Conservatives' first anti-Mulcair ad, but reviews have been mixed. Critics agree this latest offering, with its reference to Mulcair's "economic theories," is a far more complex and challenging work than previous blockbusters Not a Leader and He Didn't Come Back For You (as well as the under-appreciated indie sleeper hit, He Couldn't Run a Province), but caution such high-minded pretentiousness could prove a risky move with audiences.
"Simply put, the Tories have adopted a far more policy-based strategy when it comes to defining this leader of the opposition," writes Dan Arnold of Calgary Grit fame, arguing that the ad's focus on "NDP policies" marks a dramatic departure from their historic oeuvre of unflattering photographs of people shrugging. I mean, it "doesn't even contain so much as a gratuitous 'he's out of touch' pot shot," if you can believe that, says Dan.
Chris Selley at the Post, however, thinks the ad's greatest sin is not boldly departing from staid convention enough. The "tone here is traditional Tory-sneer," he sniffs. "It's like it came out of a template." Agreed. Could it be more 2008? Where's the "why so serious?" reference?
"It looks like it's back to the drawing board for the attack ad producers," sasses Andy Raida at Yahoo!
Of course, the good thing about televised attack ads in this era of Netflix and TiVo is that almost no normal people actually see them anymore. In fact, Canada might be the first country in the world whose political commercials exist almost entirely as irono-hipster Facebook memes.
Sensitive to this fact, the CBC's great Kady O'Malley was courteous enough to start a Twitter hashtag to track offline sightings of the Mulcair spot among poor saps who still watch commercial TV. At at my last count, the dozen or so tweets were about equal parts actual sightings and equal parts media types retweeting each other with pride at how clever the whole idea was.
Who said negative ads can't be uplifting?
Follow J.J. McCullough on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JJ_McCullough
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In the US the traditional reaction, since the first one iirc, has been to retaliate in kind, leading to what we have today: a war of attrition, plus skulduggery, rather than a battle of ideas.
But to use a schoolyard metaphor
If a bully calls you a name and you get upset, s/he gets a payoff. If you battle back, it escalates. If you simply neutralize her/his attack with bland indifference, he/she will typically give up the tactic.
Now in the playground the bully may resort to force, not sure even the Harper interpretation of the law would allow that for the Harper government. Unless that's what the new jails are for...
PREDICTING DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALISM FOR THE MIDDLE EAST ------like israel is going to let the palestinians living in israel have a vote
This attempt at policy based demagoguery might actually be a step up. Sure they might misrepresent and of course there's no one around to make counterpoints unlike a real debate like one used to expect in the House, but at least the discussion is about ideas and not people.
I think Mulcair's strategy of simply talking about ideas instead of engaging in mudslinging or even visibly reacting beyond some bored eye rolling may be part of what is at play here. It may be why he's up in the polls, and I suspect with the writing on the wall in Quebec, Harper has decided he will have to fight Mulcair's war.
http://www.mulcairsndp.ca/
excerpt withthe links removed -
"His team includes those who want to try dangerous economic experiments such as creating a government-run automotive company, and those who promote higher taxes even on iPods, reckless spending and ideological opposition to free trade . His team includes those with ties to radical activists and those who oppose Canada’s unity rather than those who put ordinary Canadian families first.
Mr. Mulcair’s NDP have fought to defend a criminal justice system that privileges the rights of criminals at the public’s expense. They have gone to great lengths to prevent responsible development of Canada’s natural resources, even calling for an end to development. And his team abandoned any commitments made to the law-abiding hunters and farmers they represented."
- pretty pathetic once you take away all the distractions and just read the actual wording...huh, law abiding hunters representing farmers, how odd!
I guess I'm just going to have to vote for him.