Stop the Denial.....
You can just read the comments on my last few postings to see the incredible delusion that has overtaken many Conservatives in this country. We didn't lost because of the biases of the CBC (and yes, it is biased), or the rantings of Craig Oliver at CTV (yes, he does rant against the Conservatives), or because of the Obama administration.
The Conservative loss in the election was self-inflicted. We ran a lousy campaign tempered with anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment. Before you go all bat-shit crazy on me, I should add that I am personally against women wearing a niqab during citizenship ceremonies. But, the Conservatives over-politicized the issue - my god, if this issue was important, they had nine years to bring legislation before the House of Commons. Harper make it worse by casually mentioning on the CBC that perhaps we should ban the niqab in the civil service. But, no women wear the niqab in the civil service....so why is this an issue.
The Conservatives strung a number of issues together - the bungling of the Syrian refugee crisis, the niqb, the citizenship issues regarding people convicted of terrorism, the barbaric practices hotline - that made them look anti-Muslim and anti-Immigrant. A totally unforced error on the Conservatives' part. And then, to top off their horrible campaign, they showed up with the Fords' in Toronto.
Let's hope the Conservatives conduct an honest appraisal of what went wrong.
In the meantime, don't forget to order my book, Conservative Confidential: Inside the Fabulous Blue Tent, which shows how the Harper government was arrogantly timid.
posted by GayandRight @ 1:40 PM
17 Comments:
Instead of the Fords he should of campaigned with Jean Chretien and Paul Martin and Wynne and all her ministers...Pillars of the community. Or conflict of interest with her son's real estate scandal Hazel...another pillar of the Liberal community.
It was the media who kept the niqab story alive...what was the question's to PM Harper everyday...niqab and Mike Duffy. Day after day after day...the ONLY questions. Lets face the real facts though...DOPE got out the voters for Trudeau...Conservatives still won 99 seats....lots of people voted and agree with the party. Wait till the 25,000 refugees are upon us. What a disaster. Harper is too good for this biased ,no thanks ,country for all he did for people.
There is a lot of hope and change and a lot of promises made. We will see. Obama ran on hope and change and a lot of people were disappointed. I wait with baited breath for all this change. I just hope all this hope & change won't leave me freezing in the dark. One thing about PM Harper...he didn't raise our taxes. He didn't bow down to despots internationally. We didn't have the country over run with Isis...25,000 emigrants invading us worries me.Pot made legal should be an interesting issue. Cap and trade is a tax on Canadians...give with one hand and take with another. Anyways....I will admit I am sad to see PM Harper gone but am willing to see what Trudeau will do and I feel in one year, a lot of Canadians will be singing, a not so sunny song. That's me comment.
Okay... well the "good news" is we have a complete idiot as our PM and the reason we have a complete idiot as our PM is because the Conservatives ran a bad campaign... who knew it was all so simple.
I don't think any campaign would of won over Trudeau. ...he had too many people campaigning on his side....Drugs, Natives not wanting to acct. for where the Millionaire chiefs hide the money, Unions not wanting to acct. where they spend...against Conservatives, Media Guild..6000 reporters against the Govt., CBC/CTV/Global/CPAC....Leadnow. with American money,UNIONS galore, MY god...how can any party fight this....This is NOT democracy.
It wasn't the media's fault that Conservative HQ couldn't stay on message. If they had stayed on message there may still have been a Conservative victory - at a minimum a Conservative minority. It was HARPER who brought up the niqab in the first place, not the media. It was HARPER who brought it back up by deciding before he needed to that he was going to appeal the court decision, not the media. It was HARPER who brought it back up AGAIN by musing he might ban it in the public service, not the media. You can't blame the media when it was Harper himself would brought it again, again and again. The wackos will certainly hate this, but in order to win elections the Conservative campaign needs some progressive support. That means the Conservative campaign, and government, have to have some policy and rhetoric that appeals to progressives. The government side of things wasn't actually too bad. The campaigned, though, was terrible. And then Rob and Doug Ford? Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum? That was the solution to win over enough votes to win an election?! Noooo, the campaign made GREAT decisions.
Hopefuly the CPC will take the time to figure out why they lost this election and lost badly. Yes, Mr. Trudeau out campaigned them but the real problems lie in the party's failure to build a strong group of leaders and in poor policy choices. Canadians got fed up. There is likely to be another CPC government in 8 to 12 years so there is time to find and grow a strong group of new leaders --- it better not be just one person. Mr. Trudeau was able to put together a strong and diverse team The next CPC leader needs to do even better. I do kind of like Mr. Lord but I don't know enough about him. FYI: I have voted for Mr. Harper's CPC, the Liberals and the Greens over the years and in the last election I went back to the Liberals.
Well said. I think far too many from the base just don't get what why the Tories lost. They lost because they were out of touch with voters. Canadians aren't interested in parties that try to alienate a large swath of the population just to fire up their base. It's one thing to alienate people because you make unpopular decisions that are necessary, but quite another just to try and win votes through wedge issues. Also Canada is and always has been a centre-left country and so while the Tories don't need to move to the left, they should be as much to the right as the Liberals are to the left not further from the centre than either the NDP or Liberals were. Otherwise where the old PCs were or where the Saskatchewan Party under Brad Wall which is fiscally conservative but pragmatic and results drive rather than ideology driven.
None of these things are anti-Muslim, they are anti-extremism -- and yes, insisting on wearing the niqab during the Citizenship ceremony is extreme. The legislation against it pre-dated the election. It wss the opposition and the media who chose to highlight several initiatives to paint the Conservatives as anti Muslim. Even the tips line -- intended for Victims -- was grossly misrepresented as a "snitch line for neighbors." This was intentionally done to make Conservatives look like Neanderthals. Next time there is an honour killing in Canada, will the left be complicit because of their cynical false narrative?
I watched Rosie Barton's interview with PM Harper a couple of times, and did not hear him promise to ban the niqab in the public service, I think he mentioned he might look into it (Quebec legislation dealing with it).
From there media ran with the story as if that were his plan, I have seen countless references.It is more of the Big Lie technique, repeat something often enough and people will believe it.
I think the Conservatives lost because they offered nothing compelling as to why they should be elected, other than they were better than the other guys. Had the Conservatives come up with some vision for the future (does not necessarily mean a big budget), they might have been inspiring people to consider them. After 10 years the platform was more of the same (not bad at all), but pretty boring except to bean counters.
Had the Conservatives come out and said something about what they wanted the country to look like in 2020, some major initiative such as lowering provincial trade barriers or simplifying the tax act or perhaps starting a process to get out of provincial jurisdiction on various matters - maybe they would have got more attention.
Instead, we have a nincompoop who will preside over our nation's 150 birthday!
The media ran with the story that he was going to look into banning the niqab in the public service. There was no lie. They repeated the truth. It was HARPER who extended the discussion by considering extending how he would deal with the niqab. He's a seasoned politician, he knows not to do that if he doesn't want to. As for legislation banning the niqab at citizenship ceremonies pre-dating the election, THAT is a falsehood (not a lie, because I don't think it was intentional to be false). These changes were done by the Minister, not by legislation, before the election. Each court has told the government it must be done by changing the legislation, not by the Minister. Any first year law student would be able to understand that. But by dragging it through the courts it dragged out the discussion in the media. There was a clear and deliberate strategy by Conservative HQ to make this an election issue. Then when it became known there was political interference with Syrian refugees things started to look like the Harper government may be anti-Muslim. Is there any actual evidence of that? No! None! Add to that the "Barbaric Cultural Practices" tip line and it really started to look like maybe Conservatives were singling out Muslims for unfair treatment. Was that true? NO! But when you're a vulnerable minority you get a bit shaky with these types of things and you start feeling safer with Trudeau than you do with Harper. Those Muslim voters are essential for a Conservative victory in the GTA. Muslims are about 8% of the vote in the GTA - much, much higher in key winnable ridings. Clearly this wasn't the only mistake made by HQ. But it was a retarded one to make! As was getting anywhere near Rob and Doug Ford!
85% of Canadians and 92% of Quebecers agreed with Harper and you progressives say he is out of touch.
Trudeau ran a great campaign ? Toughest question he was asked was if he were a piece of lingerie what would it be.
Let's consider for a moment if the Canadian media guild had registered to campaign agianst Trudeau.
What would the outcome have been? 30 seats for libs
All that would have taken was a 5% change in voter support.
Sorry Fred. Again you ought to be over on blogging libs site.
old white guy says...........as the only living conservative in Canada I must say that having a party lose that I have always considered liberal lite does not surprise me. Canadians have become socialists in every respect. when anything occurs in Canada the very first question out of a Canadians mouth is, what is the government going to do about it. a real conservative will never be elected in this country.
And when you asked those 85% of Canadians WHY the niqab shouldn't be worn in citizenship ceremonies the overwhelming majority said it was for identification purposes. But they are already required to remove the niqab to ID themselves. So no, Canadians did not agree with Harper. It was a tactically stupid decision too. It hurt Conservative candidates in swing risings against the Liberals in the GTA and it REALLY hurt the NDP in Quebec, which helped the Bloc and Liberals. If the campaign had focused on the economy and kept hammering over and over the risk of change there's little doubt in my mind it would have been a Conservative victory. Instead HQ campaigned on the niqab and with the Rob and Doug Ford. And Fred isn't wrong to raise these issues. People who are ignoring the reality that this was a terribly run campaign are the ones helping the Liberals.
Old White Guy gets it. Why vote for a timid Liberal-lite government when there are so many widely accepted conservative positions they will not champion? I barraged both my Conservative MP and the PMO with the outline of a plan to end Indian status -- recall the 1970 Cretien-Trudeau white paper -- and didn't receive even an acknowledgement that I existed. How can you help such losers-by-default?
CPC showed its true Reform colours once they got a majority and voters didn't like it. Harper was popular when he had a minority because he had to govern at the centre. Once he went hard right, full of xenophobia and catering only to his rightwing hateful base, he lost the election. All that was needed was for the left to pick a party , and they picked the Liberals.
Once the CPC and Harper had a majority, they showed their true Reform / Alliance colours, and the shell shocked Canadians chose to show them the door. Hopefully the Red Tories win the leadership of this party.
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