I've read far too many posts blaming the Canadian voting public for last night's Liberal drubbing. That disgusting little narrative holds that they were too dumb to see through Mr. Harper or too weakminded to understand the brilliance that is Mr. Dion.
What an arrogant load of crap!
The Canadians who handed the LPC its head on a platter last night were the same Canadians who have trusted the Liberals to govern the country in the past. If they're good enough when they support us, they're every bit as good when they don't.
You have to win an election. Even the Liberals have no entitlement to govern. Liberals have a genuine advantage in that mainstream Canadians are ideologically compatible with the party. So, when voters turn elsewhere they've obviously rejected something or someone in the Liberal campaign.
You cannot win an election if you don't connect with the voting public. It was Mr. Dion's job every day since he assumed party leadership to connect with the voting public, to help them understand what the Liberals were offering and why they ought to support it. He went into this election already having failed on that score.
In terms of electoral skills, Dion was completely outclassed by Mr. Harper. Time and again when he ought to have brought the government down, he stepped aside and had his caucus shamefully flee the floor of the Commons. Had he brought the government down on any one of several, legitimate disputes, Dion would have had some control over the timing of the election and, more importantly, an ability to frame the issues.
The only surprise in Harper's election call was that anyone should have been surprised by it. Parliament had had the summer off and all the scandals and blunders of the Harper government had receded in the minds of the voters. This was Harper's one chance to not have to run on his record and clear issues. And he caught the opposition, particularly the Liberals utterly flatfooted.
We, the Liberal Party of Canada, did extremely poorly last night. We were completely outmatched and that was the culmination of a whole series of mistakes and blunders. We lost this election, the voters merely responded.
6 comments:
Good post. The only voters I would criticize are the 3000 odd Vancouver Islanders who voted for a non-existent NDP candidate, leading to a loss by a narrow margin, of a solid Liberal candidate to Gary Lunn...
Anon, if you have a comment to make that's on-topic, be my guest. If you want to prattle on, take it elsewhere.
And stop blaming the media (CTV) and the RCMP investigation in 2004, and jack Layton
for election losses.
The people of Canada have spoken.
They reject the "foreign policy" of the left which coddles terrorists.
They reject the hatred and jealousy the left has towards the USA.
They reject the soft on crime liberals.
They reject the liberals who think they own the country and socially engineer it.
I could go on and on, but clearly Mr Harper was the best choice.
Well Anon 12:53, just over a third of those who could be bothered to vote gave the nod to Harper so I'm not sure how they constitute the "people of Canada"? Does that make the other two-thirds who didn't vote for the guy something less than people of Canada? The rest of your points are about as valid as your vainglorious rant on behalf of the "people of Canada."
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