Well buddy, it's time to grow a pair. You've got an election coming and the John Kerry routine isn't going to cut it.
You want to win? It's really not that difficult. Get your staff to round up every news report they can find from the 1974 campaign - the Trudeau/Stanfield/Lewis runoff.
All you've got to deal with is Stephen Harper. Trudeau had to defeat Bob Stanfield, a really good guy even though he was a Tory.
Trudeau understood campaigning but, then again, he was a lawyer. He knew you've got to fight to win and fighting means taking apart your opponent. It wasn't the Liberal Party's finest moment but Trudeau knew he could take down two birds with one stone by nailing Stanfield on his wage & price controls proposal. He bloodied Stanfield and siphoned off much of the NDP base in one fell swoop.
Trudeau knew that campaigning required passion. You've got to wear your heart on your sleeve. You've got to connect with the voting public and not on some ethereal plane either.
Try to imagine how Pierre Trudeau would have taken on Stephen Harper. He would have eviscerated Harper, gutted him and then shredded the remains.
Word is out that you want to make this election a debate over the economy. Sit down Senator Kerry, that ain't going to work. No, your target is Stephen Harper, prime minister. You've got to cut him, again and again and again. He's not a likeable guy. You have to make the public revile him. You have to paint Steve as this secretive, power crazed, manipulative, dishonest and anti-democratic bully boy. You have to make voters hate the way Steve has treated them. You have to make them want his head for what he has done to our Canada.
As Dion showed, this really isn't a game for academics. It's a blood sport. Don't waste your time giving lectures. No feeble reaching out to the public. They don't like you either. Best not to remind them of that. Even if we don't much like you, we're all fight fans at this point. What you've got to do is put on that fight, show us you can take this punk down. Or step out of the way and let somebody else in who can.
15 comments:
Totally agree! Good post.
Blood sport, indeed. The time to fight is almost past. Is it too late?
Is it too late? Hell, I don't know. All I know for sure is that it's definitely too late for Iggy if he doesn't.
Iggy doesn't have to make Harper look like a total prick. He merely has to point out that reality.
You know what would scare the shit out of Steve Harper? Having to face Louise Arbour.
I think Trudeau said that politics was a dirty game played by dirty people. He was right.
I am going to giggle all the way to the ballot box. You're suffering from a bad case of Harper Derangement syndrome
Well Backdoor you could just be right. There are so many polls the past week saying so many contradictory things anything is possible.
As far as I'm concerned it's a no-lose proposition for the Libs. They've already languished for two years under Ignatieff. Everyone has said that, by virtue of assuming the leadership he was entitled to lead the Libs into a general election. Fair enough, this is his shot.
Harper's a punk but I suspect that's the way you like'em.
I'm not so sure Trudeau could've taken on Stevie today, given Stevie's obsessive vendetta against the man. Trudeau is one of the main reasons Stevie seeks to destroy the Liberal party--literally, according to Gerry Nicholls and Lawrence Martin in "Harperland".
Also, folks were more left of center back then. Before 9/11. Different times.
Once upon a time, Trudeau was revered as a great PM.
Now articles by David Frum and others like prominently read as Trudeau was the disaster for Canada rule the day.
Today, in post 9/11, when austerity is as fashionable as keeping up with the Jones's, Canada has shifted to the right and that is a reality we're going to have to accept.
BAck in the day Medicare was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now, social programs are looked upon as evil tax grabs.
What I am afraid of is a Harper dictatorship. Never have I seen a PM who used the campaign slogan "Action! No Elections!" On Harpercon campaign signs in 2009 by-elections. I believe he'd do that too..if unleashed with a majority, it would probably be the last election. Is that what we want?
Harper's not a punk.
He's a dweeb getting his revenge.
Can you imagine how he must have been teased and humiliated most of his childhood and youth?
He's getting his own back now.
Unfortunately the entire country is going to bear the brunt of it.
ck, we're frogs in warm water.
@CK. I was lucky enough to cover parts of Trudeau's 74 campaign although I was mainly stuck with the David Lewis campaign. I also spent a good bit of time back then watching Trudeau from the press gallery.
Trust me, Trudeau would have mauled a guy as weak as Harper and mauled him mercilessly. We haven't seen anything even close to Trudeau's intellectual skills since he left.
Sure they've smeared him now that he's safely in the ground. Mulroney tried the same thing while Trudeau was still alive and he got chewed up for his efforts. It was Trudeau who exposed the Meech Lake accords for what they really were and it was around Trudeau that opponents rallied to defeat the subsequent Charlottetown Accords.
Mulroney is an amateur checkers player compared to Harper, who is like a master chess wizard.
Plus, Mulroney, to his credit, wasn't an obsessed mad man. I don't recall Mulroney wanting to destroy the Liberals or the Bloc or any other opposition party. I don't recall Mulroney having such a vendetta against anyone that it was very much the modus operandi. If there was anyone who would've fit that bill for Mulroney, it would've been Lucien Bouchard. Sure he wrote a tell all book about what kind of traitor Bouchard was among other subjects, but I don't recall this rage with Mulroney when in government as we see with ol' Stevie Spiteful.
If you haven't read Lawrence Martin's "Harperland", I suggest you pick up a copy. It is really an eye opener.
Trudeau was an arse and we are still paying for his extravagance.
Anon, that's a profoundly ignorant assessment, the sort of nonsense that's routinely spewed from feeble, ill-informed minds.
And what has been your great life struggle other than a losing battle with literacy?
maybe a cape and some logging boots would help him
Ignatieff has to start laying it on the line a lot more. The media have to start calling out the Conservative BS from contempt to coalitions. And the people have to care one iota that they are being lied to by Harper, in a way I've never seen a politician lie in Canada before, and ask if they want that for themselves and our country.
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