Liberal Party

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While I’m in NYC these days, much of my social media still comes from Toronto & Canada. The Conservative Party of Canada is running attack ads against the third party. Not the opposition, but against the Liberal Party interim leader, Bob Rae. This ad came out while the official opposition party, The New Democrats, were choosing a new leader, who was chosen yesterday, Thomas Mulcair. OK, to further complicate things, Rae was once a New Democrat at the provincial level in Ontario and Mulcair was a Liberal at the provincial level in Québec. I know, you probably need a scorecard. Anyway, while there’s no election in sight for years {barring a finding of widespread election fraud from the robocall scandal}, the Conservative attack ad slams Rae’s record from his stint as Ontario Premier in the early 1990s, as an Ontario New Democrat. Last year, I wrote a brief analysis of the Bob Rae premiership on vox.rhizomicon that explains how Rae inherited an impossible situation worsened by a macroeconomic perfect storm. In fact, Rae’s policies had much more in common with—a fiscally conservative strategy.

John Ibbitson of the Globe & Mail thinks the Tories are scared of Rae and the resurgence of the Liberals. There may be something to that. They ran ads in 2009 against then Liberal leader, Micael Ignatieff, framing him as an outsider because of his living abroad in the past. Why not use the wayback machine to do the same to Bob Rae?

One could argue that the Conservatives have more money than good sense right now. While it’s no secret that the Conservatives want to keep the Liberals down and replace them as the “natural governing party of Canada”, the strategy has its risks. Sure, it will get the Liberals to spend money on return-fire ads, which the Liberals vow to do, but the ad concept isn’t fresh and the content is dated. While Andrew Coyne think the Conservatives win either way, I think he’s wrong. It’s not an election and the negative ads on the third party leader can be viewed as playing unfairly, particularly in light of the robocall scandal. The main problem I have with the Conservative ads is they have tipped their hand. Bob Rae has them worried and they’re signaling it. Unlike Ignatieff, Rae is a seasoned politician and a good communicator. Liberal support isn’t dead and the ads allegedly boosted Liberal fundraising by $225,000 and Rae offered this soundbite:

“You can’t just abandon the airwaves to the jerks on the right-hand side of the spectrum.”

While the Conservatives have a majority in Parliament, they know that with Rae and Mulcair opposing them, they’ll have their hands full with a war in the media and the court of public opinion. They’ll want to discredit both, but let’s face some ugly marketing truths. They’re the majority party and should act accordingly. Attack ads now look desperate and mean. The Conservatives’ main ace up their sleeves is “stay the economic course.” They don’t have a hot-tempered firebrand from Québec who makes the news by being the news in a Thomas Mulcair. They don’t have an elder statesman who can effectively sound as if he’s railing at the establishment in a Bob Rae. The Conservatives are selling “stay the course” and they don’t have many degrees of freedom that can really energize the masses, while unemployment remains fairly high and a housing bubble looms. Their current positioning is fairly moderate, which is how they won the last election by taking Liberal ridings in Ontario {assuming election fraud isn’t shown in the robocall scandal, which is probably a stretch}. It makes the most sense to build the appeal to moderates by building a case why the Conservatives are good for stability on positives, even if there isn’t any “there” there.

It will be interesting to see how the Conservatives deal with Mulcair. I’m sure his dual citizenship with France will factor in, as the Tories try to question his allegiance to Canada. Given the NDP strongholds of Québec and urban centers, it won’t matter much to the NDP base and pressing the issue could turn off the new Canadians that the Conservatives are trying to court.

It’s over three years until the next Canadian election and it’s a tad early to start being tiresome.

 

Notes from north of 49ºN, but at 37.9ºN at the moment.

Regular readers of ThickCulture will recall that I post quite a bit on the topic of Canada from an American expatriate perspective.  Way back in May, I blogged about attack ads being aimed at Liberal opposition leader, Michael Ignatieff, framing him as an outsider.  Recently, the Liberal Party of Canada has announced their intent to trigger the next election with a no-confidence vote in Parliament.  In preparation of this, The Liberals started advertising with spots featuring Ignatieff in a forest.  Earlier last week, the Globe & Mail tried to stir up controversy about Liberal Party of Canada ads featuring Michael Ignatieff in a possibly ersatz forest or a forest that cannot be readily identified.  Quite the sin in a timber-bearing land, eh Globe & Mail?

Here are the ads:: “Worldview” & “Jobs”

In my opinion, this constructed “scandal” is meant to stir the pot to get pageviews for the Globe & Mail by feeding the sentiments that somehow he is not as Canadian as everyone else and there is something less-than-authentic about him.  Perhaps this was borne out of the media frenzy over the Obama “birthers” movement.

Interestingly, in the French ads {I didn’t have time to translate the copy}, there is no forest and no guitar strumming in the background.  Just straightforward delivery::

Strategically, candidates need to think about creating a “positioning” strategy, where they create a meaning system in light of the competition.  With voter data on attitudes towards the political leaders {Harper-Conservative, Ignatieff-Liberal, Layton-NDP, Duceppe-Bloc, & May-Green}, multidimensional scaling can be used to try to create dimensions based on the attitudes and positions for each of the candidates along the dimensions.  Ideally, candidates differentiate themselves from the others on the basis of salient voter perceptions, i.e., tapping into the zeitgeist.  On my other blog, Rhizomicon, I did a post that talked about the increased fragmentation of the Canadian electorate.  While the Conservatives are in power with a plurality, my take is that there are several oppositional positions that are distinct and are differentiated from each other.  The question is whether the positions are salient and resonate with voters, which I think is a tough thing to accomplish in Canada these days.

The key issues now are economic, despite the Bank of Canada announcing the economy is turning the corner.  Crafting powerful messages that resonate on this would be no easy feat for any of the parties.  I think the look and feel of the Liberal Party French ad is more effective in conveying an “ominous” message.  As for the attack ads on Ignatieff, this could be dangerous in a politically fragmented environment, as there are already political faultlines along east-west lines.  A strategy framing Harper as fostering policies that are out of touch outside of the West could erode Conservative support.  Ironically, Harper coined the term “Bloc Anglais” to characterize Jack Layton of the NDP, but that same term could be applied to the particular {Reform Party style} conservatism Alberta and parts of interior BC.

So, what’s next?  Maybe Ignatieff’s a robot from outer space…

Twitterversion:: Globe&Mail strts contrvrsy w/ #Ignatieff in forest ads,but how2frame #CanPoli parties givn fragmntd polity? #ThickCulture http://url.ie/2gxo @Prof_K

Song:: Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt.1 – The Flaming Lips

The Cisco Fatty meme served up a cautionary tale for all the denizens of Web 2.0.  It might be me, but I think people need to lighten up.  The  Andrews v. FedEx incident is a good example highlighting this need.  In this one, a VP tweeted this candid gem on his impressions of Memphis, where FedEx headquarters are located::

“True confession but i’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say ‘I would die if I had to live here!'”–James Andrews

The FedEx employees were outraged.  Didn’t this clown hear the Cher cover of this Marc Cohn song?  How dare someone insult fair Memphis!  Here’s a response sent upstairs to FedEx management::

“Many of my peers and I feel this is inappropriate. We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays Ketchum annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We are confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry. A hazard of social networking is people will read what you write.”

The rest is predictable.  Finger-wagging by bystanders admonishing Andrews, an apology, and a statement by FedEx saying they are “moving on.”  Commentors on the story nailed it, in my opinion, by noting how this is a tempest in a teapot::

“People who live in small cities are always trying to prove something. They exhibit irrational pride for their little slice of nowhere. Seriously. Who cares? If James said he would die if he had to live in LA, no client would even take notice. Of if they did notice they certainly wouldn’t care. They definitely wouldn’t ship it to a gaggle of senior leaders at both companies. But talk about Memphis…..and it’s ON.”–Adrants commenter

“James Andrews had to fly into Memphis yesterday for a client meeting with FedEx, and observed, correctly, that Memphis is a hellhole…

James Andrews will never make the mistake of being honest again.”–Gawker commenter

Enough of this boring stuff, what about a political candidate with “embarrassing” Facebook photos on a private page.  Now we’re talking.  Ray Lam, a 22 year old NDP {far-left party} candidate for local office in British Columbia {False Creek-Vancouver} had the photo below surface.

bc-090422-ray-lam-facebook
Ray Lam, Ex-NDP BC Candidate-False Creek, 4 years ago at a Pride event

Lam resigned his candidacy.  Of course, let the media circus begin, along with the finger-wagging and admonishments.  The fact of the matter is that the photos of the openly gay candidate were from 4 years ago and from a campy Pride celebration.

The BC Liberals {centre-left party} were quick to jump on this Facebook faux-pas.  His opponent, Mary McNeil was shocked and outraged.  She made a statement sent to media outlets, which, of course, contained links to the Facebook photos.   In her statement, she said, “…These photos are offensive and demeaning. I’m surprised that Carole James and her NDP caucus think these photos are acceptable.”

The British Columbia Liberal Leader, Gordon Campbell was quick to point out::

“This was public information. It was on the NDP website and they have some responsibilities in terms of that. … They were totally inappropriate pictures and the NDP has some questions to answer for.”

Good point, Gordon.

Oh, wait, remember your Maui mugshot for that pesky 2003 DUI::

CRIME-Premier-Charged
BC Premier #03-02659

No resignation for a DUI, a situation which could have endangered the lives of himself and others, but there MUST be consequences for risqué photos.

In my mind, there are two issues.  (1) Do the private lives of politicians really matter?  If so, (2) the nature of Web 2.0 and subsequent iterations will make sure all dirt will have its day.  I’m not 100% sure what was on Lam’s Facebook page, but I do know the technology poses challenges for managing perceptions, as one can get tagged in photos by others.

Should we get over it?  Are we degenerating into a culture of optics?  We can say that issues of values and character matter, but are we just setting up a situation where only the squeaky clean can withstand the scrutiny in media singularity.

I guess Edgar Friendly would never make it as a politician.