Ignatieff & Harper LOLcat from Cartoon Life

Ignatieff & Harper LOLcat from Cartoon Life

Notes from north of 49ºN

I remember how my parents said that RFK was accused of being a carpetbagger, coming to New York to become a US Senator in 1964.  Now that Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, finds his Conservative Party down in the polls by 5% {35-30%}, attack ads are being run tantamount to accusing the Liberal Party leader, Michael Ignatieff, of being a Canadian “outsider.”  The ads accuse Ignatieff of coming back to Canada after being gone for 34 years::

The Conservatives are really slipping in the polls in Québec, so you think they would come up with a more engaging attack ad than this one in French.

This one paints Ignatieff as a carpetbagging opportunist, living in the UK and referring to himself as American::

The Liberals may be further undermined by attacks from the Bloc Québécois in Québec, which has 24% of the population in Canada.  Support for the Bloc is upwards of 40% in Québec, while Liberal support in the province is around 35%.

I find the anglophone ads to be rather effective at conveying the frame of Ignatieff as a elitist outsider.  I agree with the pundits that Harper is fighting for his political life and managed to get into a feud with Brian Mulroney, a conservative blast from the past.  Conservatism seems to be lacking cohesiveness on both sides of 49ºN.

While another Federal election is unlikely in the near term, it’s likely to pressure uneasy alliances between the Conservatives, the Bloc, and even the left-leaning NDP {read:: concessions by Harper?}.

HatTip:: LinnyQat

Twitterversion:: Harper {Tories} attcks Ignatieff {Grits} on nationalism frame. H. fighting 4 political life, Grits gaining. Strange bedfellows in store?

Song:: Jay-Z “Takeover”