Speaking at a scrum in Ottawa, Conservative leader Stephen Harper has confirmed that the Conservative Party will vote in favour of Bill C-43, the budget measure containing the offshore revenue. However, they will vote against the second measure, which includes the agreement with the New Democrats.
As a result, the government would fall if it lost the vote on bill C-48.
The vote for C-43 - and the offshore money - in that context would be completely disingenuous. This new caucus manouevre is a cynical attempt at political manipulation of the likes the Conservatives have resorted to repeatedly.
The Conservatives and economist Stephen Harper are mired in a technocrat's argument, talking endlessly about process, often doing so as if they had no idea what the process actually was. Their arguments about separate bills for the offshore passing quickly or the absurd idea that the budget for 2004 was only passed last week are cases in point.
None of those arguments resonate in the public. Voters are are only concerned about results. Conservatives have increasingly been talking in terms that only they can hear or care about.
For the past six weeks Harper's Conservatives have sustained a shrill strategy focused almost exclusively on pushing up Liberal "negatives" in polling. They have done nothing to boost their own "positives". This explains very easily the persistent problem the Conservatives have been having in translating their approach into any meaningful gain in opinions polls.
Their latest effort - the radio spots - just reinforce a screeching message that people other than Connie loyalists started tuning out weeks ago. They continue an unproductive approach that had already begun to alienate voters by the time the spots hit the air.
Conservative references to mafioso and Liberals in the same breath are are part of same dog-whistling approach that appeals only to their own hard-core members. It does nothing to draw new supporters. In fact, it alienates a great many people the Connies would need to win.
Last week's antics in the Commons were seen by many as the childish tactics of those bent merely on destroying the Liberals, rather than presenting themselves as an alternative. The approach actually reinforced negative attitudes toward Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. It was a clear case of a series of self-inflicted wounds.
While national pundits could easily predict we will head to the polls if Harper has his way, what they consistently miss is that the Conservatives are stuck in the mud. Andrew Coyne's comments on the eastern edition of The National were a case of whistling past the political graveyard. The Connies, said Coyne, were building up in the polls from where they finished the last election. The problem Coyne avoided was that over the past few weeks, the Connies have been yo-yoing up and down. They are not on the way up.
For a party which has been engaged in an incestuous conversation with itself, today's defection by Belinda Stronach has produced even more damage, again, much of it self-inflicted.
Belinda Stronach's defection today highlighted all the worst things from the Conservative perspective:
- Obvious internal divisions over policy, reputed to be fairly significant, between the Reform wing and the Progressive Conservative wing.
- Internal leadership challenges and hence heightened speculation that Harper's push to the polls was motivated by self-preservation. Harper's comment to his wife said more about his own nervousness than about Belinda's overweaning desire.
- Harper's predictable reaction to the defection - as noted in Minister Stronach - was negative and at times catty and sexist. In every respect, the Conservative reaction to l'affaire Stronach pushed potential middle-of-the-road voters away from them. Sexist references by everyone from Harper on down reinforce the suspicion in the minds of many voters that the Connies are either not ready or not fit to govern or, worse, that they have a hidden agenda just waiting to be implemented.
- Stronach's defection was worth at least a five point boost in the polls for the Conservatives. With their margins close across the country and with their recent Ontario numbers looking dismal, going to the polls would be a case of political suicide.
- Expect the attacks on Stronach, like this one, or this one, or this one, to boost her worth by another five points. Consider, as well, these comments by a western Conservative who stops an inch short of calling Stronach a dumb blonde. This man is cabinet material?
The twisting approach - vote for C-43//vote against the NDP agreement portions - will only further damage Conservative credibility. It will be seen as a cynical and transparent effort to play games with matters that are fundamentally important to people. Stephen Harper is so genuinely concerned with what Newfoundlanders and Labradorians think that he will lie to their faces about what he is actually doing, let alone about what his intentions are. Stephen Harper the anti-democrat, the elitist, the sexist shines through his every word.
One need not take my word for it. As CTV is reporting, Harper wasted no time in his scrum announcing the budget two-step to lash out, as CTV puts it, at the Progressive Conservavtive premier Danny Williams. The budget dance may fool some of the provincial Conservavtives but the ongoing war of words with the Premier will suppress local party workers on whom both Doyle and Hearn will depend to vote for them and to get out their vote. For a man who won his seat by the thinest of margins, Loyola Hearn cannot afford to be alienating any more provincial Tories. [Note: If you missed David Cochrane's report this morning, here's a link to the full Harpoer scrum. It requires Windows Media Player.]
Doyle and Hearn have stood with their leader, but increasingly one must wonder what they are standing for. It surely is not the best interests of the country, let alone the province. Surely, they cannot seriously contend that Stephen Harper is the very best this country can produce to be prime minister at this time.
Pushing the country into an election the people of the country don't want was never a smart idea. It reflects the belief that politics is a game and that term has been bandied about with too much regularity lately by Conservatives. Politics as a game is explicit in Harper's reliance on game theorists to develop strategy. It is further evidence that they are fundamentally out of touch with the majority of Canadians.
The Conservatives may succeed in forcing an election now, after all that has occurred, and after doing a quick zig-zag for part of the budget and against part of it. One can only expect that the united right experiment will fly apart under the strains of running an election at full throttle. Debris will be scattered over a far greater area than an incoming Titan missile on the Grand Banks.
It will not be a pretty sight.
The rolling thunder you hear will be the disintegration of a political party glued together in an effort to gain power in Ottawa. The glue of individual ambition grows quickly brittle.
The Conservative party will have fallen apart as a result of a strategic approach as fundamentally unsound as the one used to develop the original Rolling Thunder.
Neither war nor politics is a game.
