Two solitudes #nlpoli

CBC and the Telegram  carried a story on Tuesday that the province would be hit by a “mild recession” next year. There’s not much real news in that since oil and minerals will all be down in price for the foreseeable future. Major projects are coming to an end.  All known.  All foreseen. But since the Conference Board of Canada issued the release and used the words “mild recession” and so that makes it news.

Later on Tuesday,  everyone carried the story that Premier-designate Dwight Ball had written to the federal government to try and forestall the two percent hike in the harmonised sales tax. Same thing:  news release, therefore news.

At the risk of repeating the same thing again, let’s just recall that the latest change in oil prices means that 36% of government spending this year will be covered by borrowing from the banks.

The sales tax hike won’t make much of a difference this year.  The  $50 million or so it will bring in between January and March will amount to precisely 1.6% of the revised borrowing. It was frig-all before oil dropped. It is even moreso frig-all now when compared to the magnitude of the provincial government’s financial problems.

We can say that revenues won’t be much better next year.  This is another point worth bearing in mind.  The local media have habitually followed slavishly behind the provincial government’s lead over the past decade and talked about last year, not the year coming up. and in truth.  Well, this whole HST thing is another example of chasing mice when the deer are just over the hill.

The Hundred Days #nlpoli

“A new government has a very small amount of time in which to lay the groundwork for its term of office. It has about six months to show things are different and about a year to start showing signs of results. In fact, they really have about 100 days to make a mark, and when it comes to things like re-organizing the departments and getting political and public service staff changes made, they have even less than that.

“The reasons are pretty simple: The outside world wants to figure out what government they really elected. For the government itself, they need to sort out the basics so they can cope with the onslaught of demands that come with the force of a three inch fire hose. Put another way, the new government has a short time to take control of the public agenda. That’s the only way they can filter the workload down to a manageable level, let alone do the things they want to do. Without control of the political agenda, they become followers rather than leaders.”

That’s the first two paragraphs from a column your humble e-scribbler wrote for The Independent was back when it began. It appeared in January 2004 after the Conservatives under Danny Williams had gone through a few less-than-stellar moments.  Go back and read the whole thing to see if any of it applies to current events.

Townies and Baymen (again) #nlpoli

Last week’s post on the political narrative war currently under way was a combination of two separate, but related ideas.

The incoming Liberal administration – like all political parties – is faced with the challenge of identifying itself or defining itself in the public mind.  Inevitably, that also involves the image of and the public attitudes toward the leader.

We’ll turn to the narrative war but first, let’s unbundle the other part of the post, the bit about townies and baymen.  That’s both the most provocative bit for some people and also the bit that is an exploration of some much bigger ideas in Newfoundland politics over the past century.

Voter turn-out #nlpoli

Political scientist Stephen Tomblin is concerned about the low voter turn-out in the recent elections.

Tomblin thinks it is a sign that voters are disconnected from the political system.  The recent lacklustre election didn’t have the political parties connecting with voters in a meaningful way.  There are lots of issues politicians could have discussed with voters but they just didn’t bother.

Tomblin makes some good points but there are some things about recent elections we should consider as we try and put some meaning on the recent election.

The real Ministry of Magic exposed #nlpoli

The information the Conservatives leaked to David Cochrane Tuesday on the budget update confirmed the extent to which they are actually the ones who have been running the finance department as if it was a ministry of magic.

The cash deficit this year looks like it will wind up being almost $3.0 billion.  Bear in mind that the budget the Conservatives introduced last spring called for a 12% increase in spending  - although they talked about restraint - and for borrowing $2.1 billion to cover a record deficit.

Incidentally, the accrual deficit figures leaked to Cochrane by the Tories leave out the $900 million the Conservatives planned to borrow for public works.  You need to look at the cash numbers to understand the magnitude of what the Tories did last spring.

The Narrative War #nlpoli

The day after a massive Liberal victory in the general election,  CBC’s David Cochrane posted an analysis piece on the new administration.  CBC distributed it nationally but it wasn't really analysis.  Cochrane relied on very few facts and a couple of biased sources to write a hatchet job. 

Cochrane described Dwight Ball as a man “unlikely” to be Premier:

Four campaigns. Two losses. Two wins.  By a combined 75 votes.

Cochrane’s account leaves out relevant context.  When it comes to describing how the Liberals won,  Cochrane focuses not on anything the Liberals did but rather a string of Tory blunders that  - according to Cochrane  - made it easy for the Liberals to win the election essentially by accident.

And now, as Cochrane’s story goes, Ball The Unlikely will have to face enormous financial problems using a plan that Cochrane claims “was greeted with enormous skepticism in the final week of the campaign.”

In the supper hours news, Cochrane then reported on information leaked to him by someone with access to highly confidential government information.  Their purpose  - quite obviously – was to maximise the the damage to the new administration before it even had a chance to take office.  The information fit quite neatly with Cochrane’s ongoing narrative and so, he naturally, had no hesitation in using it. 

Cochrane isn’t alone, though.  Telegram editorials have been selectively critical of the Liberal’s campaign platform.  Telegram editor Russell Wangersky’s Tuesday column follows a similarly critical line on Ball and the Liberals.  Wangersky also added an interesting aside, in light of the leak Cochrane used.  Wangersky noted that Ball’s cabinet would be undoubtedly be “looked on with considerable dread by some among the senior civil service, including some who no doubt believe their new political masters aren’t exactly equipped for the task.” 

A MUN math prof who worked on the NDP campaign wrote a blatantly biased critique of the Liberal platform.  That one actually went province-wide, thanks to CBC Radio’s On the Go and the Telegram’s editorial page.  It’s the one that started the idea that the Liberal economic plan was based on magic.

Balance and fairness wasn’t an issue. The truth, of course, is that all the parties advanced platforms based on the same sorts of assumptions.  The Liberals were neither any better nor any the worse than the others and all would have frightened civil servants who weren't partisan.  

What’s remarkable is that the Liberals alone received the criticism.  And when Cochrane used the passive voice to describe “enormous criticism” what he was really talking about was that relatively limited amount that we’ve listed above and maybe a few more items. 

What made it seem enormous by Cochrane’s estimation is that all of the people in his circles were saying the same thing. By another measure of “enormous,” though,  a genuinely enormous group of people voted for the very politicians and the very same platform that Cochrane and a handful of others easily dismissed.

Old prejudices die hard

To be clear, this isn’t a matter of partisan bias per se. Nor is it a bias across left-right ideological divide. What the parties and the other purveyors of the anti-Ball critique share is another set of social and political set of beliefs. It’s still an ideology though and out of it comes the biased narrative we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks.

The roots of the narrative are found in the pre-1934 attitudes of the elites in Newfoundland toward the rest of their countrymen.  The folks who actually ran the country into the ground told the Amulree commissioners that the ordinary Newfoundlanders – the baymen – were generally unfit to run their own affairs. As such,  the country would be better off with a commission made up of the better classes from England and Newfoundland.

That’s the same attitude you see in the view that Confederation was the result of stupid or greedy baymen who were hoodwinked into voting to join Canada   That paternalistic view transferred to post-Confederation politics.  The Liberals grew out of the Confederates.  They were predominately a rural party with more Protestants than not.  The Conservatives grew by default out of the old anti-Confederates who were predominantly from the east coast and St. John’s elites as well Irish Roman Catholics.

About 20 years later, those beliefs morphed into 1970s neo-nationalists.  That ideology remains, as Jim Overton noted in the 1970s and early 1980s, as little more than the a modern expression of the province’s old elite attitudes coupled with those of a new middle class that emerged after Confederation.

Townie-ism

What we have seen over the last couple of weeks, in other words, is not a matter of historic fact or unbiased commentary but an ideological assertion by believers in some variation of the townie ideology that descends from a very long lineage..

In its modern version, townies  - “nationalists” is really the wrong word - believe that politics in Newfoundland can only be practised properly by strongman leaders.  Ball does not fit that model, so therefore he must be illegitimate. The fact that Ball has successfully rebuilt the Liberals and defeated the supreme expression of townie-ism reinforces the need for townie-ists to diminish Ball and the Liberals. 

The Liberal emphasis on a strong, constructive relationship with the federal government is an affront to the townie belief that the province’s central political issue is the constant war between “us” and “them.”  The strongman is essential to defend “us” so this aspect of the Liberal approach is an even stronger to the townie agenda.

The classic townie view of politics is paternalistic and patronising.  As such, it is impossible for voters to make valid choices for anything but the strongman leader.  You can see this in the arguments advanced over the past three weeks that  seek to dismiss the notion that the Liberals have won the election by anything other than accident, default, or, in the Davis version, by lying.

Townie ideology also manifests itself in things like accents.  Fabian Manning,  Loyola Hearn, and Loyola Sullivan have never been the victims of the sorts of personal attacks levelled at John Efford,  Dwight Ball, and Yvonne Jones for the way they speak English.  In the townie narrative,  certain accents and dialects are indications of low intelligence, low social status, and an unfitness for office. 

Think about if for a second and you will notice the prevalence of certain kinds of arguments being used against the Liberals exclusively even though similar criticisms could be made of other political parties.   You will also note very quickly the selective way some people will poke fun at Ball but never at other politicians with accents.  It isn’t an accident.  The criticisms, jokes, and attacks reflect shared attitudes among certain groups against other groups.

The Other Half of the Equation

The fact that some people, including some reporters and certain politicians alike, are relying on essentially biased views to assess the Liberals and the recent election isn’t surprising. We’ve seen it before.  

In the current expression of the dominant townie ideology, though, its proponents have had an unwitting ally.  Dwight Ball and the Liberals went through the recent general election without doing one of the key things political parties do in an election campaign.  They did present an organized media program that generated news coverage to introduce their campaign, explain its elements, and to defend their position against attacks.

Take the issue of the Liberal platform and supposed lack of detail as a good example. The Liberal platform is built on something that Ball talked about during his victory speech:  “listening” and “doing things differently.”  The Liberal platform was built, in other words,  on the idea of how the Liberals would make decisions not on what decisions they would make.

The problem the Liberals had all through the campaign is that no one explained that simple point.  The Liberals left it to others to explain their campaign and that is always deadly.   The result is the sort of obviously biased commentary we have seen.  Unfortunately that is all that voters received.

When the Conservatives,  New Democrats and others  intensified their criticism of the Liberals in the last week of the campaign,  Ball and the Liberals remained silent.   They did as little as possible to explain the Liberal perspective and rebut the criticism.  The result – predictably – was that people only heard the anti-Liberal narrative regardless of what source it came from.  That is the one that took hold.

The result is that the Liberals effectively abandoned the field in metro St. John’s in the crucial last week of the campaign. The Liberals likely never could have won all the seats, but their strategic decision to avoid any conflict made it easier for the NDP and Conservatives to retain some seats. Liberal silence implied consent.

The other result on polling day was that, while the Liberals won a big seat count, they did so with a smaller share of eligible vote than the Conservatives did in 2011. Turnout was also slightly lower than it was in 2011.

Any administration that wants to govern successfully needs strong popular support.  To the Conservatives,  the Liberals don’t look as strong as they could be.  And since Ball and the Liberals were so weak- in their response to obviously slanted criticism from the media and the political parties,  those same critics will only be emboldened in their efforts.

Rather than stories about the transition to a new administration, the news the day after the election included yet more of the biased narrative.  One cannot help but look at the budget information and wonder who leaked the highly confidential information and why they did so at this time. 

The Liberals are in a struggle to define their administration.  They could win the Battle of the Narrative.  The first thing the Liberals would  have to realize was there was a battle in the first place, let alone that this is one they must fight and win.

-srbp-

Election Results #nlpoli

Doing things differently.

That’s what the Liberal campaign was all about.

Now we have to see if Ball and the Liberals actually put that into action.

The youtube election #nlpoli

This is the year of the youtube election.

Some of them, like Alison Coffin’s recession pitch or Dan Crummell’s “I live in the district” spot are simple and straightforward. Others, like those of Conservatives Beth Crosbie and Ryan Cleary are so bizarre that they are funny.  On Facebook, Conservative Alison Stoodley identified Browning Harvey as a threat to public health.

All are reminiscent of a string of videos released by John Ottenheimer during the Conservative leadership campaign a year ago.  Ottenheimer, the outsider candidate,  tried to use humour to attract some attention to his effort.

Great candidate quotes #nlpoli

The Telegram did voters a valuable service the last weekend of the campaign by printing responses from candidates in metro districts to two simple questions.

They asked the candidates to identify the single biggest issue in the district and how they would tackle it.

Some of the replies were fascinating.

Kevin Parsons, is in a dogfight for his seat in Cape St. Francis.  He is the only candidate who didn’t reply to the Telegram at all.

Bill Kavanagh, the NDP candidate in Conception Bay East – Bell Island is running on the Liberal platform. He thinks public consultation is extremely important.  He’s right.  What’s interesting here is the NDP and Conservatives are criticising the Liberals for not having enough detail in their platform when they talk about consultation.

Dan Crummell, the Tory seeking re-election in St,. John’s West thinks he is the biggest issue facing the district and all his friends agree with him, apparently.

The best answer to any question came from Ryan Cleary.  It’s probably the most honest comment Cleary’s made since he lied to CBC about how he changed parties:

Cleary: First, I would be shocked if I were elected. … .

-srbp-

What’s the biggest issue facing your district?

Cape St. Francis - Kevin Parsons, Progressive Conservative (PC): No response as of deadline. [Nuff said]

Conception Bay East – Bell Island - Bill Kavanagh, Bell Island, NDP: There is a democratic deficit in this district and it’s a direct result of a lack of public consultation when it comes to decisions made by our politicians. [Interesting given the Liberal platform calls for lots of consultation and public input.  The NDP and Conservatives call that a lack of detail.]

St. John’s West - Dan Crummell, St. John's, Progressive Conservative: Strong and effective representation by someone who lives in the district. [That’s his only talking point]

Windsor Lake - Ryan Cleary, St. John's, PC: Change.

Weight Problems #nlpoli

If you want to know why Forum Research’s poll is out of line with the other polls done on the provincial election, you need look no further than the data tables for the questions.

This is why pollsters should give out this information. Lots don’t.

Polling firms adjust their sample so that the sample matches the population as a who for sex, age, geography, and so on.  It’s called weighting.

Forum notes that where “appropriate,  the data has been statistically weighted by age, region, and other variables to ensure that the sample reflects the actual population according to the latest Census data.”

That’s where you get the problem.

Abacus poll confirms massive Liberal lead #nlpoli

Residents of Newfoundland and Labrador awoke Thursday to a massive sucking noise as amateur pundits, media commentators, and newsrooms across the province realised they’d read way too much into a single poll on Wednesday.

A new Abacus Data poll shows the Liberal are actually on track to sweep the entire House of Assembly.  The results contradict a lone poll by  Forum Research that had the Conservative miraculously closing the gap with the Liberals.

Never happened, as it turned out.  Every other poll taken during the campaign lines with the latest Abacus poll.  What’s more  the behaviour of the Tory and Dipper campaigns confirms what serious political watchers already knew:  Paul Davis and Earle McCurdy are desperately trying to save the furniture in the face of a potential Liberal tsunami.

The Leaders

The provincial election campaign a decidedly nastier turn on Monday. Conservative leader Paul Davis is trying his best to save the party’s furniture.

Davis’ best is nasty stuff.

Davis called Dwight Ball a liar.

Rarely does one politician openly attack another using words like that.  They try to remain civil and respectful.  Davis is the first Premier since Confederation who, facing imminent defeat at the polls, has thrown any trace of decency out the window.

Selling energy assets a good thing: Danny Williams #nlpoli

 

“It was a previous Liberal government that wanted to actually privatize Hydro. This particular government wants to strengthen Hydro, wants to make it a very valuable corporation: a corporation that will ultimately pay significant dividends back to the people of this Province; a corporation that perhaps some day may have enough value in its assets overall as a result of the Hebron deal and the White Rose deal, possible Hibernia deal, possible deals on gas, possible deals on oil refineries and other exploration projects, where hopefully we might be able to sell it some day and pay off all the debt of this Province, and that would be a good thing.”

Premier Danny Williams, House of Assembly, 30 April 2008

-srbp-

The CRA poll in Election 2015 #nlpoli

Corporate Research Associates’ latest poll is in line with polls by MQO and Abacus.

The table below shows CRA’s quarterly poll results since the last provincial election with the CRA “decideds” skew taken out.

Liberals are at 50% of all respondents, with the Conservatives at 16% and the NDP at seven with 26% undecided or giving no answer.

The parties and Muskrat Falls #nlpoli

The mighty Muskrat Falls turned up a few times in the leaders’ debate on Monday night.

Now that the project’s huge problems are plainer,  folks like Earle McCurdy of the New Democratic Party are working hard to capture the anti-Muskrat vote.  They’d like you to believe that the NDP opposes the project.

The truth is that all three three political parties in Newfoundland and Labrador support Muskrat Falls. 

No party wants to stop the project.

That’s it, in a nutshell.

But for the fun of it, let’s go through this old chestnut again, in detail.

The Debate #nlpoli

The only winner in the debate was David Cochrane. 

He’s no Paul Wells but he did a fine job of wrangling the three leaders.

And that’s the problem for the politicians. 

Real people were talking about the fact the neutral guy didn’t frig up like the guy on the other network.  The other folks – all the party h’acktivists on Twitter  - were just talking about how their guy won, which they were saying before the thing started.

If debates matter at all in Canadian elections, this one was a must win for Earle McCurdy or Paul Davis. They needed to score big points on Dwight Ball in order to stand even a vague hope of shifting a few votes in the last week of the campaign.

Neither did.

Methylmercury and Muskrat Falls #nlpoli

Muskrat Falls has been the big issue in two successive elections.

In 2011, the parties wanted to talk about the project, while voters didn’t.  It never showed up in the list of any Top Five issues for voters.

The parties wanted to talk about Muskrat Falls because it was something they all agreed on.  The 2011 election was a good example of an election in which the three parties ignored what the voters wanted to talk about and chattered instead among themselves.

Well, in 2015,  Muskrat Falls and its impact on the economy is a huge issue but none of the parties want to talk about it.  The best they’ve done is insist that non-existent export sales will help keep electricity prices low.  It wasn’t true in 2011 and it certainly is nonsense now.

Another Muskrat Falls issue turned up recently and it could prove to be one of the most significant things so far.

The Undull Election #nlpoli

The only people who think this is a dull election don’t know anything about politics.

Seriously.

On the day before nominations closed for candidates,  the governing provincial Conservatives admitted on Thursday that they probably won’t have a full slate of candidates.  Reporters were quick to remind everyone that we haven’t seen that situation since 1972.

That was the year the Conservatives won a majority government and put an end to 23 years of uninterrupted rule by the Liberals under Joe Smallwood. That was also the first time since Confederation that we’d had a change of political party governing the province.  The second one of the two in the 20th century came in 1989.

Think about that for a second.  In the 40 years after Confederation we changed governing parties precisely twice.  Come December we will have done precisely the same thing within the first 15 years of the new century.

Kicking ass in political coverage #nlpoli

The province’s major media outlets have taken different approaches to political coverage in this election from what they did last time.

The result has been one of the most interesting campaigns in recent memory.

First with the political news…

In the second week of the campaign, VOCM has been kicking ass with a series of polls commissioned from Abacus Data.  Tim Power’s firm has been producing poll results with much more interesting and useful data than we’ve seen in the province for a while. Their work so far in the 2015 election has consistently made news.

Details #nlpoli

While the townie media are clamouring for details from people who don’t have the details, it’s important to look at what the people with the details are saying.

CBC’s Ramona Deering had Premier Paul Davis all to herself for a minute on CBC Radio’s Crosstalk.

She asked him what the current provincial deficit is.

“Hard to put a number on that,” said Davis just before launching into a long-winded rambling yack in order to run even further away from the simple question.