The Globe and Mail reports today that, “Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have decided their election strategy will rely in part on… attack(ing) the Liberal propensity for making deals with ‘socialists and separatists’ – as the party did last December…”
“The fleeting, four-day coalition that opposition parties formed in late 2008 to unseat Mr. Harper’s Conservatives was deeply unpopular outside Quebec.”
“The Tories plan to resurrect its fading memory to rattle voters, warning that backing opposition parties will bring instability.”
“The anti-coalition campaign strategy is also an argument in favour of a Tory majority because it paints this outcome as the only way to avoid the risk of another alliance between the Liberals, NDP and separatist Bloc Québécois.”
“Running full-bore against a coalition, however, is a high-risk strategy. Most Canadians, especially swing voters, have all but forgotten the coalition’s brief existence, said pollster Greg Lyle, managing director of Innovative Research Group. Reviving it as a bogeyman for ordinary Canadians would probably backfire in Quebec, so the Tories would risk losing their 10 seats in the province.”
“The strategy’s effectiveness lies more in its ability to spur Conservative supporters to head to the polls to vote than it does in converting swing voters to the Tories, he said. Most swing voters barely recall the coalition – but its memory still pushes Conservatives’ buttons.”
“And now that Canadian elections have low turnouts like U.S. campaigns, a get-out-your-vote strategy can win an election in Canada, much as it did for the American Republicans in 2000 and 2004.”
“’With turnout down to 50 per cent, it is now arguably a better strategy to mobilize your voters and de-mobilize the other guy’s voters than it is to pitch for swing voters,’ Mr. Lyle said.”
“The Conservatives are toying with how much weight to give two different themes for their election strategy: running against the threat of a coalition and campaigning as the party to protect Canadians from tax hikes as the country digs out of deficit.”
“(This) means turning one of the biggest challenges of the next decade, the deficit, into an argument for Tory rule. In a struggling economy, Canadians are looking for a party to talk to them about their pocketbook, Mr. Lyle said. The Conservatives are always rated hands down as the best party to keep taxes low, and Mr. Ignatieff has given them ammunition by musing in April that his Liberals cannot rule out raising taxes to trim a deficit that now tops $50-billion.”
The full article is at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-to-stoke-fear-of-opposition-coalition/article1279929/?.
