The information I am about to discuss in this essay is regarding the 2015
Canadian federal election. Everything presented is purely conjecture
and is entirely my opinion. It is provided as a thought provoking piece
to break down the election in a way no one else in the prestitute media
will do.
Stated frankly, it is my opinion that the 2015 Canadian federal
election was thrown by the Conservative Party of Canada and I will
detail how and why.
First and foremost is the name Trudeau. The Liberal Party of
Canada had an immediate leg up for the election as somehow
justin’s dad (well, the one he claims is his dad) has acquired this patina
of respectability and nostalgia.
The Liberal Party of Canada (heretofore referred to as the Liberals)
knew this through gut feeling or polling research which is why they
anointed the younger Trudeau as their messiah to lead them out of
irrelevance. He also is young and (supposedly) attractive and knows
how to act in front of a camera having earned the position of Prime
Minister cutting his teeth as a drama teacher. The Conservative Party
of Canada (heretofore referred to as the Conservatives) were well aware
of the handicap they faced in running against “Trudeau Mania II” and
this I believe shaped their election plans long before the writ was dropped.
Second, the Conservatives had been the government for 10 years
which, by Canadian standards is a long time. Rarely in Canada does a
government last much past 10 years so it is a tough fight to retain
government past that point. The Conservatives were also aware of
this issue.
Third, the Conservatives were keenly aware of the irrational hatred
many Canadians had toward Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Despite
the fact that he had led the country admirably through the collapse of
2008 and went into the election leading the only major economy that
hadn’t blown up its budget (unlike the disaster of the doubled debt in
the U.S.A. during the same period) people had a very negative opinion
of Harper. Granted, it was easy to see why Harper was so disliked. He
came off as somewhat of a prickly pear, arrogant, cold, controlling and
aloof.
However, despite the many challenges faced by the Conservatives, I
am of the opinion that the election was still winnable. The power
brokers of the Conservative Party obviously had different ideas and
decided long before the election how they were going to deal with it.
Harper (and I’m sure the power brokers of the party) took the long view.
I’ll explain below why I feel the election was little more than a stage play
for the Conservatives.
Knowing the chances of winning the election were exceedingly small,
the Conservatives decided to keep Harper as leader. Why? The answer
is simple. Again, in taking the long view the party realized that any leader
they put up to face the dauphin (Trudeau) was likely to be little more
than a body bag. In losing the election (again, almost a certainty) the new
leader would be tainted. For all of Harper’s perceived flaws, he did manage
to hold the party together and leading the party into the election would
at least ensure that their base would turn out and vote. The long view was
that Harper could at least backstop the party allowing them to at least
maintain opposition party status. Without Harper there was no guarantee
that the party would hold together and may have faced dropping to 3rd place
or even worse. I won’t get into the intricacies of Canadian political systems but
suffice to say losing opposition status severely impacts the future of a party.
After the election (loss) the Conservatives could take their time to select a
new leader. This would give plenty of time to make the right choice and
allow the leader to get comfortable in his or her role. By the time of the next
election they wouldn’t be going in completely green.
The long view was also to determine the duration of the election.
2015 was one of the longest election seasons in Canadian history.
Usually the election is approximately 4 weeks give or take. This time it was
almost 2 months. Why? Well, the Liberals’ war chest for the election was
significantly smaller than that of the conservatives. By making such a long
election, it forced the Liberals to spend most, if not all of their money and
it is even believed they may have had to borrow in order to keep
campaigning. The New Democratic Party (NDP) was in a similar position
which meant that the 4 years between elections would be spent by both
parties paying off debts and trying to put together another election war chest.
This leads directly to my third point.
As I mentioned, the Conservatives had a massive war chest. In fact,
of the big 3 (Conservatives, Liberals, NDP) the Conservatives have the best
history of getting donations from their base. The interesting point about
war chests and the election was that (anecdotally) it would seem that the
Conservatives barely touched theirs. Frankly, they could have out
advertised all other parties by orders of magnitude. They could have
blitzed all forms of media 24/7 and essentially drowned out all other
messages but they didn’t. In fact, it truly seemed that for every 1 Liberal
ad there would be 1 Conservative and 1 NDP. Why? Why not? Why spend
one’s money on a “hopeless” election? No. Save it for the next election.
Sticking with advertising; the Conservatives had (have) a massive
file of attack ad issues they could use against the Liberals as a party
and Trudeau personally. Trudeau had years in the public eye making
ludicrous and in some cases frankly offensive comments on camera.
None of these were ever used. In fact, basically the ads merely pointed
out Trudeau’s lack of experience and commented on his “wonderful”
hair. ???? Why? Simple. The Conservatives didn’t want to use their nuclear
weapons on an unwinnable election. Once the ads had been used then
they would have much less impact in the next election. No. The
Conservatives took the long view and kept their powder dry. I anticipate
the media blitzkrieg in the next election featuring all the boners popped
by Trudeau over the years.
Still with advertising; talk about phoning it in. The Conservative
ads had no energy, no excitement and were in some cases creepy.
Case in point: the Harper is a warm and fuzzy dude you want to love
long time ads. In those ads Harper takes on a soft demeanor and speaks
in dulcet tones and (the creepy part) even attempts a smile. To truly
see how creepy Harper is when he tries to smile, think Sheldon Cooper
on The Big Bang Theory. Literally, they have almost the exact same
(creepy) smile. The other bizarre ads were the radio ads that were
attempting to be like Roosevelt’s “fire side chats” in the 1930s. At
the end of the ad Harper says “we’ll talk again tomorrow” like he’s
your wise old grampa or something. Now that I think about it, I don’t
think I ever heard a second of those ads. It felt like the Conservatives
had decided that they’d do just enough to make it look like they were
running to win but not enough to have to waste much effort or money.
Trudeau the bag holder. Anyone with a functioning brain cell knows
that the world never truly got out of recession after 2008. The world
has been bumping along in a deep recession the whole time and people
feel it even if they aren’t consciously aware of it. The government
numbers (unemployment, job creation, etc.) have all been manipulated
to make the economy appear better than it actually is. The Conservatives
were well aware of this. They would also have the real numbers to know
that not only are we in a long recession but we would be tipping into an
actual depression sometime during the tenure of the next government.
I am of the opinion that the Conservatives decided they didn’t want to be
the bag holder when the SHTF so they weren’t very concerned about
winning. The best part of their plan is that letting Trudeau have his 1 term
in the sun would neuter his name cachet for the next election. Either he
makes a lot of poor policy decisions (which he has/is) or he does nothing
that people can relate to or articulate (so he’ll be just a ho-hum in the next
election) or the economy implodes and he holds the bag or any
combination of the 3. Any which way, the Conservatives would be in a
much better position for the next election.
Again, the above information is my own observations and purely
conjecture. Although, I believe that much of what I have presented is
logical and explains a lot. How else can the shitshow that was the
2015 election be explained?
Please comment with your own ideas.