The Luntz Kerfuffle

There was a bit of a blogosphere blow-up last week around the fact that Montreal Gazette reporter Elizabeth Thompson managed to eavesdrop (by standing in a hotel lobby, a very public place) on a speech by Republican polling guru Frank Luntz. It was well covered in Antonia Zerbisias’s blog here and here.

Elizabeth Thompson posted the whole transcript on her blog.

Here is the quote (from her original story as quoted by Antonia) that interested me:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government should do its best over the coming year to dig up embarrassing information on the former Liberal administration and portray it as corrupt, a prominent Republican pollster counselled an influential group of Conservatives yesterday.

Speaking a day after meeting with Mr. Harper, Frank Luntz described the Conservatives as allies of the Republicans and urged them to discredit the Liberals so thoroughly that it will be years before they make it back into power.

Luntz confronts a dilemma in Canada. All the usual despicable bag of tricks available to Republicans – eg, constitutional amendments against gay marriage, etc – just aren’t available in Canada. Our social values aren’t the same. So, what does he recommend – why another run at a scandal that pales in contrast to the multiple instances of corruption and criminality south of the border. I would say that advice wasn’t worth the air fare but it does tell us that the Conservatives don’t have much to run against in the next election. They just might have to stand or fall on their record.

Harper's Policy on Climate Change

The anti-Kyoto policy of Harper, while still professing concern over global warming, is a joke.

Its similarity to Bush's approach strikes me as no coincidence. This excellent commentary in the Star by Simon Donner is worth reading by one and all.

When nothing goes right

I keep seeing little signs all the time that the Republicans may be heading for an electoral bloodbath in November.

Here is Pat Robertson, former Republican presidential candidate, offering up another:

From Political Wire's Quote of the Day:

"This is our government at work, and unfortunately it is run by Republicans."

-- Rev. Pat Robertson, quoted by the Manassas Journal Messenger.

Nova Scotia Election

A provincial election has been called in Nova Scotia for June 13. Nova Scotia Tories selected Rodney Macdonald (a politico who can really sing and dance) as their new Premier in February and now are seeking to cash in on his perceived popularity. A poll conducted just after the leadership convention reported results indicating the party has a good chance of winning a majority.

Indeed if the Corporate Research Associates poll is applied to my seat forecaster it gives the following:

PC – 31

NDP – 14

L – 7

However, the spread in the poll was actually somewhat close:

PC – 36%

NDP – 29%

L – 27%

It would not take much movement to turn the majority into another minority in Nova Scotia, which has elected a couple of minority legislatures during the past decade.

The party that on the face of it looks like it should be worried is the Liberals. The new Premier, who seems to be popular personally, comes from the Liberal stronghold of Cape Breton. It is my impression is that the new Liberal leader, Francis Mackenzie, is less attractive than Danny Graham, the man he replaced (and who had to resign due to an illness in the family).

There may therefore be an opportunity for the NDP. Assuming the NDP doesn’t win, if the Liberals were to wind up a distant third it could position the NDP, which continues to do well in Halifax but has only spotty support elsewhere, to be the logical alternative to the PC government The PCs will be vulnerable next time as they would then be seeking a fourth term (assuming they win in June).

Kennedy and High Park

Gerard Kennedy is about to resign his provincial seat. He has been getting pressured by the provincial opposition, who according to this report in the Toronto Star think they might be able to win a by-election. This would be more likely true of the NDP than the Conservatives.

In this context, it is worth looking at the Liberal performance in the three by-elections (in Toronto-Danforth, Nepean-Carleton and Whitby-Ajax) held March 30. They were all made necessary by departures of three MPPs who contested federal constituencies in the recent federal election.

Although they lost all three, the Liberal performance was in marked contrast to their performance in three earlier contests. They did much, much better this time. Don’t forget that these were all ridings the Liberals lost in 2003.

However, a variation on my forecasting model can generate a province-wide estimate from a single by-election. Averaging the three March 30 by-elections we find the Liberals would have had an estimated 50.4%, the Conservatives 30.8% and the NDP 16.6% if they were translated into a province-wide outcome. For the three earlier by-elections, the comparable numbers are Liberal – 31.2%, Conservatives – 29.4%, and the NDP – 35.4%.

Now all these numbers need to be taken with a large grain of salt, but I do think the recent by-elections reflect the fact that the McGuinty is doing better politically these days, so one should not automatically assume that the Liberals will lose the Parkdale-High Park by-election that will have to be called later this year after Kennedy’s departure for the federal Liberal leadership trail.

Ignatieff and Iraq

Michael Ignatieff’s greatest negative in my view is the misjudgement he demonstrated in supporting George Bush’s Iraq war. Here is an excerpt of what he wrote in the New York Times Magazine on January 5, 2003:

Since Sept. 11, it has been about whether the republic can survive in safety at home without imperial policing abroad. Face to face with ''evil empires'' of the past, the republic reluctantly accepted a division of the world based on mutually assured destruction. But now it faces much less stable and reliable opponents -- rogue states like Iraq and North Korea with the potential to supply weapons of mass destruction to a terrorist internationale. Iraq represents the first in a series of struggles to contain the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the first attempt to shut off the potential supply of lethal technologies to a global terrorist network.

Containment rather than war would be the better course, but the Bush administration seems to have concluded that containment has reached its limits -- and the conclusion is not unreasonable. Containment is not designed to stop production of sarin, VX nerve gas, anthrax and nuclear weapons.

I found this sympathetic treatment of Igatieff in The Tyee, which noted that he finally parted company with Bush in 2004:

In a forgotten NY Times Magazine article of March 14, 2004, Ignatieff did withdraw his support for the Bush-led war (as opposed to the war itself), acknowledging he had underestimated the competence of his shipmates, writing "I supported an Administration I didn't trust, believing that the consequences would repay the gamble. Now I realize that intentions do shape consequences.

Liberal Hawks in 2003

However, contrast Ignatieff’s slow recognition of Bush’s ineptitude with that of two liberal bloggers who at one time were sympathetic to Saddam’s removal.

Josh Marshall wrote a pros and cons piece in the Washington Monthly in September 2002 that had this concluding paragraph:

It's difficult to imagine that the establishment and national security bureaucracies would have brought us to our current and correct focus on Iraq. But it's even more clear that the hawks' record of breezy planning, reckless prediction, and indifferent fidelity to the truth makes them unfit to be the ones in control of how the job gets done. The hawks have a vision. But as the folks in uniform are so fond of saying, "Hope is not a plan." Getting rid of Saddam really is necessary. But it has to be done right. So, Mr. President, when the time comes for you to make a decision about Iraq, talk with Paul Wolfowitz and let him tell you what the goal should be. Escort him to the door and lock it behind you. Then sit down for a serious talk with Colin Powell.

Of course the problem was that this is the opposite of what Bush was doing, which was eventually plain for all to see. Eventually, Marshall concluded on March 9, 2003 that Bush’s course towards war should not be pursued. Kevin Drum came to a similar conclusion on the same day. So why was Ignatieff unable to see what was happening and that the incompetent neo-cons ruled the roost? Clearly, the evidence was available. He says he believed “the consequences would repay the gamble”. If this is the sort of convoluted gibberish he spouts when recanting his position on Iraq what should we expect of him as Liberal leader or Prime Minister? He clearly does not have the judgment needed for the position.

His lack of political experience also continues to show. A young Liberal attending an Ignatieff event commented: However, he needs to stop saying things that will make horrible media quotes. I will not write the example here, but trust me that it was much worse than herding cats.

Bush in Trouble

Stephen Harper has been cozying up to two of the most unpopular politicians on the planet - Jean Charest in Quebec (read here) and a fellow named Bush south of the border. Look at this excerpt from a column in USA Today (I found the link on Daily Kos) about a talk given by a Republican pollster:

GOP pollster Lance Tarrance, who has been among his party's top public opinion experts for three decades, provided a bleak picture of Bush's standing with the public in a May 2 briefing sponsored by the Cook Political Report.

Buried in job approval ratings that have fallen into the low-to mid-30s are indicators of a more corrosive effect on a presidency. Tarrance said the number of Americans who strongly disapprove of Bush has accelerated so fast — and their feelings appear to be so deep — that Bush may now be in the worst shape of any wartime president.

In an April 27-30 poll by Tarrance and Thomas Riehle, half of respondents said they intensely dislike Bush and his policies. Tarrance called that result "fairly frightening" for a president trying to push immigration reform, sustain an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, and help his party hang on to narrow control of the House and Senate in November elections.The high-intensity dislike of Bush is "almost the point of no return for any president, and that's where Bush is right now," Riehle said. Their polling also showed Democrats with a historically high advantage over Republicans when respondents were asked which party they wanted to control Congress after November.

Watching Bush and the Republicans is like watching a major train wreck in slow motion. I have rebuilt my forecast model to apply to the U.S. House of Representatives and there are some polls out, which when applied to my model, suggest that the Republicans could be in for a mind-blowing humiliation. However, the race ought to tighten as we move towards November (for technical reasons I won't go into here).