When Liberals and Tories are neck and neck…
11 05 2008
It’s a safe bet that when polls have the Liberals creeping up on the Conservatives that conservative.ca will look a lot like the screenshot you see above.
As Steve V points out the Conservative webmasters are nothing but fear mongering six year olds that couldn’t come up with a positive comment if they had a (registered) firearm to their heads.
There are three stories on their website’s front page. Not a single one has a positive message and all three attack Stephane Dion — the guy who they always say they believe will never lead the country. So why bother? I’m not a Dion leadership fan either and I have my doubts about him but I don’t spend my time blogging about his leadership woes. That’s just because I don’t think he’s going to get into the PMO. Maybe the Conservatives think the opposite? Give it up kids! At least use a different image to make your website a tiny bit more appealing to curious voters and less partisan to appease the Blogging Tories crowd.
Let’s face it, Conservatives and Liberals and the NDP are, relatively speaking, in a big public support rut. Someone needs to start attracting someone else’s support in order to see a significant change in the polls. How do you do that? Well, you stop pandering to your base and start reaching out to other party supporters. The Conservatives through their website never seem to try appealing to Liberal supporters.
By contrast, the three “top stories” on liberal.ca; a statement about the cyclone in Burma, a statement on the death of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan and an attack on the Conservatives over their health care policies, are a) more relevant b) less desperate and c) aren’t prefaced by the same recycled tired old photo of a guy in a suit with his hands up and shoulders shrugged.
They keep hammering at Dion, even though he is already at a low point. It gets to the point of piling on, and this may partially explain why voters are turned off. It is interesting to note, that the Libs are tied in the polls, despite the huge leadership gap. When we saw the same gap between Martin and Harper, the Liberals were leading by 18%. Harper’s apparent “advantage” doesn’t seem to help with voters, which is a lesson for the Con strategists. The good news, from a Liberal perspective, they don’t seem to get it, they don’t realize their tactics only reinforce their own negatives.
I’ve often said that Conservatives should be worried if Dion’s leadership numbers ever start to climb. The fact that the Liberals can still be competitive with the Conservatives with such low leadership numbers for Dion and relatively decent leadership numbers for Harper is pretty damn scary for their strategists.
Imagine a Liberal party with a popular leader…
Darren, I don’t think it’s optimist to believe Dion could improve his numbers. Even if Dion could do so marginally in a campaign, it could tip the balance for the Liberals. People have such low expectations for the man, once they see him front and center, he could look relatively better than portrayed. As I recall, Dion did quite well in the leadership English debates, even if he looks credible against Harper that is a plus from where we are now. I at least see some possibilities.
I wonder what the Conservative “sock puppets” at Blogging Tories have to say. Sorry to use a put-down. They just seem to call everyone sock puppets for one reason or another.
Everybody has the opportunity to define themselves by standing up and “fighting” for what they believe in when challenged.
Obama is an excellent example of someone who stood up to how people where defining him and refused to accept that definition. By standing up and not letting Rev Wright define Obama, Obama defined himself.
Standing up and fighting when you might just lose, takes character. However Obama didn’t really have that much to lose as you might think. If he didn’t stand up, he would have been defined by others and politically destroyed.
Every challenge is an opportunity to win or loose. Its unfortunate these challenges cannot really be avoided. They need to be fought. If they are not fought, they are lost. Giving in and waiting for a better opportunity is a strategy, but if someone has nothing worth fighting for that person is politically dead. How can a politician stand up and represent his electorate on the national and international stage if he does not stand up.
Obama stood up and defined himself. Something Dion could learn from.
I want Dion to just keep talking. One minute he wants to invade Pakistan, and the next, he wants to kill the economy with a carbon tax on fuel thatis already over 5 bucks a gallon. Oh and lets not forget his solid stand on the budget. At this rate, he’ll be the best conservative we never elected. As long as he remains at the helm of the Liberal party, we stand a god chance of the Conservatives getting the majortiy we need to reverse 40 years of really bad liberal policy. Things like multi culturalism and bilingualism. Not to mention doing nothing on the environmental front of any consequence. So for my money i say, KEEP IT UP STEPHAN, YAY!!!