Here’s why Stephen Harper really won - The Globe and Mail

By Margaret Wente - from the Globe and Mail

Thanks to the central Canadian punditocracy, I now know why the Conservatives won an overwhelming election victory, and why the Liberals were pulverized. It was those nasty attack ads on TV.

So powerful were they that they persuaded millions of gullible voters to rise up against Michael Ignatieff and vote for someone else. Mr. Ignatieff himself blames them for his demise. Fellow Liberals think their leader was just too darn high-minded to strike back. “This is a blood sport,” griped Jim Karygiannis, one of the last Liberal MPs standing. “There is no Mr. Nice in this business.”

Liberal-minded opinion-mongers have been twisting themselves into pretzels to explain Stephen Harper’s completely unexpected whopping victory. They’re obsessed with the attack ads. Besides, they say, the Conservatives just got lucky. They reaped a windfall from the collapse of the Bloc Québécois and unexpected vote splits. Another reason is that Mr. Harper successfully appealed to “voter fatigue,” “fear” and an uninformed electorate that’s sadly oblivious to the destruction of democracy in Ottawa.

Anyway, they argue, it really wasn’t such a victory after all. Mr. Harper, they say, failed to broaden his base (even though he conquered Fortress Toronto, where he’d always been shut out), and won only 40 per cent of the popular vote (just like Jean Chrétien and Bill Davis). One commentator compared his win to George W. Bush’s “stolen” election of 2000.

If you want to understand why Mr. Harper loathes the mainstream media, look no further. But if you want to understand why he won, you’ll have to look elsewhere. One problem is that the media demonize the very qualities that have made him a success. They hate him for his micro-managing, control-freak ways. But those same qualities have been crucial to his success. Without them, he’d never have survived five years in the bear pit of minority government.

In fact, the Conservatives won because they did the sorts of things the Liberals used to do. They built broad coalitions among disparate groups. Take the so-called ethnic vote. When the Liberals courted new Canadians, it was smart. When the Conservatives do it, it’s sleazy. During the campaign, the CBC assembled countless panels of ethnic people to express their disgust at this condescending and divisive tactic. Amazingly, however, ethnic voters seemed glad to have important cabinet ministers show up in their ridings. They liked the focus on stability and a strong economy. Besides, the Liberals hadn’t been around for years.

The Conservatives’ years of efforts paid off spectacularly. To get results like that, you need a long-term strategy, passion, and someone willing to drink 15,000 cups of tea. The Liberals no longer have any of those things.

The Conservatives profited from vote splits. But they were also able to get out the vote where it mattered. They were focused and had ground troops who worked hard. For this, they’re being accused of running a soulless and technocratic campaign. (When Liberals ran things this way, they were called “professional.”)

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Here’s why Stephen Harper really won - The Globe and Mail

Fear and loathing among the eastern elites - The Globe and Mail

By Margaret Wente - from the Globe and Mail

I’m not crazy about Stephen Harper. He’s a cold fish. When he tried a little victory smile the other day, he looked like he was having an attack of gas. I’d rather share a beer with Jack Layton or a glass of chardonnay with Michael Ignatieff than a double-double with Mr. Harper. He strikes me as a guy with little sense of humour and even less small talk. I didn’t even vote for him this time around.

But the sheer animosity of many of my friends amazes me. They genuinely fear and loathe him. One of them unblushingly compares him to Hitler. Many of these otherwise smart, delightful and wise people sincerely believe that Mr. Harper wants to turn Canada into a right-wing theocracy where women have no abortion rights and petty criminals are executed at dawn.

“He’ll try to repeal gay marriage and privatize health care,” one of them predicted on Monday night. She was sitting next to me as we watched the returns on the CBC with a bunch of well-heeled downtown Torontonians. As the count of blue seats ticked steadily upward, the mood became funereal. They looked as if they wanted to don black armbands.

It’s not unusual for politicians to be loathed. In the last leg of Brian Mulroney’s reign, people took an irrational dislike to him. But the animosity displayed toward Mr. Harper is far more vitriolic. As Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick told British readers in The Guardian, Mr. Harper is “a Canadian version of George W. Bush, minus the warmth and intellect. … What happens now is the full-scale Americanization of Canada.”

The intellect part is false, of course (as is the Americanization). You need a very big brain to steer your party from outer darkness to a majority government. What Mr. Harper lacks is emotional intelligence.

What are the roots of this animosity? An obvious one is Mr. Harper’s public personality – dour, controlling and sometimes mean. He lacks a vision that calls us to a higher purpose. His leadership strength is managerial, not inspirational. He has many of the characteristics of those CEOs who succeed not through personal charm but by laying out a strategic plan and sweating the details. He is relentlessly determined to push the marble with his nose to get where he wants to go.

Many people have deplored Mr. Harper’s efforts to demonize Michael Ignatieff as an opportunistic carpetbagger. But the hatchet job the Liberals have done on him goes back years, and has been devastatingly effective. Mr. Harper is routinely depicted as a cross between Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort, whose soulless band of Death Eaters will destroy democracy in Canada if they get the chance. They have successfully convinced themselves (and a large but shrinking part of the electorate) that a vote for Mr. Harper is un-Canadian.

It’s not uncommon to find this paranoid streak in the smartest salons of Ottawa and Toronto. Strange to say, it reminds me of those Republican wing-nuts who believe Barack Obama isn’t really an American.


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Fear and loathing among the eastern elites - The Globe and Mail

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