May 8, 2005

Desperate Liberals

It's not just the scandal plagued Liberals in Ottawa who are desperate these days. Following his flat, deer-in-the-headlights approach to the May 3rd TV debate, Gordon Campbell defended himself saying that he was simply being polite. If he was polite, then his strategists and spin-masters certainly weren't as they went into damage control to recover from his loss in the debate. Christy Clark attacked Carole James by characterizing her in terms that are the exact opposite of those used by the news media. James has earned respect by demonstrating her confidence and abilities. As the Liberals try to attack a former Premier, the Clark that is having credibility problems is Christy.

Throughout the campaign Liberal party supporters have demonstrated at events attended by James. On day one of the official campaign, a young Liberal dressed in costume crashed her New Westminster lunch at Burger Heaven where the burgers are named for the parties. James used the opportunity to say that she encourages more young people to get involved in politics. That's when the Liberals should have realized that James is not one to be unnerved. In the end of the week of the TV debate her campaign bus was ambushed by trucks with incorrectly spelled jabs. According to reports in the Globe & Mail and elsewhere, the highway stunt was made possible by Campbell's Press Secretary Mike Morton calling the cell phone of a reporter on the NDP bus to determine its location so Liberal protesters could intercept it. Morton denies the charge but at least one reporter on the bus knows the truth. James handled the situation by saying that the Liberals would be welcome to have a representative on the bus so they could more easily track her whereabouts. The Liberals cannot deny that the campaign manager for their Vancouver-Fairview candidate, Virginia Greene, personally appeared to demonstrate at NDP candidate Gregor Robinson's volunteer appreciation event with James. It is puzzling that well known Liberals are getting personally involved in the tactics of crashing NDP events. Some see that as bad judgment, others as a sign of desperation.

The Liberals who went into the election campaign with an eight point lead are no longer behaving like the overly confident gang that won 77 out of 79 seats in the 2001 election. Following that sweep they introduced controversial legislation; when Joy MacPhail and Jenny Kwan asked what public consultation was occurring on the legislation, Labour Minister Graham Bruce arrogantly replied: "You can do consultation in a number of ways. This happened to be, as I've mentioned before, the ultimate of all consultation in the fact that the general public as a whole had an opportunity to vote on it and did so in a very resounding way." The Liberals interpreted their 2001 sweep as a blank cheque that allowed them to do anything without involving the public; now it's the public's turn to say enough is enough. Campaigning from a bubble that prevents interaction with voters while phoning out to organize interruptions of NDP campaign events is not going to distract voters whose time for payback is scheduled for May 17th.

The second and last Leaders' debate in the election campaign is on radio starting at 8:30 AM on Monday, May 9th. Since Campbell defended his TV style as being "polite", will a change in style mean that he has become rude or will it mean that he's desperate? One way or the other he could lose even more during the 90 minutes he'll spend outside his bubble.