O’toole’s Tories build momentum in Week 2
One of the key components to winning an election is achieving real or perceived momentum. Political parties need to consistently show the general public that the campaign needle is moving in the right direction. Earning the important distinction of being a close, personal friend of the “Big Mo” helps adjust the narrative and determines who properly fits the designations of front-runner, dark horse candidate or foot-dragger.
Canada’s federal election is only in its second week. There will be many twists and turns to come. Nevertheless, some early momentum shifts could have an effect on the final outcome.
Erin O’toole’s Conservative party has clearly been the front-runner in the early stages. Well behind in the polls for slightly over a year, it is now projected to be slightly ahead by EKOS and Mainstreet Research, or just slightly behind Justin Trudeau and the Liberals (Nanos, Ipsos and Angus Reid).
The Conservatives have either narrowed the gap or taken the lead in public opinion by handling the challenge of producing razorsharp political messaging to near perfection.
Messaging has been an issue for Canada’s right-leaning leaders. Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper both set a high bar, but obviously had their moments of difficulty. Preston Manning succeeded in the West, but never found his footing anywhere else. Stockwell Day had way more downs than ups. Andrew Scheer couldn’t establish a proper balance between fiscal and social conservatism. Joe Clark and Kim Campbell were equally awful.
While O’toole’s first chapter hasn’t been written, the source of his inspiration has a prominent footnote. He’s using a tactic that Harper successfully employed after losing the 2004 federal election: Always define yourself well before others define you.
Canada’s Conservatives know they’re going to face a non-stop barrage of attacks from their political and media opponents.
When you afford your adversaries opportunity after opportunity to depict you as “evil,” “vicious,” “tyrannical,” “out of touch,” “fear mongering” or the gatekeeper to some sort of “hidden agenda,” it can crush your spirits and eradicate your political fortunes. Hence, the best strategy to swat away this (mostly) left-wing rubbish is to present your real personality, real policies and ideas, and real vision for the country. That will help define exactly who you are to Canadian voters. It will then be left up to them to decide if the phoney image that opponents and critics construct for political gain is accurate — or if your version is the genuine article.
O’toole was faced with this challenge in the second week with the whole private/public health care brouhaha. Which really wasn’t much of a controversy, in all honesty.
On Aug. 22, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tweeted out a 35-second video of O’toole discussing health care last year. In the video, he says, “We have to find public-private synergies. And that capital will come in to drive efficiencies.” In the Liberal war room’s eyes, the Conservatives’ “hidden agenda” campaign against universal health care, the cherished third rail of Canadian politics, had begun.
That is, until the person who had queried the Conservative leader about health care, Summa Strategies Canada Vice-chair Kate Harrison, released his full response of three minutes, 14 seconds. Immediately after O’toole discussed public-private synergies, he said that when it comes to Canadian health care, we need to “make sure that universal access remains paramount.” He also praised then-saskatchewan premier Brad Wall’s plan for private diagnostic imaging, stating, “I thought that was a brilliant move to show the public at large there’s going to be an overall benefit because everyone’s wait times will go down.”
That’s a rather different message than what was portrayed in Freeland’s misleading video, on which Twitter slapped a label of “manipulated media.” O’toole also re-emphasized on Aug. 24 that he wants more private “innovation” in health care, but still supports “the system we have.”
Hence, O’toole wants a balanced approach to maintaining public health care, and would introduce additional privately funded clinics (which we’ve had in Canada for decades in MRI and diagnostic testing procedures) to make it stronger and more effective. That’s what he really believes, and not the manipulated version a desperate Liberal Party wants voters to believe.
Fighting from this position of strength may also help O’toole recapture some of the support lost to Maxime Bernier and the People’s Party of Canada. They’re averaging 3.5-5.5 per cent in most opinion polls. If O’toole shows the Conservatives are successfully balancing fiscal and social conservative issues that are resonating with voters, maybe some middle-of-theroad PPC supporters will give him an additional boost of support.
Dark horse candidates like the NDP, the Greens and the Bloc Québécois can learn something from this reality, too. These left-leaning parties obviously have a very different political vision for Canada. Yet the fact that the Liberals’ tried-and-true anti-conservative messaging isn’t working means attempts against them could also fail. The ability to poach more progressive votes if the Liberals continue to free fall may be in the offing.
What of the Trudeau Liberals, the current foot-draggers? They will have a litany of things to worry about in Week 3, including winning back the lost affection of “Big Mo.”
THERE WILL BE MANY TWISTS AND TURNS TO COME.