Mulcair calls for sunny campaign
Trading places: NDP leader works on being popular, while Trudeau looks to portray himself as man of substance
Thomas Mulcair, weather guy: it was a matter of a few moments on Hamilton’s CHCH News, a classic retail-politics confection during which the NDP leader was by turns jovial and awkward, after which he handed off to his hosts, with visible relief.
But fluffy though it was, the vignette was a telltale of how Canadian politics has been transformed, turned inside out, over the past half-year. It was Mulcair on point, playing the good sport at the risk of looking foolish or being mocked (which he was, quite roundly, on social media), not Justin Trudeau or Stephen Harper. Why is that?
There’s the obvious reason, a matter of scheduling and opportunity; the New Democratic Party leader happens to be on a southern Ontario swing this week, barnstorming ridings that in the past would have been far out of reach of Team Orange, even in the heyday of Jack Layton’s greatest popularity. Perhaps we’ll soon see Liberal leader Trudeau and the prime minister fumbling in their turn through the long-range forecast, playing it for chuckles. But if I were a betting man, I wouldn’t stake money on it.
Try to imagine Harper in such a setting, bantering, yukking it up with strangers, not controlling the outcome, trusting in the goodwill of both TV presenters and their audience, assuming they’ll forgive any miscues. It’s a non-starter. Though this PM is as nimble on his feet as the next politician, he long ago turned the page on any conventional notion of retail glad-handing, and will not willingly sustain any risk of a pratfall. Harper’s communication strategy, in a nutshell, is to remove the possibility of the unforeseen. It might do him political good to deliver the weather, display humility and take his lumps; or it might look, now, utterly freakish. It’s not a chance he’s likely to take.
Trudeau, for his part, could deliver the weather like a pro, effortlessly reeling off his lines; and that’s precisely the problem. This is something he might have done early on, when his primary goal was to become liked. Following months of Tory messaging questioning his judgment and gravitas, Trudeau this summer is all about the substance. Never mind me, he’s continually saying in one way or another; think about what a Liberal government will do. The party’s policy kit has gone from non-existent to full wonk in the space of a few months, with Trudeau as the new chief statistician. A turn at the weather would be decidedly off-message, yielding little more than a renewed opportunity for Conservative and NDP trolls to disparage his hair, looks and intellect.
But Mulcair, once again, is in the sweet spot: rumpled, avuncular, still wearing those tweedy suits and orange ties that make him look like a man who ignores all fashion advice, which he in fact is, but somehow pulling it off. For six months, the NDP leader has played against type — that type being professorial, intellectually fierce, prickly — by exposing himself to situations in which he can show his amiable side. In the process he has made himself, if not quite Rachel Notley popular, then certainly approachable and non-threatening. With rising poll numbers have come greater confidence and a willingness to take chances.
It is, in other words, an almost complete reversal: Trading Places, Ottawa style. Trudeau, the political star who was surfing on personal popularity until a few short months ago, is now campaigning on substance. Mulcair, the man of substance, is now campaigning on his personal popularity, especially in Ontario.
For Mulcair’s Achilles heel in English Canada will remain what it has always been: New Democratic Party policy. In four important areas — The federal Clarity Act, the Senate, pipelines and fiscal rigour — the NDP stands apart from the other two major parties and, arguably, offside the mainstream of Ontario public opinion. Mulcair wins a certain respect for his dogged persistence in defending positions that are vote-killers west of the Ottawa River. But the reality is that the more Torontonians, Londoners or Windsorites dig into the NDP’s stance on Quebec separation, or its constitutionally impossible pledge to abolish the Senate, or its hostility to bitumen extraction, or its growing list of expensive, big-ticket program promises, the more likely they are to have reservations about an Orange Wave.
The intriguing aspect of politics in Canada this year is that leadership brand and tone appear to have trumped these policy questions, for now anyway. Mulcair, like his Liberal rival a year ago, can’t put a foot wrong for trying. Whether he can maintain and build the little glow into a victory remains to be seen. But if you’re a New Democrat, it has the makings of a virtuous circle.