November 2006 – Page 4 – David Akin’s On The Hill

NY Times: "New Telemarketing Ploy Steers Voters on Republican Path"

“…critics say the automated calls are a twist on push polls — a campaign tactic that is often criticized as deceptive because it involves calling potential voters under the guise of measuring public opinion, while the real intent is to change opinions with questions that push people in one direction or the other.

The calls have set off a furor in the closing days of a campaign in which control of Congress hinges on a handful of races.

Late last week, Representative Benjamin L. Cardin, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Maryland, demanded a halt to the calls, saying “this sort of gutter politics” was distorting his record. Some political analysts said the practice could mislead voters and discourage them from taking calls from more objective pollsters . ..”

– Christopher Drew, “New Telemarketing Ploy Steers Voters on Republican Path”, New York Times, Nov. 6, 2006

The scoop the Sun gave back

Maclean’s columnist Paul Wells just published his first book. It’s called Right Side Up. It chronicles the fall of Paul Martin and the rise of Stephen Harper, focusing mostly on the election that occured over the winter of 2006–07. The first ads that the Conservatives aired in that campaign were kind of dull — Harper on a TV studio set with a female anchor who asks a question, to which he responds. With that brief set-up, I’ll let Wells take over:

… through a mix-up that has never been revealed until now, the ads nearly wound up destroying the Conservative campaign at the outset.

Campaign ads are sent to television stations as paid advertising, and also to news organization in the hope that they’ll do a story about the ads. A little earned media to go along with your paid media. On the night the the first ads went out, [Conservative war room strategist] Yaroslav Baran got a call at Conservative headquarters in Ottawa.

It was the Conservative ad people in Toronto. They’d sent the wrong DVD to news organizations. These discs didn’t contain only the ads that had been approved for the first blitz, the hokey fake-interview Harper ads. These DVDs had every Conservative ad on them. Dozens of ads. Positive ads, attack ads, ads for contingencies that might never materialize. Mockups of ads the leader hadn’t even seen. If they got out, the Conservatives would have (a) sabotaged their own ad strategy for the rest of the campaign; (b) shown themselves to be plotting a negative campaign while Harper tried to recycle himself as Mr. Forward-looking Policy; (c) looked like idiots.

Baran started to sweat. How far had these tell-all DVDs travelled? Good news. The Conservatives had this much luck, at least: so far, the courier had delivered only one, to Sun Media.

Baran needed that DVD. What to do? Probably a heist was out of the question. Come clean? Baran called Lorrie Goldstein, a Toronto Sun columnist. His plan was to offer a major scoop down the road in return for a major favour tonight. But Goldstein wasn’t picking up his phone. So Baran just called Sun Media’s news desk.

“Let me guess,” the person who picked up the phone said, “you’re calling about the DVD.” Yes indeed, Baran said, unsure how to handle what they’d say next.

“Yeah,” said the person at Sun Media, “we don’t know what the problem is, but we can’t get it to play.”

Saints be praised. “Well, that’s why I’m calling,” Baran said. “There seems to be a problem with it. We just want to assure you that there’s a replacement on its way. All I ask is that you give the mesenger the one you have, because we need to figure out what’s wrong with it.”

Oblivious, the Sun person agreed to the swap. The single DVD that would have revealed every Conservative secret was safely retrieved. And that’s how Sun Media had, then lost, the scoop that could have derailed the Harper campaign from the outset.

[p. 183]

October's greatest hits

This blog had 37,163 visitors last month — thank you all for dropping by — and, of the 1,158 posts here, the following were the 20 most clicked-upon last month (date in brackets is the date item was first posted):

[What they said] Apple calculator a bad joke (Tue 10 Aug 2004)
Hard at work (Sat 05 Mar 2005)
Who pays for this blog? Some disclaimers (Fri 13 Aug 2004)
Jane Austen (Sat 18 Jun 2005)
Could Garth go Green? (Wed 18 Oct 2006)
Sad Day – Tom Mangan retires Print the Chaff (Sat 29 May 2004)
Commons trade committee cancels softwood hearings (Wed 27 Sep 2006)
A Porsche moment (Mon 10 Jan 2005)
Workshop: Blogging and Public Journalism (Tue 13 Jul 2004)
Boats with guns — on our lakes — Part Two (Thu 28 Sep 2006)
Harper on knowing journalists names: “Why would I care?” (Tue 10 Oct 2006)
Am I sending you the Ping of Death? How would I know? (Thu 15 Jul 2004)
Chrysler's Dieter Zietsche (Mon 10 Jan 2005)
Day 1 – Iggy, then Dion (Sat 30 Sep 2006)
Senate: We won't pay Lavigne's bills (Thu 05 Oct 2006)
Red Friday on the Hill (Tue 10 Oct 2006)
Dean paid bloggers (Sat 15 Jan 2005)
Strahl to the Wheat Board: Shut up, already! (Thu 12 Oct 2006)
Another Conservative in favour of gay marriage (Wed 02 Feb 2005)
The Auto Summit (Tue 03 Oct 2006)

A PM's reading list

Friend and former colleague Paul Wells celebrated the launch of his first book earlier this week. It’s called Right Side Up and is account of the fall of the Paul Martin and rise of Stephen Harper. Early on in the book, one of Harper’s closest friends, John Weissenberger, talks about the kinds of books he and the future prime minister got into while they were both studying at the University of Calgary in the early 1980s.

“We spent a couple of years sort of doing a very broad review of the classic texts of classical liberal economies and political theory. A dozen or two dozen books that we had read and we discussed. You know, the Austrian school, Hayek, a couple of Buckley’s books — God and Man at Yale, Up From Liberalism. Peter Berger, a guy who wrote a lot of interesting stuff in the eighties, on the transition from the liberal state. Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.”

– John Weissenberger, quoted in Right Side Up, by Paul Wells

Garry Wills: A Country Ruled by Faith

“The right wing in America likes to think that the United States government was, at its inception, highly religious, specifically highly Christian, and even more specifically highly biblical. That was not true of that government or any later government—until 2000, when the fiction of the past became the reality of the present … Bush promised his evangelical followers faith-based social services, which he called “compassionate conservatism.” He went beyond that to give them a faith-based war, faith-based law enforcement, faith-based education, faith-based medicine, and faith-based science.”

– Garry Wills, “A Country Ruled by Faith”, in The New York Review of Books, Nov. 16, 2006

Caroline Moorehead on Australia

“In recent years, a continent born of immigrants — 1.75 million during Queen Victoria’s reign alone — has effectively redefined itself as the most excluding nation in the world toward refugees and asylum seekers. Its immigration policies in the last five years have become the envy of those in the West who see in all but the but the most restrictive laws the specter of terrorism and social anarchy. No other country, in fact, not even the United States in the wake of September 11, has treated those fleeing persecution with such callousness.”

– Caroline Moorehead, “Amnesia in Australia”, in The New York Review of Books, NOv 16, 2006

Flaherty's Income Trust announcement: A textbook case of good PR?

Whatever you might think of the federal government’s announcement this week on income trusts, one professional communicator labels the way the announcement was made a “touchdown.” Bob Reid, a principal of the communications firm Veritas Canada, writes the following in his firm’s weekly newsletter “Touchdowns and Fumbles”:

How the heck could a hastily-made announcement which enraged many investors, sewered the stock market and broke a campaign promise possibly warrant a Touchdown? Because the communications part of it went flawlessly. Believe what you choose about the merits of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s decision to start taxing income trusts, but when it comes to the communications execution, this commentator says it was nigh on perfect. First and foremost, there was absolutely no leak. Until Flaherty gave notice of a major announcement (safely after the markets had closed), there was not a peep of advance word or speculation of any kind that the move was in the offing. Then, both in making the announcement and in the subsequent defense of the new policy, Flaherty was as clear as he was consistent in his positioning: that it was the right thing to do, for Canada’s economy, taxpayers and future competitiveness alike. And, to cap it all off, the next-day editorials and comment pages were filled with expressions of support from business columnists to political pundits to such unlikely endorsers as CUPE and the editorial writers at Toronto Star. Yes, it was a shocking change in position for the Conservatives. But the only thing that can trump a policy reversal is a communications plan that successfully makes the case that it was the right thing to do – not in terms of politics, but in terms of public policy. Only Nixon could go to China; ditto Flaherty and taxing income trusts.

Same-sex marriage: Here we go again!

My colleague Robert Fife reported yesterday that the same-sex marriage debate will be back on the table in early December. The Conservatives figured that might make the new Liberal leader’s first week on the job a little more fun. The Conservatives promised during the last election plan — and I’ve heard nothing to susggest there’s been any change — involves a two-step process.

First, the government will introduce a motion asking MPs if they wish to re-open the debate on same-sex marriage. The status quo, of course, would be that same-sex marriage in Canada is A-Ok. If a majority of MPs vote ‘No’ –that they do not wish to re-open the SSM debate — then that’s it. It won’t be back on the table in the current Parliament (unless a private members bill gets through but that seems a remote possibility).

If a majority of MPs vote to re-open the debate, then Justice Minister Vic Toews will be charged with drafting legislation that would reverse the Liberal bill, i.e. re-defining marriage to mean a union between two individuals of the opposite sex. If that bill is introduced, it would go — as all bills do — through three votes, at first, second, and third reading.

So: Does it ever get to a third reading? Not a chance. It won’t even get by that first stage. A majority of MPs — I am boldly predicting — will vote against the idea of even re-opening the debate. Why do I think this way? Both Bloc Quebecois and NDP MPs will be ‘whipped’ to vote against the idea. MPs will risk the wrath of their leaders if they vote to re-open the debate. So that’s as many as 79 votes against right off the bat. Not all Conservative MPs will vote to re-open the debate. Harper has promised a ‘free vote’ to every MP, including cabinet members, on this issue. My rough guess is that of the 124 Tory MPs in the House — a maxiumum of 110, and possibly fewer, vote to re-open the debate. So now, it’s 110 to 79 to re-open the debate. A majority is 154. So how do the 101 Liberal MPs in the House vote? Does a new Liberal leader whip them? Will it be a free vote for the Libs? If it is free vote, Liberals will vote either way but I see a maximum of about 30 Liberals voting with the Tories on this one.

So — final score on this one, if everyone shows up: Yays: 140. Nays: 168. End of SSM debate for this Parliament.

Hey buddy, wanna buy a tank?

Canada's army uses Leopard tanks — that's one rolling off a USAF C-17 at Kandahar Airbase (photo courtesy of DND) — and if it wanted to buy a brand new Leopard, it would cost about $6-million each. But, as I noted in a report last night, a used one — “only driven by a little old lady on Sunday” — can be had for as little as $350,000. Why? The armies of Europe are desperate to get rid of some of the thousands of tanks over the years they bought expecting to fight the Russians one day on the steppes of Ukraine or the plains of Poland. Since the Russian threat evaporated, European armies are saddled with the high cost of operating and maintaining their tanks.
So the Germans and Swiss, at least, have been shopping theirs around and Canada just might pick up an entire battle group of tanks — 66 tanks plus spares — at fire-sale prices

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