David Akin’s On The Hill

“People expect conservatives to be tough. They believe in the values of self-help, individual responsibility, criminal justice, economic realism, and national interest. They look ridiculous, if they go around snivelling and complaining about fairness every time an opponent takes a shot at them. Political campaigning is a civilized form of civil war. The point is to win the war, not to complain that people are fighting. Leave the whining to the utopians who fantasize about conflict-free societies.”

From: Tom Flanagan, Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007, p. 286

It seems pretty obvious from the content of their posts but Tom Flanagan confirms that Stephen Taylor and perhaps Steve Janke are the handmaidens of the PMO in the blogosphere. Flanagan, one of the key leaders on three of the four campaigns Stephen Harper has been engaged in over the last five years, writes (I have added the hyperlinks):

A final innovation [in Election 2006] was something we had not even considered in 2004 — links with the blogosphere…there was now a group who called themselves the “Blogging Tories”. Not being a blogger myself, I wasn't even aware of them until Adam Daifallah gave me the news at the May 2005 meeting of Civitas. I called Stephen Taylor, whose “Conservative Party of Canada Pundit” vies for prominence with Steve Janke's “Angry in the Great White North,” to get things started. Doug Finley subsequently appointed people to monitor the blogosphere and to get out stories that were not quite ready for the mainstream media… (p 232)
…In [the] most recent election, we also made a start on working with bloggers to amplify and diversify our message. (p. 288)

From: Tom Flanagan, Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007 (p. 274-289)

Tom Flanagan's “Ten Commandments of Conservative Campaigning”

1. Unity The Conservative Party contains libertarians, social conservatives, populists, Red Tories, Quebec nationalists, and Canadian nationalists, plus many people who don't care much about any of these 'isms'. They all need each other. They can never win unless they try to understand each other and reach compromises that they can all live with.
2. Moderation Canada is not yet a conservative or Conservative country. We can't win if we veer too far to the right of the median voter.
3. Inclusion The traditional Conservative base of Anglophone protestants is too narrow to win modern Canadian elections. While preserving that base, we have to appeal to Francophones, Roman Catholics (44 per cent in teh 2001 Census of Canada) and other racial and religious minorities. The key to the long-term success of the Liberals has been their cultivation of minority groups. We have to take away that advantage before we can become the dominant political force in the country.
4. Incrementalism We have to be willing to make progress in small practical steps. Sweeping visions have a place in intellectual discussions, but they are toxic in practical politics.
5. Policy We have to develop well-thought-out policies and communicate them effectively. Since conservatism is not yet the dominant public philosophy, our policies may sometimes run against conventional wisdom. The onus is on us to help Canadians to understand what they are voting for.
6. Self-Discipline The media are unforgiving of conservative errors, so we have to exercise strict discipline at all levels:

   • there must be a complete plan for the campaign, so the leader is not forced to improvise;
   • staff must avoid the limelight and let the communications department deal with the media;
   • candidates must talk about the platform, not their personal beliefs, and (except for designated spokesmen) concentrate on local rather than national media;
   • members and supporters must be careful and dignified in all their communications, even e-mail and website postings.

7. Toughness We cannot win by being Boy Scouts. We have to conduct thorough opposition research and make use of the results; run hard-hitting, fact-based negative ads; and do whatever is legally possible to jam our opponents' communications and disrupt their operations.
8. Grassroots politics Victories are earned one voter at a time. Door-knocking, voter ID, GOTV [get out the vote] are the Holy Trinity that wins close races. We must extend the lead that we have opened up over the other parties in ground-level campaigning and grassroots fundraising.
9. Technology We are living in the biggest, fastest-moving communications revolution in human history. Each election campaign features new technologies. We must continue to be at the forefront in adapting new technlogies to politics.
10. Persistence Campaigning is a tough business, and mistakes are frequent. We have to correct our errors, learn from experience and keep pushing ahead.

From: Tom Flanagan, Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007 (p. 274-289)

Adam Daifallah reviews Tom Flanagan's new book, Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power in today's Globe and Mail. Flanagan, the University of Calgary political scientist had key leadership roles in three of the four campaigns the Harper team has run over the last five years. Flanagan himself also has a piece in the Globe – a condensed version of the last chapter of his book in which he offers “The Ten Commandments to Conservative Campaigning.”

I've just finished Flanagan's book myself. Because part of my job involves covering the Conservative caucus, I was keen to see what Flanagan had to say about some of the things I've been reporting on for the last couple of years. For many key events, Flanagan and I were on opposite sides of a door in the Centre Block — he was on the inside and I was standing outside with a microphone.
I'm going to put a series of separate posts here from the notes and questions I had while while reading his book.

Here's one oddity: On page 253 of the edition I have, there is a very funny typographical error. Flanagan is talking about the 2006 election campaign in which Harper laid out his famous “Five Priorities” and then the Conservatives contrasted their list with Prime Minister Paul Martin who had many, many more priorities. Flanagan means to write, at this point, “…we put out a list of fifty-six priorities that Martin at one time or another had declared …” but instead, the typesetters published “…we put out a list of fifty-sex priorities that Martin had at one time or another declared …” I assume only Sheila Martin would be able to tell if Prime Minister Martin kept his commitments …

The NDP, of course, had a big night this week in Montreal, stealing the riding of Outremont away from the Liberals, who had held it since 1935. That's new MP Thomas Mulcair celebrating with Jack Layton in the photo on the left.

But if you'd like to see more photos from the NDP's big night, this link, passed along by an NDP friend, is a Flickr photo set of some scenes backstage, if you will, at NDP HQ in Montreal on the big night. You'll spot, among others, NDP MPs Peggy Nash and Alexa McDonough.

Democrats have a quandary. They have at least two nominees that, if an election were held right now, would whip just about anyone the Republicans picked.
A new poll says Americans would vote for both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barrack Obama ahead of any Republican challenger, including the most recent entrance into the Republican race, Fred Thompson.
The Hart/Newhouse poll done for the Wall Street Journal and NBC shows that, if a presidential election were held right now and it was Clinton vs. Giuliani, Clinton would score 49 per cent of the votes, compared to 42 per cent for Rudy. She'd beat Thompson 50 to 41; and would whip Romney 51 to 38.
Obama would score 47 per cent of the vote if he was the Democrat nominee fighting Republican nominee Thompson, who would score 38 per cent. Obama does even better against Romney than Hillary — 51 to 34. The pollster did not ask about a Barrack/Giuliani matchup.
When asked, “What is your preference for the outcome of the 2008 presidential election––that a Democrat be elected president or that a Republican be elected president?”, 49 per cent said they preferred a Democrat win; 36 per cent want the Republicans back.
George W. Bush, incidentally, continues to be viewed mighty unfavourably by his citizens. When asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the job that George W. Bush is doing as president?”, 66 per cent — two in three — told the pollster they disapprove and just 29 per cent — less than one in three — said they approve.
For this poll, 1,002 adults were interviewed between Sept. 7 and 10. The pollster says the survey is accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The economists at Toronto Dominion Bank were in the paper this morning saying that the rapid and surprising rise of the loonie vs the U.S. greenback hasn't done much to lower prices of U.S.-sourced goods here in Canada. Now, Doug Porter at BMO Nesbitt Burns, is saying much the same thing:

With the Canadian dollar charging to parity for the first time since November 1976, we have updated our study of three months ago with a few new products on how Canadian retail prices have responded to the loonie’s historic run. The main conclusion stands: It may be a Brave New World for the Canadian dollar, but the Song Remains the Same for the most part for consumers. While we have discovered some fractional narrowing in the prices of some goods over the past three months, the currency’s latest sprint has completely offset those modest moves. Thus, we find that the average price gap on a basket of assorted goods is now roughly 24% at today’s exchange rate—that is, Canadian dollar prices are 24% higher than U.S. dollar prices on identical goods. While it is unrealistic to expect prices to instantaneously adjust across the board to a currency move, this is nevertheless an unsustainable gap. Given that no-one requires a calculator to make these comparisons, the pressure up and down Canada’s supply chain to bring these prices into closer alignment is bound to intensify immensely in the months ahead. This ultimately should help keep a check on consumer price trends, and will thus further reduce the need for much additional Bank of Canada tightening down the line when the current credit market turmoil passes.

This morning's papers will all have news about the relatively important by-elections in Quebec. For federalists, the good news is that the separatists took it on the chin. A senior official in the Prime Minister's Office sent me this one-liner late last night:
Bloc is “Down 18 pts in Roberval, down 14 in St. Hyacinthe, down 18 points in Outremont.”
Indeed, the poor showing by the Bloc was about the only silver lining for Stephane Dion and the Liberals who, in losing Outremont to the NDP, lost a seat that had been Liberal red since 1935.
But, looking at last night's snapshot, it seems even bleaker than that for the federal Liberals in Quebec. As my colleague Robert Fife reported last night, the Liberals are marginalized outside the island of Montreal.
In St. Hyacinthe, west of Montreal, where the BQ held on to the seat, the Liberals finished fourth, behind the NDP and Conservatives. In Roberval, they placed third but, as in St. Hyacinthe, with less than 10 per cent of the vote.
And what happened to the Green Party? If there are questions this morning about Stephane Dion's leadership of the Liberals in Quebec, how about questions for Elizabeth May?
Despite polls over the last year that have shown voter preference for the Greens peaking at about 10 per cent and with environmental issues consistently at the top of mind by Quebec voters (particularly compared to voters in other regions), the Greens did bupkus.
In St. Hyacinthe, Greens snagged just 3.7 per cent; in Roberval, just 1.7 per cent; and in Outremont, just 2.2 per cent. By comparison, in the 2006 general election, Greens won 3.87 per cent in St. Hyacinthe; 4.34 per cent in Roberval; and 4.82 per cent in Outremont.