The sadly effective conservative campaign
Posted by: Frédéric Van Caenegem in Canada, Issues & politics, tags: 2008, Canada, Conservative, Dion, election, Harper, Stéphane Dion“Les gens qui savent peu parlent beaucoup, et les gens qui savent beaucoup parlent peu.”
“People who know little talk a lot, and people who know a lot talk little”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), French philosopher
I have a lot of times criticized Stéphane Dion for his lack of leadership. But there are a few things I like about Stéphane Dion and, in some aspects, I wish there were more politicians like him.
Dion is intelligent and articulate (more in French I have to admit) and bring good ideas (like the much needed Carbon tax!). However, like most intellectuals, he thinks before he speaks. He does not hesitate to ask an interviewer to repeat his question instead of doing what most other politicians would do: pretend he heard the question and answer something else. In today’s world where fast image is everything and there is no time for pause, his personality traits is a disadvantaged; and the Conservative attacked this.
The 2008 Conservative federal campaign was centered on portraying Stéphane Dion as “not a leader” (www.notaleader.ca). But I think their attacks on Dion were not so much on a much deserved critique of Dion’s lack of leadership abilities, but rather on his personality traits and style. In other words, the Conservative campaign against Dion is a blatant example of the conservative’s anti-intellectualism. It tells more about the Conservatives than about Stéphane Dion.
The Conservative campaign also sadly worked for an other reason: the fear of taxes. In a time where everybody shows concerns on the impact we have on the environment and everybody says they are willing to do some sacrifices for the environment, there is finally a major political party that decided to take on the Green challenge and proposed a realistic and good plan to reduce Canada’s emissions of Green house gases. I truly believe that most people actually believe that it is okay to increase taxes on polluting activities, including gasoline. But no one likes to pay taxes. The Conservative played on that and played it well. A major party proposed a good plan like the Green shift, yet they suffer their worst election defeat since the beginning of the confederation!
The sadly effective Conservative campaign of fear worked, and produced the lowest electoral participation in Canadian history. No wonder everyone woke up after election day like the country had a bad hangover.
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