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Campbell Skillfully Picked His Enemies

Most victims of his policies never would have voted Liberal anyway.

Rafe Mair 16 May 2005TheTyee.ca

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The election campaign, while dull, has come down to the question of how big the Liberal majority will be. A few days ago there were some pundits daring to think we might be in a horse race but now, clearly, there is lots of blue water (to nicely mix a metaphor while splitting a nifty infinitive, don’t you think?) between Gordon Campbell and a Carole James who has established herself as a cool and articulate campaigner.

Ms. James was dealt pretty crappy cards to play with and she has played them well only to lose to a better hand (the metaphors are flying today!) I’m scornful of those who say that the NDP had to come all the way back from two seats when in fact, when the writ is dropped, both parties start out even – neither have any seats. The important question was whether the NDP could overcome the imagery that got them but two seats in ’01 and clearly, if the latest polls are right, they haven’t. The voting public gave the NDP a double major (ye gad, there I go again!) and they’re seen as only having served one.

Teachers’ strike vote ‘issue’

David Schreck, a former NDP MLA and a shrewd watcher of matters political, made the telling point on my show that while it’s a fact that the NDP left a surplus of $1.57 billion, so shocked were they by the 2001 results, they failed to challenge, at that time and continuously, the assertion by Premier Campbell that “things were worse than we thought” and the Province is in “deep deficit”. The NDP, like a whipped cur licked their wounds (good grief, Rafe, another?) and showed little stomach for getting back in the ring. Warren Harding, frontrunner for the title of America’s worst all time president (there are, admittedly, many in the running) made eminent good sense when he said that in politics it’s not your enemies you must be concerned about, but your friends.

So it was with Carole James who, just when she was convincing folks that they had nothing to fear from a trade union/NDP alliance, was faced with the teachers union, or at least one local, threatening a strike vote right after the election. Gordon Campbell pounced on that gem to say that under the Liberals the teachers would be declared an essential service. In fact that’s no big deal since “essential services” workers can still strike; all the designation does is permit the Labour Relations Board to make rules so as to keep essential services going.

In reality, teachers striking under an NDP government would agree to rules concerning essential services. The trouble for the NDP is that Premier Campbell has skillfully painted himself against those red-assed teachers, as he sees them, and firmly on side with the kiddies and their long suffering parents. It’s all stuff and nonsense, of course, but the Liberals have turned a “distinction not a difference” into a winning campaign issue.

I believe that the record, fairly read, shows the Liberals to be a mean-spirited, spiteful, anti-environment bunch who don’t deserve to be re-elected. They will be, however, because from the day they were elected Campbell and Co. have been superbly well managed. Skillfully using the Liberal-loving Canwest newspaper and TV juggernaut, the Liberals have kept the image of a wastrel and badly managed NDP decade alive as they lay waste to their enemies. And that’s an important thing to remember – Premier Campbell has left a path strewn with victims of his policies but, critically, his victims weren’t ever going to vote for him anyway.

Youth and seniors?

Is there any way the Liberals can lose?

Sure. In golfing parlance (last metaphor, I promise) it’s match play not medal. While both parties have some safe ridings, the Liberals are more inclined to waste votes more than the NDP does which is why, with more votes than the NDP, they lost in 1996. There is always the possibility that youth, who ordinarily will travel 3000 miles to demonstrate, but won’t cross the street to vote, will actually cast ballots and that would be a plus for the NDP. Then there are seniors who, because of the government failure to deliver long term beds, may rise as one against the Liberals.

At the end of the day, when all’s said and done, in the fullness of time and after the fat lady sings, Ring Lardner had it about right when he said “the race is not always to the swift nor the contest to the strong … but that’s the way to bet.”

One postscript – no one can tell what, if any, impact the referendum on STV will have on voter turnout. If the referendum passes, as I devoutly hope it does, perhaps people will remember that it was Gordon Campbell who gave them the chance to change our pitifully bad system to one that is considerably better and much more democratic.

Rafe Mair, a regular columnist for The Tyee, can be heard weekdays 8:30-10:30 on 600AM and his website is www.rafeonline.com  [Tyee]

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