The Worst Campaign

I've spent the last decade watching Stephen Harper campaign for stuff. God knows, he's done it enough, what with two leadership campaigns (the former Canadian Alliance and the newly merged Conservative Party) and three federal elections behind him. And you know what? He isn't bad, particularly for someone who spent his life as a backroom strategist.

But he isn't great. He's pissed away perfectly good leads in all three of his general elections and I'm pretty sure that we're watching him do it again. It's early and I could be wrong, but I'm not getting that feeling yet.

This time, however, is different. Usually, Harper dons his "Blue Sweater Steve" persona and pretends to like broads, kids, cripples and old folks in the hopes that we forget that he's actually a murderous cyborg that doesn't like other humans very much. And it usually works. In his other campaigns, it's usually been his candidates that blew it by saying impossibly dumb things about social issues that nobody cares about, especially in urban areas that the Tories must win for a majority.

In the first week of 2011's Retard Cage Match of the Doomed, we haven't seen Blue Sweater Steve. Not once. Instead, we've seen a ton of ads showing him in alone in his office, sort of like Richard Nixon. And that's fine. People at the time rather liked Nixon as president.

The problem is that Harper is acting like Nixon on the stump. He's pissed off all the time and making damned sure that we know that he'd rather be anywhere else. But that's not a wise strategic decision if you're not running against George McGovern. Just assuming that the other guy will be McGovern is breathtakingly dumb, in that it gives him room for growth.

And that appears to be what's happening. The Tories started the week with easy majority polling numbers, only to see that gradually wither away as Michael Ignatieff picks up support. Sure, Iggy is running around with a platform that defies the very laws of math, but he isn't so goddamned angry about it. Two years of diligent work defining and destroying the Crown Prince of Cambridge are going right down the drain as Harper plays up the left's very worst caricatures of him.

Don't get me wrong, Blue Sweater Steve annoys me endlessly, but I understand why it works. Running as a resentful prick, on the other hand, is an interesting tactic and one that just might not work out for him. It's just a feling I have.

Then there was the debate debacle in the middle of the week. Harper challenged Iggy to a one-on-one debate, which was stupid because challengers - particularly challengers who are seen as being hopeless - want as much spotlight time as they can get. Harper then backed off from the challenge, because frontrunners with wide leads wouldn't debate at all if they could get away with it. Richard Nixon, as you might remember, never debated anyone after 1960. Neither did Lyndon Johnson.

David Frum has a long and interesting editorial explaining why I'm wrong, but it won't fit into a neat 30 second response ad when the Liberals begin a blitzkrieg of commercials calling Stephen Harper a pussy. Losing that air war could very well be devastating, and if you need an hour to explain why you're not a pussy, you will lose. Michael Ignatieff can probably tell you a lot about how that works, having spent the last two years in that position.

In my opinion, the Conservatives are also making a huge strategic mistake in making fear of a coalition the centerpiece of their campaign. Sure, you mention it two or three times a week, maybe. But you don't make it the focus of your campaign.

That's because Ignatieff, like Harper himself, is a temperamentally conservative fellow. He's incredibly risk averse. The only time he's taken a chance on anything since winning the leadership was stupidly trying to force an election in the fall of 2009. That blew up in his face and Iggy wound up firing everyone in his office.

If a coalition was Ignatieff's first preference, he could have gone for it by defeating the March 2009 budget and the Harper Government with it. Chances are that there wouldn't have even been an election afterwards. And, for reasons that I'll never understand, he didn't do that.

Here's where the coalition-centered campaign becomes problematic. By starting and ending every campaign appearance by saying that this election is a choice between a Harper majority and a coalition, Harper is essentially giving the coalition a mandate if he fails to win big on May 2. He's eliminating any room for parliamentary maneuvering if he's returned to office with another minority.

Let's say that, as I think is probable, Harper's minority is returned. Then let's assume that a coalition did defeat his Throne Speech, without even having given his government a chance to govern. That leaves him with the option of going to the Governor General and asking for another election, which he could very possibly get, given that a coalition wasn't a ballot issue in the May 2 vote.

Or he could do what he did in the winter of 2008-09, prorogue Parliament again before the Throne Speech - since a possible coalition would almost certainly be announced before it -  and whip the country into a frenzy as the Liberals behead Ignatieff behind the scenes.

Neither of those things can happen now. Harper has consciously given the country a clear choice between him and a coalition, and the country will have chosen clearly if another Harper minority is elected. It doesn't get any clearer - or starker - than that, folks. By making the coalition a choice, you give it legitimacy. But the Tories are the only party running around the country screaming about a coalition. But I admit that watching the amateur Tory bloggers (and three-quarters of my own readers) howl if it happens will be funny.

That means that Team Harper has no margin of error from this day forward. They need to pick up four or five points in national polls, find twelve easy seats to pick up, and not lose anything else anywhere. If half of his Quebec caucus goes 'poof', which is certainly possible, they need seventeen new seats. If Julian Fantino loses in Vaughan, they need eighteen. And so on, and so on. That would be an impressive feat for a flawless campaign.

Here's where that becomes problematic. Stephen Harper has never had a flawless four weeks on the campaign trail before. Not even close. Something always blows up in his face, and usually it's something of his own party's making. That means that the Liberals need to make bigger and more frequent fuck-ups than Harper does for a whole month. And there's no more dangerous campaign strategy than relying on the other guy to blow it.

For reasons that I'll never understand, the Tory brain trust has put Harper's political life on the line with this strategy. They've framed the ballot issue as a Conservative majority or a coalition government, which means that they've relieved Iggy and the Stooges of the pressure of even having to win a minority for themselves. All they have to do is hold Harper to a minority and it's over with a whimper, and the Conservatives will look ridiculous trying to fight that in Parliament. And, more importantly, they'll lose.

Most political candidates spend their careers trying to lower the bar for themselves. The Harper Tories have instead raised it to a level that they haven't come close to meeting before, and this is their fourth kick at the can.

If nothing else, I can't wait for the great Paul Wells to write a book explaining what these people were thinking.