Post by kelvin on Oct 12, 2008 12:32:08 GMT -5
www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=874167&p=1
Dion's rise as swift as economy's fall
How a rout became a bout
John Ivison, National Post Published: Saturday, October 11, 2008
---------------------------------------------------------
Justin Trudeau looked like he'd just leapt from the pages of People magazine as he warmed up a Liberal campaign rally in North Bay. "Here's the man who in seven days will be the next prime minister of Canada…Stephane Dion."
Mr. Dion looked as if he'd just stepped from the pages of Current Sociology as he gave the crowd his trademark goofy grin and that wave where the arm of his suit ends up at his elbow. But there was a difference on this crisp fall night in Northern Ontario. This time, the man who has been cast as a figure of fun and compared to everyone from Forrest Gump to Mr. Bean, was not the only person in the room who believed Mr. Trudeau's prophesy might come true.
Stephane Dion: prime minister of Canada. Surely there's some mistake?
At the end of Week Two, even Mr. Dion's most stalwart supporters on the tour were convinced it was all over. "I said to my wife, 'I can't believe there's three more weeks to go. We're going down', " said one senior Grit. The mood was captured at a Toronto rally by a dejected-looking Liberal holding just one thunderstick.
The election was all about the economy and leadership -- subjects on which Mr. Dion almost slid off the bottom of most opinion polls.
The Liberal leader needed an electoral miracle to get back in the game. The meltdown in financial markets, coupled with a rash response from Stephen Harper, who said this week that the market crash represents a buying opportunity, provided him with one.
Some polls this week suggested the two leading parties were in touching distance and that Mr. Dion had caught up with Mr. Harper when voters were asked who would make the best leader. As with markets, a herd mentality exists in politics that is just as irrational and driven by emotion as the decision to jettison fundamentally sound stocks.
Perhaps it is just because politics hates a vacuum, but Mr. Dion has been the main beneficiary of this peculiar crowd psychology. Yet he has gained momentum without any serious examination of whether he is capable of leading Canada away from the brink of a Depression. Does he make good decisions? Does he have the economic credentials to lead the country? If not, does he listen to those who do?
I was standing on the Liberal campaign plane late on Thursday night. I'd been promised an interview with the leader on the short flight back from Montreal to Toronto to test the theory I'd been hearing from Grit spin doctors that Mr. Dion has been reborn as an astute politician during this campaign. But the team was huddled in crisis mode after CTV Halifax broadcast an embarrassing interview, in which the leader had to be asked three times what he would do about the economic crisis if he were prime minister.
Finally, Mark Dunn, the Liberal communications director, came to the back of the plane to say the interview to discuss whether Mr. Dion is at the top of his game was being cancelled because he had flubbed his lines in Halifax. To borrow from an old Liberal ad--I'm not allowed to make this stuff up. The Grits said Mr. Dion's hearing problem had caused the misunderstanding; journalists on the plane grumbled it seemed to be a case of selective hearing -- it was only difficult questions he couldn't understand.
To be fair to the Liberal leader, it was easy to be sucked in by the spin about his improved performance because, to that point, he'd had a good week -- if only in comparison to the disasters that preceded it. Those who have travelled with him said they had seen him undergo a transformation.
"He's taken a page from Jean Chretien's book and learned to laugh at his perceived shortcomings," said one Grit. "He's become a politician and he's enjoying it." Others said that, in a physical sense, he is moving with more confidence and that he's been less shy.
The Liberal insider said the turning point for their campaign came in week three when Mr. Dion was at a farm in Belmont, Ont. Now known as the "Belmont Turn," after the famous Belmont Park racetrack, the Grit alleged Mr. Harper made a strategic mistake by claiming that the Liberal leader was "sitting on the sidelines, virtually cheering for there to be a recession." Mr. Dion reacted angrily: "He accused me to want that? Shame on Stephen Harper."
"It was like the guy from the Charles Atlas ads who has had too much sand kicked in his face. After that, there was something in him I hadn't seen before," said the senior Liberal. "He's getting it. Canadians are going to take a second look and say, 'I trust this guy.' "
A number of Grits point out that one of Mr. Dion's strengths-- his determination -- has proven to be a weakness in the past, because he would cling stubbornly to untenable positions. "He's listening now, though. That's a different Stephane Dion." Even his staunchest supporters don't claim he is politically savvy. When asked if he makes good decisions, one advisor said: "When he gets good advice."
The advice was being offered but ignored when Mr. Dion insisted that the Green Shift become the central plank of his election platform.
One MP who was there at the time said he understands why Mr. Dion followed his instincts, pointing to his experience with the Clarity Act. "That was his introduction to politics, and he was told it was good policy but terrible politics. He was told it would never work, but two years later it worked. Picture him with a lot of people sitting around a table--half of whom are after his job -- telling him 'Stephane, this is crappy politics.' "
Dion supporters argue that the problem with the Green Shift is not the policy but the implementation -- that the Liberals didn't push the tax-cut component hard enough; they didn't point out that big polluters would pay most; that they underestimated how much the Conservatives would distort their message.
Other Liberals believe the Green Shift is a disastrous strategic mistake that will likely cost the party the election. At this stage in a campaign, strategists would normally hope to have shored up a candidate's weaknesses and would now be pushing his or her strengths. In Mr. Dion's case, he still spends much of his time defending the carbon tax -- to the point where he now won't even acknowledge it is a carbon tax.
Yet, even his harshest critics have a grudging admiration for the way he has performed recently. One Grit who attended a lunchtime speech in Toronto this week said he saw "a man in his stride."
"He's doing the right stuff-- talking about the economy. The Liberals have become more disciplined and there is a new feeling internally," he said.
But has Stephane Dion really turned from liability to asset in the course of a week? The CTV Halifax clip is particularly damaging because it highlights his shortcomings -- his problems communicating and his apparent paralysis under pressure. Despite his obvious improvements, he still couldn't deliver a line, even if he sent it by FedEx.
"I've had a great day in Sidney, British Columbia, Canada... not Sydney, Australia," he told a rally last week, perhaps expecting gales of laughter at this witticism. Instead, people looked at their shoes.
Much has been written about Mr. Dion's performance in the leaders' debates. Polls of people who watched them say he did well in the French debate and held his own in the English debate, but he failed to get an immediate boost in voter support from either.
One of his own organizers in British Columbia put it this way: "His inability to communicate goes beyond the language issue. He has no emotional intelligence [the ability to identify, assess and manage the emotions of one's self and others], which you have to have if people are to follow you in the broad numbers you need to form a government."
Any unease voters might have about Mr. Dion's personality would be exacerbated if they looked closely at his cornerstone policy. The basis for this fundamental overhaul of the tax system was research undertaken by economists Jack Mintz and Nancy Olewiler. Their estimate -- a carbon tax that gradually rose to $40 a tonne of carbon emitted and would raise $40-billion over four years -- was adopted wholesale by the Liberals, despite the fact the research was based on 2005 data. The Grits were in a bind -- they had committed to fund an expensive anti-poverty plan but the Conservatives had drained the fiscal pool through tax cuts and debt repayment. The carbon tax offered the attraction of acting as both an environment and an anti-poverty plan.
Mr. Mintz still stands by his research but acknowledges that his data is now out of date. He said the Liberals should have crunched their own updated numbers. No one really knows how much a carbon tax would raise now or how much would be lost if it started influencing consumer behaviour.
The paper is not publishing on Monday, Oct. 13., but we'll keep posting the latest election news, including commentary and analysis, at nationalpost.com/election2008Mr. Mintz estimated that in year four, there might be a 15% behavioural shift away from polluting forms of energy, but admits this is an imprecise science. Any reduction in revenue from a carbon tax would be potentially problematic because the money would already have been committed to social programs.
In Sweden, this funding gap was filled by increasing the rate of income tax and putting up employee-paid payroll taxes.
Meanwhile, back in Canada, Mr. Dion has refused to consider delaying implementation of his carbon tax, stating categorically it will be part of his first budget. At the same time, he is equally rigid in his insistence that a Liberal government would not allow the nation's finances to slip into deficit. Mr. Dion never did rearrange the interview to discuss how he intends to square that particularly vicious circle.
The bottom line, though, is people don't vote for good, or even vote against bad, policy platforms. They vote for leaders they think they can trust; leaders they feel comfortable supporting; leaders they think care about them and their family. The Liberals have been running very effective ads that claim: "With Harper, you're on your own. [But] Canada's Liberals are always there for you."
By Tuesday, Canadians will decide for themselves whether they are going to help make Justin Trudeau's prophecy come true. Do Canadians really want Prime Minister Stephane Dion to be there for them?"
Dion's rise as swift as economy's fall
How a rout became a bout
John Ivison, National Post Published: Saturday, October 11, 2008
---------------------------------------------------------
Justin Trudeau looked like he'd just leapt from the pages of People magazine as he warmed up a Liberal campaign rally in North Bay. "Here's the man who in seven days will be the next prime minister of Canada…Stephane Dion."
Mr. Dion looked as if he'd just stepped from the pages of Current Sociology as he gave the crowd his trademark goofy grin and that wave where the arm of his suit ends up at his elbow. But there was a difference on this crisp fall night in Northern Ontario. This time, the man who has been cast as a figure of fun and compared to everyone from Forrest Gump to Mr. Bean, was not the only person in the room who believed Mr. Trudeau's prophesy might come true.
Stephane Dion: prime minister of Canada. Surely there's some mistake?
At the end of Week Two, even Mr. Dion's most stalwart supporters on the tour were convinced it was all over. "I said to my wife, 'I can't believe there's three more weeks to go. We're going down', " said one senior Grit. The mood was captured at a Toronto rally by a dejected-looking Liberal holding just one thunderstick.
The election was all about the economy and leadership -- subjects on which Mr. Dion almost slid off the bottom of most opinion polls.
The Liberal leader needed an electoral miracle to get back in the game. The meltdown in financial markets, coupled with a rash response from Stephen Harper, who said this week that the market crash represents a buying opportunity, provided him with one.
Some polls this week suggested the two leading parties were in touching distance and that Mr. Dion had caught up with Mr. Harper when voters were asked who would make the best leader. As with markets, a herd mentality exists in politics that is just as irrational and driven by emotion as the decision to jettison fundamentally sound stocks.
Perhaps it is just because politics hates a vacuum, but Mr. Dion has been the main beneficiary of this peculiar crowd psychology. Yet he has gained momentum without any serious examination of whether he is capable of leading Canada away from the brink of a Depression. Does he make good decisions? Does he have the economic credentials to lead the country? If not, does he listen to those who do?
I was standing on the Liberal campaign plane late on Thursday night. I'd been promised an interview with the leader on the short flight back from Montreal to Toronto to test the theory I'd been hearing from Grit spin doctors that Mr. Dion has been reborn as an astute politician during this campaign. But the team was huddled in crisis mode after CTV Halifax broadcast an embarrassing interview, in which the leader had to be asked three times what he would do about the economic crisis if he were prime minister.
Finally, Mark Dunn, the Liberal communications director, came to the back of the plane to say the interview to discuss whether Mr. Dion is at the top of his game was being cancelled because he had flubbed his lines in Halifax. To borrow from an old Liberal ad--I'm not allowed to make this stuff up. The Grits said Mr. Dion's hearing problem had caused the misunderstanding; journalists on the plane grumbled it seemed to be a case of selective hearing -- it was only difficult questions he couldn't understand.
To be fair to the Liberal leader, it was easy to be sucked in by the spin about his improved performance because, to that point, he'd had a good week -- if only in comparison to the disasters that preceded it. Those who have travelled with him said they had seen him undergo a transformation.
"He's taken a page from Jean Chretien's book and learned to laugh at his perceived shortcomings," said one Grit. "He's become a politician and he's enjoying it." Others said that, in a physical sense, he is moving with more confidence and that he's been less shy.
The Liberal insider said the turning point for their campaign came in week three when Mr. Dion was at a farm in Belmont, Ont. Now known as the "Belmont Turn," after the famous Belmont Park racetrack, the Grit alleged Mr. Harper made a strategic mistake by claiming that the Liberal leader was "sitting on the sidelines, virtually cheering for there to be a recession." Mr. Dion reacted angrily: "He accused me to want that? Shame on Stephen Harper."
"It was like the guy from the Charles Atlas ads who has had too much sand kicked in his face. After that, there was something in him I hadn't seen before," said the senior Liberal. "He's getting it. Canadians are going to take a second look and say, 'I trust this guy.' "
A number of Grits point out that one of Mr. Dion's strengths-- his determination -- has proven to be a weakness in the past, because he would cling stubbornly to untenable positions. "He's listening now, though. That's a different Stephane Dion." Even his staunchest supporters don't claim he is politically savvy. When asked if he makes good decisions, one advisor said: "When he gets good advice."
The advice was being offered but ignored when Mr. Dion insisted that the Green Shift become the central plank of his election platform.
One MP who was there at the time said he understands why Mr. Dion followed his instincts, pointing to his experience with the Clarity Act. "That was his introduction to politics, and he was told it was good policy but terrible politics. He was told it would never work, but two years later it worked. Picture him with a lot of people sitting around a table--half of whom are after his job -- telling him 'Stephane, this is crappy politics.' "
Dion supporters argue that the problem with the Green Shift is not the policy but the implementation -- that the Liberals didn't push the tax-cut component hard enough; they didn't point out that big polluters would pay most; that they underestimated how much the Conservatives would distort their message.
Other Liberals believe the Green Shift is a disastrous strategic mistake that will likely cost the party the election. At this stage in a campaign, strategists would normally hope to have shored up a candidate's weaknesses and would now be pushing his or her strengths. In Mr. Dion's case, he still spends much of his time defending the carbon tax -- to the point where he now won't even acknowledge it is a carbon tax.
Yet, even his harshest critics have a grudging admiration for the way he has performed recently. One Grit who attended a lunchtime speech in Toronto this week said he saw "a man in his stride."
"He's doing the right stuff-- talking about the economy. The Liberals have become more disciplined and there is a new feeling internally," he said.
But has Stephane Dion really turned from liability to asset in the course of a week? The CTV Halifax clip is particularly damaging because it highlights his shortcomings -- his problems communicating and his apparent paralysis under pressure. Despite his obvious improvements, he still couldn't deliver a line, even if he sent it by FedEx.
"I've had a great day in Sidney, British Columbia, Canada... not Sydney, Australia," he told a rally last week, perhaps expecting gales of laughter at this witticism. Instead, people looked at their shoes.
Much has been written about Mr. Dion's performance in the leaders' debates. Polls of people who watched them say he did well in the French debate and held his own in the English debate, but he failed to get an immediate boost in voter support from either.
One of his own organizers in British Columbia put it this way: "His inability to communicate goes beyond the language issue. He has no emotional intelligence [the ability to identify, assess and manage the emotions of one's self and others], which you have to have if people are to follow you in the broad numbers you need to form a government."
Any unease voters might have about Mr. Dion's personality would be exacerbated if they looked closely at his cornerstone policy. The basis for this fundamental overhaul of the tax system was research undertaken by economists Jack Mintz and Nancy Olewiler. Their estimate -- a carbon tax that gradually rose to $40 a tonne of carbon emitted and would raise $40-billion over four years -- was adopted wholesale by the Liberals, despite the fact the research was based on 2005 data. The Grits were in a bind -- they had committed to fund an expensive anti-poverty plan but the Conservatives had drained the fiscal pool through tax cuts and debt repayment. The carbon tax offered the attraction of acting as both an environment and an anti-poverty plan.
Mr. Mintz still stands by his research but acknowledges that his data is now out of date. He said the Liberals should have crunched their own updated numbers. No one really knows how much a carbon tax would raise now or how much would be lost if it started influencing consumer behaviour.
The paper is not publishing on Monday, Oct. 13., but we'll keep posting the latest election news, including commentary and analysis, at nationalpost.com/election2008Mr. Mintz estimated that in year four, there might be a 15% behavioural shift away from polluting forms of energy, but admits this is an imprecise science. Any reduction in revenue from a carbon tax would be potentially problematic because the money would already have been committed to social programs.
In Sweden, this funding gap was filled by increasing the rate of income tax and putting up employee-paid payroll taxes.
Meanwhile, back in Canada, Mr. Dion has refused to consider delaying implementation of his carbon tax, stating categorically it will be part of his first budget. At the same time, he is equally rigid in his insistence that a Liberal government would not allow the nation's finances to slip into deficit. Mr. Dion never did rearrange the interview to discuss how he intends to square that particularly vicious circle.
The bottom line, though, is people don't vote for good, or even vote against bad, policy platforms. They vote for leaders they think they can trust; leaders they feel comfortable supporting; leaders they think care about them and their family. The Liberals have been running very effective ads that claim: "With Harper, you're on your own. [But] Canada's Liberals are always there for you."
By Tuesday, Canadians will decide for themselves whether they are going to help make Justin Trudeau's prophecy come true. Do Canadians really want Prime Minister Stephane Dion to be there for them?"