He Who Pays the Harper Picks the Tune

Stephen Harper has resigned from his Conservative Party post in order to fight against Jean Charest getting the Conservative leadership.

And if Harper does not like Charest, it seems unlikely that MacKay would be his choice either. Both are “Red Tories.”

Tom Mulcair brings up another rap against MacKay. Rona Ambrose is sitting out it seems in part because her French is weak. She caught flak for that during her interim leadership. But MacKay’s French is weaker still.

Which, Tom Mulcair points out, raises an interesting possibility. What happens if no one else looks like they can beat Charest? Might Harper himself run?

Tom, We Hardly Knew Ye

Tom Mulcair

A friend who has voted NDP his entire life says he cannot vote this time for Jagmeet Singh.

Perhaps this gives some insight into why the NDP’s support has sagged.

My friend feels that Singh lacks gravitas. “I can't imagine him representing Canada abroad.”

He did not say how he would vote; he did say Scheer and May both also lacked gravitas. Of course, I feel the same way about Justin Trudeau, only much more so. He did not mention Trudeau, but surely because in this case the matter was obvious. I got the impression he was just going to stay home.

Then he mentioned Tom Mulcair—how wrong the NDP was to vote him out.

I think that may be important. Singh is being compared to Mulcair as much as to Trudeau. Mulcair had gravitas. Next to him, Singh looks and sounds like a student body president.

I think this is a fatal error indulged in by both the Tories and the NDP. Seeing Trudeau’s success, they did the boneheaded typical politico thing and voted in new leaders who were as similar as possible to Trudeau; young, good-looking, inexperienced. Giving the voters no alternative once they saw the problem with youth, inexperience, and lack of seriousness. (May may not have youth, but she surely lacks gravitas.) Mulcair could have torn up this field and left only embers.

On top of that, there is a festering sense that Mulcair was treated badly by the party. I think my friend resented that as a Quebecker—and NDP support in Quebec has collapsed.

If the NDP is decimated this election, Singh will almost certainly be obliged to resign. If that happens, intelligent NDPers not fond of extinction of their species should organize a Draft Mulcair movement as soon as possible.

Political Sheep and Goats

Tom Mulcair

A variety of voices in the NDP are taking Tom Mulcair to task for supposed disloyalty to his replacement as leader, Jagmeet Singh. I think unreasonably.

I may or may not be a good judge of character, but some politicians strike me as straight shooters, and many or most do not. Most only parrot party lines and seem intent to con. I have always felt this distinction was more important than ideology. Morality comes first.

Mulcair has always struck me as one of the good ones. His very reputation for anger demonstrates his sincerity. His recent frankness as a commentator suggests I am right. All he has said is that Singh will have trouble holding on to the leadership if he does not win his byelection, and that he knows of several sitting members who intend to retire. If that is disloyalty, his colleagues are demanding dishonesty. I would take careful note of who is calling him out, and avoid supporting them in the future.

Here are some other politicians who have always seemed to me genuine: Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the model of the type. Maxime Bernier is the best current example. The NDP was foolish to dump Mulcair; the Tories were foolish not to go with Bernier. It is harder to find a Liberal example, and there is reason for this. As Canada’s “natural governing party,” it has fewer prominent members who are there out of conviction, as opposed to desire for power. The last prominent example I can think of is Bryce Mackasey. Anyone else even remember him? Minister under Trudeau pere.

On the other side, a few always struck me as terminally insincere: Richard Nixon, Hillary Clinton, Paul Martin Jr.

Of course there are grades and shades between the two extremes, say Nixon on the one side, a zero, Moynihan on the other, a ten. More good guys: John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Jerry Brown, John Kasich, Eugene McCarthy, David Lewis. More listing over to the dark side: Brian Mulroney, John Turner, Ed Broadbent, Bobby Kennedy.

And no, I do not place Trump in the insincere camp. What people don't seem to get is that, while he "lies" all the time, he does not lie to deceive. That makes all the difference. At the same time, he does not seem driven by any conviction. He's a pragmatist.

Singhing in the Rain

Jagmeet Singh

Jagmeet Singh's leadership of the NDP is in trouble. The Dippers cannot seem to budge the polls, and now internal dissent had broken out over Singh's high-handed approach to matters in caucus and in Saskatchewan.

I said at the time that the NDP was making a big mistake in dumping Tom Mulcair. I'd say now this proves me right.

The NDP thought that, with Singh, they could out-fresh face, out-hope-and-change, out-Obama, and out-progressive Trudeau's Liberals.

Bad concept. Trudeau's Liberals were already crowding that side of the political spectrum, governing left. There was not much viable ground to their left. Why vote, then, for a party with less chance of gaining power, when your agenda is being accomplished by the party in power?

Worse, if Trudeau screws up, or the public gets tired of him, Singh does not work as an alternative. He shares the same characteristics likely to alienate from Trudeau: being young, inexperienced, a pretty face, from a privileged economic background, from Central Canada, very urban.

Now imagine how much better Mulcair would play than does Singh on this score and at this point, if you are annoyed with Trudeau. If Trudeau looks amateurish, out of touch,, callow, and, as the Conservatives said, not ready for prime time, so does Singh. Mulcair has an avuncular look, solid political experience, performs well in the House. He looks like the adult alternative. Rather than crowd the left end of the spectrum, he was moving the NDP toward the centre, where they could look like a safer alternative to the Tories as well as the Grits.

Tom Mulcair.

Both Trudeau and Singh came in on the coattails of Barack Obama in the US. Whenever some new US politician makes a splash, the instinct among Canadians and Canadian pols is to find the closest parallel they can to run. But Singh is too late at the feast. Trudeau got there first. Now Obama is gone from the nightly news and the front pages, and that approach is old hat. The drive now, on the right, is to get someone who looks like Trump. Enter Doug Ford. On the left, the obvious model now is Bernie Sanders.

That's the avuncular thing.

Policies aside, Mulcair looks more like Sanders than does Singh.

Can Singh come back? Doubt it. Can the NDP get Mulcair to come back? Doubt it.

But I bet that if Mulcair were still leader, the NDP would be looking right now as though they had a serious shot at being the next government.

Tom and Max

So Tom Mulcair is out, and it was not close.

By conventional political calculations, this seems like a big mistake. Someone might rise to the occasion, but the NDP has nobody waiting in the wings who looks as good. Mulcair also had only one election campaign; he deserved another chance.

But I don't think the NDP is really that interested in electoral success. Given the party's history, party activists are not there for a chance at power or sinecure. It is more like a club, to which people belong for the sense of belonging. One could also say it was for the sake of their political principles, but then, flaunting those principles is a matter of signalling morality, rather than actually getting anything done. Otherwise, they would be more concerned with getting elected.

Mulcair was never really a full member of this club. He rose through the Quebec Liberal Party. He did not know these people personally. They might have felt more loyalty to a losing leader who was one of them. But if Mulcair could not deliver power, and easily, there was no further excuse for him. It did not help that he tried last election to push them to the centre, allowing them to be outflanked on the left by the Liberals. This had to alienate the majority of party activists who were there for the sake of self-identity.

In the meantime, they watched the British Labour Party veer left by electing Jeremy Corbin, while Bernie Sanders was grabbing headlines in the US. They probably felt sidelined, out of the game they came to play.

So not only are they in the mood to dump Mulcair; they are in the mood to get some of their self-esteem back by embracing the Leap Manifesto.

I guess this also means they endorse assisted suicide, at least by example?

The next leader, whoever it is, will probably lead them back into distant third-party status. But this is where they feel most at home.

Turning now to the Conservative race: pundits generally seem to be consigning Maxime Bernier to also-ran status. I think this is wrong. I think he has the best shot of all the likely candidates.

First, to hold on to its bona fides as a national party, the party should not select someone else from Alberta. Stephen Harper, Stockwell Day, and Preston Manning, in effect their last three leaders, were all from Wild Rose Country. That is a serious handicap for otherwise popular figures like Jason Kenney. Brad Wall, from neighbouring Saskatchewan, is not that much better off on this score.

Second, it looks as though Bernier will be the only Quebec candidate. He will surely be the most prominent. Quebec is a huge block of delegates, the second-biggest, and, unsurprisingly given the language differences, they tend to back a native son. Doing well in Quebec in the next election also matters to a lot of party functionaries elsewhere, who are in the business of trying to win political office. Many of them will support someone they feel could go toe to toe with Trudeau in a French-language debate.

Third, in early polling, the most popular candidates for the post are Red Tories, from the old PCs: Peter McKay, Tony Clement, Kevin O'Leary. Most party activists are probably Blue Tories. Maxime Bernier, a libertarian, has a good chance of becoming their standard bearer, and they might quickly rally to his side if it looks otherwise like a win by Peter McKay. In the meantime, the Red Tory vote may be split among several prominent candidates.

Then again, I cold be wrong. I never would have predicted Donald Trump.