It was only a matter of time, but we’ve had our first confirmed Nick Kouvalis sighting, courtesy of the Globe which reported in its Toronto section Saturday that the former Rob Ford campaign co-chair has been working in several Toronto ridings, laying the groundwork for the federal Conservatives, so to speak.
If it worked once, right…?
It’s only natural that the federal Conservatives would want to piggy back on Ford’s popularity to win votes in T.O., but how many of those Ford municipal votes will translate federally for the Conservatives is a trickier proposition.
So what to make of the Kouvalis development?
It wouldn’t be completely accurate to suggest the Tories are simply stealing a page out of Ford’s election playbook on how to win votes and influence the masses. The Harperites were long ago converts to the theory political scientists call “epistemological populism”- the idea that the electorate doesn’t much care for coherent policy. And that voters respond instead to “everyday common sense” – in other words, what’s popular. Stephen Colbert calls it “truthiness.”
Ford rode that wave into office last fall. But it was the Tories that adopted the theory in the 2008 election, happy to pursue policies, like cutting the GST, which was roundly criticized by economists but that appealed to the public.
It didn’t give the Tories their coveted majority last time. That’s partly because they didn’t quite follow the “truthiness” script 100 per cent, calculating that a broader appeal was necessary to win a majority. There were those seats in Quebec to think about.
What the federal Tories didn’t get about the “truthiness” principle then is that, the idea is not about broadening your base. It’s about playing to your base. The name of the game is not to convince those that don’t generally support your world view to vote for you. The idea is getting those who do support your view out to the polls. Call it the politics of choosing.
If they weren’t completely committed to the concept last time, the Conservatives have indicated they are this time out.
In the first week, the Harperites have been hammer and tong on the wedge issues – raising the c-word, as in opposition coalition, and this morning reiterating an old pledge to scrap the gun registry. There was also a family tax credit promise, the money for which won’t be available till after the budget is balanced, but who’s paying attention?
Look for more deception from the Cons if they can get away with it. “Truthiness” is, the Tories have to motivate their base big time if they hope to hang on to at least a minority.
The latest Nanos poll may show them flirting with a majority – at 40 per cent support here in Toronto, a few points higher than the Libs. But all the Libs have to do is get the million or so natural Grits who didn’t vote last time out to the polls, and the political landscape all of a sudden shifts.
The Libs have decided that the best way to do that is to tear a sheet out of their own “truthiness” playbook and not pretend to be Tories. It’s a big step. It’s the Libs getting back to their roots.
In that vein, there’s the 2011 campaign Red Book released Sunday, described as Trudeauesque by one scribe. Harper called it the NDP platform. He’s sorta right. It’ll certainly attract those soft Lib votes that went to the NDP if the latter’s numbers at rallies in the first 10 days are any indication.
Whether it will be enough to avert a Tory tide remains to be seen. But it actually sets up a clear choice for voters, which is the real point.
