Early election trends favour NDP

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/09/2011 (5171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nice suit? One week into the provincial election campaign — or two weeks into the unofficial campaign for those scoring at home — we have been treated to an NDP attack advertisement that mocks Progressive Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen for being well-dressed

To be fair, that’s not exactly the point of the television spot, unveiled last week. The point was to continue the NDP’s relentless campaign to portray McFadyen as a politically and ideologically risky premier-in-waiting. A man who would sell off all our Crown corporations, slash core programs, urinate in our lakes and rivers, and return us to the dark, deficit-ridden, revenue-starved days of the 1990s.

However, at the end of the spot, which shows a panel of voters following an interview with McFadyen for the job of premier, the NDP drops in a line about his clothes. After unanimously deciding McFayden is not worth the risk, one of the voters says, almost with a note of sadness, “Nice suit, though.”

The New Democrats will no doubt defend the ad as an effective way of reminding voters that McFadyen is just a bit too young, too slick, and too smarmy to be premier. In reality, the punchline is childish, and shows a lack of integrity on the part of Premier Greg Selinger, a politician who quite frankly has put quite a lot of work into improving his appearance since taking over from Gary Doer. Trying to scare voters about McFadyen’s ideology is fair game. Low blows about his appearance are a waste of voters’ time.

If there is anything preventing this column from focusing solely on the NDP’s lack of integrity, it is an equally weak effort by the Tories. McFayden finished week one (or week two if you prefer) by levelling the allegation that Selinger cooked the province’s books to make the balance sheet look better heading into an election.

Intrigued by the allegation, diligent Free Press reporters went to Provincial Auditor Carol Bellringer, who confirmed the public accounts — the reports of detailed government revenues and expenditures — did in fact accurately reflect the current deficit. This was not good enough for McFayden, who continued to maintain the NDP had “fudged” the province’s books.

Anyone who aspires to be premier should have enough sense to respect the auditor general when she weighs in on such an important matter. Disputing Bellringer’s statement is a triumph of partisanship over dignity.

This has been, to date, a rather unusual and frustrating campaign.

The Tories decided to start the campaign a full week before the writs of election were actually issued. Their strategy, to control early messaging and force the NDP to react to the Tory campaign, rather than the other way around, worked. It is too early to say if the early start has swayed voters, but they did occupy the driver’s seat during the week before week one.

In the real week one, we were treated to a barrage of spending pledges from all three parties. More money for cops, anti-gang initiatives, daycare, health care, infrastructure, education.

There is nothing wrong with any of the pledges; in fact, the Tory investment in youth recreation services could be, under the right circumstances, a very positive contribution. Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard’s attention to school truancy and daycare seems full of common sense. Selinger’s pledge to put an MRI in Dauphin appears, at first blush, to be a smart addition to health services in the near north.

It’s just that everyone seems to be operating within the same narrow band of ideas. Perhaps we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Big ideas that require big changes do tend to provoke difficult questions and that’s the last thing anyone wants to face on an election trail.

At one time, the Tories urged the NDP to find $500 million in program cuts to help balance the budget. The NDP seized on the Tory idea, suggesting that it would result in cutbacks to health care and education. It’s certainly possible that would be the outcome of a half-billion-dollar cut in spending, but perhaps it’s not. We’ll never know because the Tories were sloppy in introducing the idea, and the NDP was effective at manipulating it.

Although it’s hard to say what the outcome of this campaign will be, the early trend certainly seems to favour the NDP. The challenge for the Tories is to engineer a net gain of nine seats, the gross majority of those coming from Winnipeg. It is, however, hard to see how the current campaign trend is going to shake loose enough voters to go plus nine. It’s still early, but unless the Tories can win those seats with a get-out-the-vote ground game — a possibility to be sure — it’s a steep hill.

On the other hand, perhaps voters are looking for a leader who has a bit more sartorial flare. If that’s the case, the NDP has made a serious strategic error.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.