NDP slide causes Tories concern, too

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This article was published 21/09/2015 (3683 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Free Press insider’s panel offers its insights for Week 7 of the federal election campaign.

After a couple of shaky weeks that had the Conservative campaign reeling, Big Blue, our veteran Tory campaign insider, believes leader Stephen Harper has righted the ship.

One week ago, the Tories were slipping in national polls, actually running third in some surveys. The Conservative campaign director was sent home to Ottawa amid a flurry of stories about internal discord.

By the end of the week, however, the Conservatives appeared to have stabilized. Support in national polls rose slightly, and Harper got passing grades for his performance in a televised debate. This was a pretty remarkable turn of events given the emotional national debate over the Syrian refugee crisis.

Harper and his government were criticized for not taking action after the image of a drowned Syrian toddler exposed the gravity of the situation. Big Blue said there was concern in Tory ranks about how the story would affect their campaign. However, it appears Harper has benefited from the fact the electorate is deeply divided about how to respond.

“I think on this issue the prime minister has done a good job of making sure he was talking to his base,” Big Blue said. “His initial response was a bit of a gamble. But we can see now that Canadians are not comfortable with just throwing open the door to refugees. And (Harper) has been the beneficiary of that.”

That does not mean it’s clear sailing, however. Big Blue noted a slip in NDP support nationally — the New Democrats slid from clear front-runner to neck and neck with the Tories and Liberals — does not bode well for election day.

Many believe now the election will be decided in Ontario, where the NDP is running a distant third. That is not a good trend for Conservatives.

“Without a doubt we need strong NDP candidates and results in key ridings to pull this out,” Big Blue said. “The Liberals are our biggest competitor, especially in Ontario. We’re going to need a better response from the NDP there.”

Glass half full or half empty? That is the question facing Orange Crush, our NDP insider.

On the positive side of the equation, the NDP is still running strong in the seventh week of a federal election campaign and through two televised debates, leader Tom Mulcair continues to hold the support of nearly one-third of Canadians.

Orange Crush noted in past elections, NDP stalwarts would have been happy to be above 20 per cent support nationally; in polls last week, the NDP continues to show support of slightly more than 30 per cent.

It was particularly positive to see a more feisty Mulcair in last week’s leaders’ debate, Orange Crush said. This in contrast to the fake grin Mulcair tried to sell in the first debate. “This is more of the Tom we know from question period, and that’s a positive,” Orange Crush said.

However, Orange Crush conceded the party had lost a few points from where it began the campaign, raising concerns it had peaked too soon. Also of concern is flagging support in seat-rich Ontario, where the NDP is running in third place in most polls, and a new wave of criticism of the party’s economic platform from former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page.

Page came out of retirement briefly last week to accuse Mulcair and the NDP of using deeply flawed assumptions in its economic platform. Mulcair has said he will increase spending and balance the budget with only a modest increase in taxes for top income earners.

Page called this “Swiss-cheese fiscal costing,” suggesting it was just as dishonest in its accounting methods as the Conservative plan, which produced a surplus in the last fiscal year primarily through under-spending by more than $7 billion in several government departments.

“Was it helpful for him to come out like that?” Orange Crush asked. “No. He’s pretty well-respected. We came out early with (our pledge to balance the budget) and we knew the numbers were going to move. This was the risk we faced for coming out so soon with some of our economic policies. It’s bold but risky.”

It comes as some relief to True Grit, our Liberal insider, that it does not appear the televised leaders’ debates are going to be much of a factor in determining the outcome of the election.

Many observers believed Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau got a free pass in the first debate because expectations — forged primarily through a nasty Tory attack ad campaign — were so low. However, going into the second debate last week in Calgary, more than a few Liberals were concerned expectations might rise to the point where Trudeau would have to score a knockout punch to maintain any semblance of momentum.

As it turned out, True Grit said, all three lead1ers more or less held their own with no extremely bad performances. “(Trudeau) did what he had to do,” said True Grit. “He challenged the other leaders and got in some good exchanges with Harper. Would I have liked Justin to dominate the debate? Sure. But none of the leaders seemed destined to do that.”

The overall campaign trend is also reason for optimism in Liberal ranks, True Grit said. To this point, only the Liberals have been able to demonstrate provable momentum, going up from third place to a virtual tie for first.

However, there is concern the long campaign engineered by the Conservative government — 77 days — will become a concern in the next few weeks. Liberal announcements have been solid and well-paced to this point, True Grit said. It will be a challenge, however, to ensure the pace of impactful announcements continues.

Harper and the Conservatives demonstrated the negative impact of running thin on announcements in both the 2006 and 2008 federal election campaigns, True Grit said. In both campaigns, the Tory machine simply ran out of gas with a couple of weeks left to go, eroding the party’s momentum and leaving Harper with a minority mandate.

“You can survive a lot of things in a campaign, but you can’t survive empty air,” True Grit said. “You need competitive messaging week in and week out in a campaign like this. It will be a challenge for us to ensure we have things to talk about through the last four weeks of the campaign.”

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.