What's Harper doing?

[Ex-Dragoon]

Ok this is what I am seeing...Dion for all intensive purposes is keeping the Conservatives in by not voting or abstaining crucial votes. Harper in turn does what he can to antagonize Dion. Can someone explain to me of whats going on? What am I missing?

 

[GAP]

This is one method of making the opposition irrelevant...

 

[MP 811]

Harper doesn't really have to do anything.  Dion has become famous for putting his foot in his mouth.  Unfortunately, come election time, all the Liberal borg out there will vote Dion because they dont really know any better.

 

[Old Sweat]

I think Harper is taking advantage of the Liberal weakness and perhaps he would be doing more or less the same thing, regardless of their leader. As it is, he is publicly humiliating the Liberals by introducing measures that grate against their core beliefs in the full expectation that they will abstain. The kicker is that the Conservatives are in a much better position to fight an election in terms of finances, organization and morale than the other parties. It may be that Mr. Harper will continue to rub the Liberals' collective noses in the dirt in the hope that enough back benchers will snap, defy their leader and vote with the other opposition parties. His other hope is that a 'coup' is mounted against Mr. Dion, which can only fail or hopelessly divide the Liberals.

This will bring on an election with the economy in good shape, tax cuts in place and the Liberals, besides all the deficiencies noted above, in open revolt and fighting amongst themsleves, as well as supposedly favouring tax increases.

Mind you I could be wrong. I prefer being an historian to being a pundit as predicting the past is easier than figuring out what is going to happen.

 

[The_Falcon]

As one commentator in the Toronto Sun pointed out a few weeks ago, Harper is basically taking a page from Chretien's book and making political hay out the disarray and confusion in the opposition ranks.  Obviously Chretien had a majority to work with so his tactics were a little different but not much.

 

[a_majoor]

I suspect several balls are in play here:

1. Demoralizing the Liberal Party. The sitting MP's are watching the government run rings around them and are unable to do anything about it. Sitting MP's may decide to retire rather than face an election. Internal fighting between the Chretien and Martin factions (now the Dion and Ignatieff factions) will cause even more institutional damage.

2. An ineffectual Liberal Party will bleed votes as left wing voters see or believe the NDP, Bloc and Green parties are the effective opposition. Mr Dion's swinging the Liberal party hard left has made the real left wing parties much more attractive to Liberal voters

3. Mr Harper is increasingly being seen as a man who "says what he means and do what he says", while Mr Dion's tough talk evaporates into inaction. He is positioning himself and Mr Dion in the voter's minds ahead of any general election. The rabid rhetoric of Jack Layton *might* backfire against him, a risk Mr Harper is willing to take.

4. The Liberals and NDP are being checked into the boards; they are not able to provide credible alternative courses of action to Conservative legislative initiatives. (This is similar to our criticisms of what the Liberals and NDP offer for Afghanistan if we leave as they want).

I'm sure there are other, more subtle things happening, but I don't presume to know all the ins and outs of what is happening here.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

"What's Harper Doing?"

In simple layman's terms, that even the most uneducated liebreal can understand:

HE'S DOING GREAT!!!

 

[larry Strong]

Gotta agree:

"He's doing a good job"

 

[ModlrMike]

To quote Sun Tzu "The victorious first seek to win and then go to war."

In other words... he's attempting to win the next election before going to the polls. The Liberals are giving him all the help he needs.

 

[Bandit1]

I suspect several balls are in play here:

1. Demoralizing the Liberal Party. The sitting MP's are watching the government run rings around them and are unable to do anything about it. Sitting MP's may decide to retire rather than face an election. Internal fighting between the Chretien and Martin factions (now the Dion and Ignatieff factions) will cause even more institutional damage.

2. An ineffectual Liberal Party will bleed votes as left wing voters see or believe the NDP, Bloc and Green parties are the effective opposition. Mr Dion's swinging the Liberal party hard left has made the real left wing parties much more attractive to Liberal voters

3. Mr Harper is increasingly being seen as a man who "says what he means and do what he says", while Mr Dion's tough talk evaporates into inaction. He is positioning himself and Mr Dion in the voter's minds ahead of any general election. The rabid rhetoric of Jack Layton *might* backfire against him, a risk Mr Harper is willing to take.

4. The Liberals and NDP are being checked into the boards; they are not able to provide credible alternative courses of action to Conservative legislative initiatives. (This is similar to our criticisms of what the Liberals and NDP offer for Afghanistan if we leave as they want).

I'm sure there are other, more subtle things happening, but I don't presume to know all the ins and outs of what is happening here.

A few observations to go along with your well presented points...

1.  It's easy to demoralize a party who wants to play the role of the opposition but who will never vote like the opposition should.  The last thing that Dion wants right now is an election, and regardless of what Liberals say on Sunday morning talk shows, they know full well that their leader will lose them the next election.  They can try to boost him up as much as they want, but in the end, it will be the end for Dion.

2.  Dion swinging to the left (sounds like some form of sexual conotation, doesn't it?) may help left wing Liberals move over, but those people aren't going to be enough to sway people around the country and get the NDP the numbers that it needs to have more of a presence in the House.

3.  I don't know if the rhetoric of Layton will backfire against the Conservatives, simply because that while we know where the NDP stand on all issues (something that they should be commended for, even though their policies are shite), they'll never be popular in the provinces that matter the most.  Ontario, Quebec, Alberta are the catalyst provinces, and Ontario has never gotten over what Bob Rae did to us as Premier oh so many years ago...Quebec and Alberta are self explanatory.

4.  The most subtle thing that I believe is happening is the shift of the Conservatives to an almost "Red Tory" position, given that even their most recent mini budget included ideas that the Liberals agreed with.  I'm with-holding judgement on that until I collect my thoughts on the matter.

Cheers for now,

Bandit

 

[Flip]

What has become apparent is that Harper is not the evil corporate
stooge that the lieberals had made him out to be.  OOoops.

Those liberal scandals just won't go away. Chretien could not have published
his book in a more destructive manner.  Their party is in tatters and the
attitude of entitlement is obvious and offensive. OOops.

Dion's failure as a leader is the best part of all of this.
Instead of exercising some initiative he gets his ideas from
Taliban Jack.  OOops.

While I agree that Harper is doing a fine job and is obviously
a very bright guy - He can't stage a production like this on his own.
Harper's just the straight man.

Dion's the clown........... ;D

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I think Harper's game is actually on a level deeper than just beating Dion to an unrecognizable pulp and getting a majority.  I think Harper is actually purposefully stripping (or limiting) the Federal Government's taxation powers by lowering the GST- the effect of which is to force the Feds to focus spending on areas of Federal responsibility.  The next time a province calls for more transfers/health care money/infrastructure grants (cough Ontario cough), Harper can turn around and say " Hey, I cut the GST to give all you provinces room to raise your PST to fund your own constitutional responsibilities.  Have fun!"

Dalton McGuinty looked positively ill last week...

 

[I_am_John_Galt]

force the Feds to focus spending on areas of Federal responsibility.

Perish the thought!

/sarcasm

 

[a_majoor]

I think Harper's game is actually on a level deeper than just beating Dion to an unrecognizable pulp and getting a majority.  I think Harper is actually purposefully stripping (or limiting) the Federal Government's taxation powers by lowering the GST- the effect of which is to force the Feds to focus spending on areas of Federal responsibility.  The next time a province calls for more transfers/health care money/infrastructure grants (cough Ontario cough), Harper can turn around and say " Hey, I cut the GST to give all you provinces room to raise your PST to fund your own constitutional responsibilities.  Have fun!"

Dalton McGuinty looked positively ill last week...

I think we just hit the BINGO moment.