Martin's mistakes have come back to haunt him.
This morning we woke up to a Conservative Minority government and a revitalized NDP. Strategic voting is over and the Conservatives have succeeded making Quebecers believe that there is a federalist alternative to the Liberals. One can only hope that the lack of a majority will allow us to see a kinder, gentler Prime Minister Harper than we might have expected. Most importantly our next trip to the ballot box had better be more than 18 months away.
Elections are won and lost based on a variety of factors. I think however that these 10 mistakes were the ones that put an end to the Liberal government. One can only hope they learned something from them.
1) No political party can succeed unless you can build consensus among all it's factions. Martin split the Liberal Party into Cretien and Martin camps. Once he won that battle he only widened the divide instead of healing it. Instead of drawing on the strength of household names like Copps and Cretien he was left battling against them. The leadership change smelled more like a Palace coup than the natural transition of a strong liberal dynasty. People who voted Liberal in the past did not feel they owed Paul Martin any loyalty.
2) We are not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf anymore. Expecting people to vote Liberal because Stephen Harper is a monster only worked when people didn't know who he was. Once they saw him on their TV smiling every day and kissing babies they no longer believed the outlandish accusations even if there was some truth to them.
3) A campaign is about having something to vote for and something to vote against. Too much focus was paid to why you should vote against Harper. Not enough was given about why you should vote for Paul Martin. The Conservatives controlled the early part of the campaign with sound bite policy announcements every day. Then all they had to do was summarize the key points every day at every stop for the rest of the campaign. It was a simple effective strategy that left Stephen Harper looking confident and ahead of the game. The Liberal party by contrast seemed to be always reacting and never leading the debate. By the time the Liberal message was being dropped out there after Christmas it looked like a desperate reaction and lost credibility.
4) The Liberals underestimated the amount of traction the GST promise had. A 2 % cut on a tax you see on every receipt at the height of the Christmas shopping season. Talk about simple but effective. Especially since the Liberals failed to keep a promise to scrap it. Ask David Peterson just how much people (especially in Ontario) hate sales taxes.
5) Far too much was left to be announced during the run up to and during the campaign. Canadians are smart enough not to believe promises a government in election mode makes. No matter how well intentioned they don't hold much water. These issues should have been addressed sooner. Instead Paul Martin looked like Mr Dithers doing nothing over the summer and then suddenly trying to buy our votes in last minute desperation.
6) The attack ad's went to far. This kind of advertising makes you look even more desperate. When you have to end the ad with the tag line "we are not making this up" you know you have gone so far out there that people probably wont believe you. People thought only a fool would approve some of these ads and Paul stepped forward to say he was the fool. Anyone remember the ad's saying Jean didn't look Prime Ministerial because of his Bell's palsy? Those helped Kim Campbell fall down to a defeat of unheard of proportions. Do we learn nothing from history? The suggestion that Stephen Harper would use the military to take control of the country was laughable. Paul Martin must have surrounded himself with too many yes men that didn't have the courage to tell him this was a foolish move.
7) Voters want confident leaders. When you look desperate you do not look like a leader. The combination of all of the above left Paul Martin looking like the most desperate man in Canada. People don't trust desperate people for good reason.
8) The rural divide. The Conservatives are probably the most Bay Street party there is but the Liberals failed to demonstrate that. They lost the battle for the rural vote by letting Stephen Harper have his cake and eat it to. Stephen got to quietly play the businessman's friend and the farmer's salvation. Paul was left looking like he was the enemy in the pockets of the big corporations.
9) The Liberals allowed the big issues that they do well on like health care and education to get lost in a debate over taxes and law enforcement which are Conservative issues. It is hard to beat Conservatives on Conservative issues.
10) The attempt to shield Paul Martin from the sponsorship scandal was not credible (especially in Quebec). He would have been better to have hit it head on and admitted some mistakes were made than to pretend he didn't know anything. Instead of just a crook he looked like a liar and a crook. Voters know governments mismanage money but they hate being lied to about it.
