A sizable number of Toronto electors are preparing to vote for Rob Ford, an anti-government mayoralty candidate, carrying a populist message. Calgary has its own right-wing tribune seeking the mayor's chair. It is standard media practice to talk about the cynical attitude of Canadian voters, the anger at government, and how people have a sneer in their voice when referring to people seeking public office. Playing up distrust of elites is what the Stephen Harper Conservatives do regularly, and their backroom operatives expect voters to buy what they are selling.
populism
![Murray Dobbin](http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/thumbnail/category_pictures/murray dobbin.jpg "Murray Dobbin is a guest senior contributing editor for rabble.ca. Murray has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for 40 years. A board member and researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, he has written five studies for the centre including examinations of charter schools, and "Ten Tax Myths." Murray has been a columnist for the Financial Post and Winnipeg Free Press and contributes guest editorials to the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and other Canadian dailies. He writes a regular "State of the Nation" column for the on-line journal theTyee.ca which is published simultaneously on rabble.ca.
Murray has written five books, including critical profiles of Preston Manning, Kim Campbell and Paul Martin. His "The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen" has been described as a citizens' guide to globalization. He has also prepared radio documentaries for the CBC Radio's Ideas series on subjects including taxes, human rights and the right-wing regime in New
Zealand.
A long time social activist Murray has been involved in many movements from the anti-nuclear movement, to the fights against so-called free trade and public private partnerships. He is the founder of Word Warriors, a project which co-ordinates letter-writing to the editorial pages of newspapers across Canada. He is a Senior Advisor to the Rideau Institute on International Affairs.")
Elitists in populist clothing
I don't mean to quibble with the notion that Scott Brown -- as a truck driver and former nude centrefold -- is well qualified to sit in the U.S. Senate. It's the notion that he's a populist that sticks in my craw.
But it's his alleged populism that led to his dramatic upset win last week in Ted Kennedy's old seat.
Right-wingers like Brown hide the elitism of their agenda by presenting themselves as ordinary working types, as truck-driving, gun-toting folk who may have just slaughtered something with their bare hands in the back shed.
Nothing could be less populist than the right's agenda -- which reached its zenith under George W. Bush -- with tax cuts for the rich, financial deregulation and whittling away labour and social protections.
