Coalition: Iggy going around it
There is still a general coalition discussion thread. But its moving pretty slow, and is long enough to give me a problems. Given the new turn of events I'm going to do what is intended as a replacement thread. There is a thread about Iggy and his intentions. This follows discussions from there, but is more focused on the where goes the Coalition.
Ignatieff consults political brain trust on economy
"Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is developing a stimulus plan for the Canadian economy with a close circle of advisers that includes Ontario's Minister of Finance, who is already dealing with the crisis head-on.
Dwight Duncan, who has long been a strong supporter of Mr. Ignatieff, is offering critical advice to the newly appointed Liberal Leader on industrial issues and the auto industry, a source said. Mr. Ignatieff has also consulted Frank McKenna, deputy chairman of TD Bank Financial Group, and Don Drummond, a former senior Finance official and the TD's senior economist, as well as Liberal MPs John McCallum and Scott Brison.
He needs all the advice he can get, given that he has only a few weeks to deliver a clear Liberal plan to navigate the current crisis."
What a LIBERAL government would do. Not what the Coalition would do. Dion is only gone a couple days and already the Liberals stop being stupid. Now that I see it, so obvious. If you don't like the Coalition just ignore it.
No need to kill it. Aside from the fact you may need it if you elect to be PM now, it wouldn't look good anyway. But show everybody who the boss is.
And I heard on the radio this morning some MP going after the tar sands. Same meaage: what a Liberal government would do.
Not an ideal situation. But also not what some are going to expect from this.
It might appear like Iggy can elect to exercise the Coalition option and just tell the partners the score.
No. And it isn't just the policy agreement which Iggy agrees stands as is. The governing follow-up has to conform to the agreement as well. If it even just looks like the Liberal plan, then the NDP has the nuclear button of bringing on the election the Liberals simply cannot afford.
This Iggy Shift is all about general positioning- not about the Coalition per se. [Though ignoring the Coalition is part of that.]
This is Iggy and the Liberals getting back in control of the agenda. Proceeding as if the Coalition will not be "required".... which is smart politics for them whether they choose to let Harper govern or go with the Coalition.
The NDP is in a tough position. Ignatieff, is the most rightwing leader the Liberals have had in decades but the NDP can´t attack or define him at this critical stage. That could be a very important missed opportunity.
And at this point, the collapse of the coalition is going to be disenheartening and only confirm the cynicism many felt that the opposition wouldn´t be able to keep it together. I think it is probably best for the NDP to be patient and let the Liberals play the part of Judas before they pounce but its frustrating that Ignatieff is getting a free ride. I still think the NDP´s best option would be to come up with an accord with the Bloc on progressive legislation they would like to move forward on.
I think your second position contradicts that the NDP is in a tough position.
It does appear to be in a position where there is no space for criticising what the Liberals are doing. And that is not ideal. But I don't see that it is a tough position.
An agreemnt with the Bloc would have only symbolic value. The whole point of the Coalition- of putting up with all its drawbacks- is to have things on the table that are ready to move forward into legislation.
This is not really the time for putting forward what are no more than agendas.
Again- I don't think this turn is ideal. But my hunch is there is a silver lining to Jack and the NDP stepping back a bit.
And they can take some time to ponder how to handle the communications. IE, putting some ideas and initiatives on the table that are not seen as ignoring the Coalition or treating it as dead [leave that for the Liberals].
Complements to what the Coalition put on the table. Items that will have traction in raising public expectations. With the side benefit that said expectations making it harder for Iggy to declare victory in what Harper offers in the Throne Speech.
Substantively not far apart. But not going to happen: on one side the Natural Governing Party; and on the other, the ones who mean to replace them.
Ideology is far from everyting.
I really don't see what makes Ignatieff "the most rightwing Liberal leader in decades". In what specific way exactly is Ignatieff "more rightwing" than Paul Martin?
The reality is that we really know next to nothing about Ignatieff's beliefs. When he ran for the Liberal leadership in '06 he managed to piss everyone off by referring to Israel as having committed "war crimes" but also saying that he hwasn't "losing any sleep over it". He was also almost alone in supporting recognizing Quebec as a nation at the time. We know little or nothing about his economic views...
Iraq, perhaps? But other than that, there isn't much difference.
He is probably the most published political leader in history, with numerous books and countless political essays. However, he claims to have repudiated much of these beliefs, which he was publishing with fervour as recently as 2004. The next election should be very interesting, as I hope the NDP makes good use the the reams of damning quotations out there. They have tons of pro-Bush, pro-torture, pro-Iraq war, pro-preemptive strike stuff to choose from! Plus, Iggy chose to live in the US from 1978-2004. All of a sudden he loves Canada again when he see the opportunity to become PM. I am pretty certain he will not be a part of any coalition and I really think it would be wise for the NDP to distance themselves from this man.
There may be plenty of good reasons to criticize Ignatieff, but the fact that he lived abroad (btw: he didn't just live in the US 1978-2004, alot of that time he lived in the UK) is not going to be seen as a valid criticism.
I can also assure you that now that Obama is President and the focus is almost 100% on economic issues - trying to launch an attack on Ignatieff for having supported Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003 will go absolutely no where with the Canadian public - it will be seen as ancient history and water under the bridge. If the NDP wants to be seen as totally out of toucxh with the concerns of ordinary Canadians - the best way to do it would be to spend a lot of time going on about Bush and Iraq in the year 2009.
Iggy might have pushed to join the "coalition of the willing" had he taken over at the same time Martin did.
He's the right leader at the right time. What Canada needs right now is the tougher than harper type of character that the media can latch on too. Right wing Iggy will do the job of getting rid of the conservatives from power.
Dion was the environmental choice and Canadians slapped him in the face ...the environment is not such a great concern as too topple a neocon in Canada's eyes and soul. He served his purpose well.
After Iggy is pm for a while perhaps they will have an in house coronation and put in the center/left Rae in power but first the name of the game is destroy harper for all of time.
Afghanistan is certainly not "ancient history." Iggy's view of Iraq is certainly relevant in that context. And judgment is always relevant. Iggy's judgment on Iraq was erroneous, so it is relevant on how he would decide similar matters in the future.
Look, I'm just telling you what i think will be an effective way to criticize Iggy and what will not. If he ends up fleeing the coalition and supports the next Tory budget - that should be the line of attack. Trying to resurrect what he wrote in 2003 with regard to someone who is no longer President simply won't be effective.
The Liberals tried to make a fuss about things Harper wrote in the late 90s - it went no where.
The public cares about what you offer them NOW - not what you might have written years ago about something that is seen as a closed chapter. The people who really care about Iggy's view on Iraq five years ago are people who are already not going to vote for him (or maybe they will - Hilary Clinton supported the Iraq War and she would have been elected President anyways).
Again, its not that I am not personally bothered by Ignatieff's views on foreign policy. I'm just saying that this is not going to be an issue to the overwhelming majority of Canadians.
As for Afghanistan - ALL the Liberals support Canada continuing to fight there. i see no difference between Iggy's views and Rae's or Dion's etc... If the Canadian public was singularly motivated by wanting to get out of Afghanistan - we would have elected an NDP government in October.
Josh is right - Ignatieff's judgment is a major issue. The Paul Martin comparison (not to defend Martin!) is a little off as well, as all we have are insiders and rumours that he supported the war in Iraq and participation by Canada. Iggy wrote numerous essays and defended it based on his decades of work and research in the field of human rights. He defended it based on everything he claimed to have learned over many years of study and thought.
While I think it is fine for Canadians to live abroad and come back, this is a man who lived away for nearly his entire adult life and comes back just when he thinks the Liberal leadership is up for grabs.
Tommy Douglas once supported eugenics and sterilization - does that mean he should have been disqualified from public life for his bad judgment?
I just don't think that the public will care about what Iggy ever said about Iraq. Very few people take foreign policy into consideration when they vote in Canada.
Paul Martin certainly was the most rightwing Liberal leader in decades before Ignatieff but as he didn´t spend all his energy praising the Iraq war and writing long, pretentious excuses for torture, I think Mike has him beat.
I still think its a tough spot, not being able to define Ignatieff´s leadership right off the bat especially as it came about in such an anti-democratic fashion and pissed off a lot of the Liberal grassroots. The Conservative defining of Dion´s leadership off the bat paid big dividends, I think the NDP also did a decent job with Paul Martin, I remember Liberal voters grumbling about his business practices of avoiding labour and environmental regulations, an NDP meme shortly after he became leader. I think the longer Iggy gets a pass, the harder this will be.
Yeah, I´d like to see more about positive Coalition initiatives as well, my point about cooperating with the Bloc is just that together the two parties could put more pressure on the Liberals by uniting behind good and popular legislation thereby making it more dificult for Iggy to squirm free.
Michael Ignatieff wrote for that bastion of right wing thinking the Guardian. Yeah, he's right wing.
I heard Iggy lived in the UK from 1978 to 1999, then from 2000 - 2004 in the US at Harvard, and that while he lived in the UK he was a frequent visitor to Canada. His dad after all was a Canadian diplomat and later Chancellor of Trinity College, Toronto.
You're right. Fortunately I think the current NDP braintrust is too smart to fall into that trap. The Conservatives, maybe not so much. It'll be too tempting to pander to their idiot base by labelling Iggy an elitist because he's a public intellectual who's lived abroad. What Iggy might have written in the recent past has no relevance to today's politics. What he does or doesn't do now is all that matters, and all that the NDP need concern itself with.
And Rick Salutin writes for the Globe. Certainly you don't think that which newspaper someone writes for is de facto evidence of their political leanings.
Also, I don't think Canadians actually do care much what Ignatieff will do for them now. I think they care about the image he presents, just like they care about the image that Harper presents. The only firm thing Harper has ever really offered the electorate was accountability and decreasing the democratic deficit. He's done the opposite of both, and hasn't really lost support. Everything else he's talked about has been exceptionally vague, and I'd expect a similar tactic from Ignatieff. Issues based politics are not what our elections are known for, and I really doubt Ignatieff will change that.
Maybe there is a time for issue based politics to come back and it is right now. Whatever the NDP and bloq do they should not support a Liberal minority government. That will just give the liberals or harpers replacement a majority in the next election. Also, someone should ask the GG if she will or will not accept a coalition government in late January and also find out her grounds for decision making. This is necessary information. Either she is independent or a liberal partizan. We need to know. The Liberals are fucked if there is another election right now. If they support harper continuing, I think they are semi fucked and harper will give it to them in full in a couple of months. (With the NDP gaining a few seats but NO POWER.) Power is where it is at in politics.
I think the best course for the ndp is to insist on coalition on the basis of the signed agreement or nothing. If iggie supports harper, my gut instinct that he is a rat will have been proved. I think a lot of canadians will see that too.
I think a lot more canadians are afraid of harper than the polls show. You have danny williams with abc and you have the bc equivalant and that changed a lot of votes. Keith martin would have not got a seat without it.
This is a time for holding the NDP position and protraying Harper as the nasty oil industry monster and would be Fuhrer that he is. If they do that and protray iggy as nevelle chamberlin if he backs harper (Spelling) I think it will help people see the danger more.
He may or may not exercise the Coalition. We don't even know whether or not he would prefer that Harper not deliver the goods so that he has the high road for saying "the Coalition is something we must do."
And there is a corrolary to what the NDP does with this situation. Because it said the obvious that it is the Liberals affair who their leader is. And because most of the public including NDP friendlies would see it as capricious for the NDP to turn around and criticise Iggy and the Liberals in the run-up to the vote on Harper's Throne Speech. Capricious is definitley not OK at this time.
So for now there is nothing for the NDP to say about what the Liberals do or appear to be doing. The Liberals will do what they will do. [And meanwhile the NDP can engage in creative forays to raise public expectations while the Liberals talk about how they are getting back on top of 'things'. 'Don't worry, Poppa is back.']
To a large degree, for the NDP all this Liberal manouvering makes not much difference. The reckoning will come when Harper shows his package and we see Iggy's Choice.
The NDP is well positioned either way Iggy goes: if its the Coalition, it will not in fact be some vague teasers about "what a Liberal government will do"... and if he votes with Harper [and will continue to do so for quite a while], thats pretty clear.
Is Iggy "left" or "right"? That's a question of semantics. Ignatieff has pointedly and repeatedly denounced any efforts to "unite the left", insists the Liberals are a party of the "centre", supported the illegal invasion of Iraq, says that the ongoing mission in Afghanistan represents "the best" of Canada, called for a carbon tax when Dion opposed one, enthusiastically endorsed the corporate tax cuts, etc. Olly thinks he's left-wing because he wrote in the Guardian. I think he's awful and the thought of making him PM makes me ill.
Does anyone care where Iggy stands on Iraq? The Liberals seemed to think it was VERY important where Harper stood on Iraq. But we know better, let's give Iggy a pass on the fact that he unequivocally backed an unsuccesful and unpopular conflict that most Canadians hated. Good strategy.
What should the NDP do now? The NDP has been lured into a trap of Harper's making. As predicted, the Liberals are now waffling on the coalition, and using it to their advantage. With the NDP and Bloc boxed in (uncritical unthinking support for a coalition at all costs) the Liberals now hold all the cards and Iggy is using them to the Liberal party's advantage: waiting until January 27 to see what he'll do. If Harper blows it, and the moment is right, he'll activate the coalition and make himself PM. If Harper has the public onside he'll spare him and declare that the Liberals forced Harper to write a good budget. Either way, the NDP is marginalized and waiting for Iggy's good graces. A simply awful place to be.
Harper has very effectively split the forces. He knows that Iggy will waffle on the coalition and try to use it to his personal advantage. He knows that New Dems and Bloccers will be frustrated and angry while this happens. Something's got to give and will soon. If Jack doesn't sit the Liberals down soon and lay out some ground rules for joint action, the Liberals unilateral actions will cause splits within the NDP. I think it already is.
I think the NDP wins either way. If Ignatieff caves in to the Tories then the NDP cxan hammer him for being handmaiden to Harper and for choosing to ally himself with Harper rather with the Canadian people. Then when the Harper/Ignatieff gov't gets ridiculously unpopular - the NDP can laugh all the way to the bank.
If on the other hand Ignatieff brings down Harper and we have the coalition then the NDP has complete ttal control of six government ministries and can bring in whatever policies it wants in those areas.
What's not to like?
Thank you all for the very thoughtful discussion. Much of it is pure speculation, of course, given that we're bystanders in a chess game, and Iggy is a super-chameleon and it's pointless to try to pin down his ideology because --as most of you seem to agree-- he's mainly about getting power (almost impossible to tell right now whether it's mainly for the "good of Canada", for the Liberal Party, or for himself). This discussion is extremely useful for clarifying polemical lines and in the ways in which different contributors are providing and organizing facts. Looking forward to reviewing and mulling it over tonight.
The pundits on Newman's show tonight were suggesting a) that the economy is going to get much, much worse, and that it would be better from the Coalition viewpoint to let the Conservatives wear this and pay the price eventually in an election much later; and, b) that IF the G-G actually calls on Iggy IF the budget is defeated, that he really hasn't much choice - but no one should be pushing the Coalition because of the dreadful economy that lies ahead of us all.
The problem I have with those comments is that by allowing the Conservatives to "wear" the economic disaster, the Coalition will be deprived of actually being able to do something constructive to turn the situation around.
And it is that attitude that disgusts me too. There are real people in Canadian communities that are going to be hurt by conservative policies that are business friendly and not people friendly.
I will say it again, only those with safe jobs can look at this as a political chess game. Myself, I see real people, children hurt by an economic situation where the govt says tough love. I lived and worked under the Harris regime, and the damage done, particularly done to poor families left many children who are now in their teens - damaged.
______________________________________________________________________________________ Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let's have them learn together too!
Iggy supported Thatcher, according to the National Post:
And I'm sure if you went back through what he wrote or broadcast in the 1980s or later, you could find him supporting cut-backs to the welfare state. He's probably even on the record as being in favour of some kind of two-tier medicare.
Granted, most of the elite in this country probably think the same way, but they are careful not to say so on the record. The only question is, would voters really care what he said 20 years ago?