Given the style and direction of the country’s politics, a good case could be made for the latter.
Despite being two years away from an election, the country is awash in attack ads against Justin Trudeau, leader of the third party in parliament. Some people think that Harper learned the nasty art of attack ads when he ran the right-wing National Citizens Coalition after walking away from the Reform Party in 1997.
There is some truth to that. But who taught the cloak and dagger brigade over at the NCC to deliver low blows with such aplomb? It was an American, recently inducted into the hall of fame for pollsters and political consultants in the U.S. as the guru of Republican and right wing parties around the world.
His reputation is well deserved and so is his nickname: the Merchant of Venom. Three U.S. Republican presidents, countless senators and other right-wing world leaders like Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu owe their success to Finkelstein’s brilliance as a communications mastermind.
“Finkel-think” is an approach to new-age techno-politics based on three principles: 60 per cent of people don’t care about the news; content doesn’t matter in our dumbed down age, just perception; and the right 15-second attack ad can separate a rival’s head from his shoulders in a heartbeat.
Before Finkelstein, the word “liberal” was a descriptor with many positive connotations, including tolerance and even enlightenment. After him, “liberal” became the ultimate political pejorative. It was used to brand and dismiss progressives as left-wing loons with dubious values and a bad habit of raising taxes and spending the numbers off the credit card. Never mind that the truth was the exact opposite, Clinton/Bush-wise that is. But perception not reality is what matters.
Finkelstein could do big things with small words. A case in point from his international portfolio.
After the assassination of Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, the peace-maker of Oslo, it was widely believed that Shimon Peres, a dove, would replace him. Benjamin Netanyahu, an abrasive and hawkish right-winger, was the underdog in the election of 1996. Then he hired Arthur Finkelstein who devised the four words that would give Netanyahu an upset victory: “Peres will divide Jerusalem.”
The key to success according to Finkelstein is that you have to find the magic switch to move people from rational to emotional mode. No one understands the politics of personal destruction better than Stephen Harper. The wimpy-looking Stephane Dion was “Not a Leader”; the cosmopolitan Michael Ignatieff was “Just Visiting”; and now Justin Trudeau is “In Over his Head”. Not exactly deep stuff, but content doesn’t matter.
Finkelstein also stressed the value of cash in politics. Clients that he got elected were instrumental in changing the law on so-called third-party spending in the United States. They convinced the U.S. Supreme Court that spending limits for third parties during an election were unconstitutional. Now the donations are pornographic and the results usually bought and paid for.
Aping the Republicans, Stephen Harper took the same issue all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, though with a different result. In 2004, the Court upheld the constitutionality of third-party spending limits during an election.
Back to those attack ads. They are nothing but a way to get around spending limits during a campaign that Harper so wanted to get rid of. Flush with cash, he is now using the time leading up to the writ period to define his chief political threat as a politician on training wheels. Would you really put a child behind the wheel of the SUV that is Canada? Nice fear undertones, yes?
The Finkel-think goes like this: If your opponent doesn’t counter your portrayal of him in a timely fashion, the negative image will stick. Finkelstein once observed that if John Kerry had responded to his Swiftboating by third party campaigns more expeditiously, he, not W, would have been president.
Harper’s infatuation with all things Republican and American extends to his preference of governance models. This is a prime minister with no regard for the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy. One of the reasons he was once found in contempt of parliament is that he actually is contemptuous of it.
He is on the record as preferring the Congressional model, including the superiority of choosing his cabinet from outside the pool of elected members, the way a U.S. president does. In the now infamous speech to the secretive Council on National Policy, he derided the Governor-General and the Senate as unimportant places where the PM put his “buddies.” In his view, politics in Canada was a dictatorship run by the PM of the day, if he had a majority, until the next election. And no Canadian cabinet could compare to the cabinets of George W. Bush.
When Canada wisely decided not to join the coalition of the misguided in the Iraq War, Harper ran to the likes of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal to apologize on his country’s behalf. (It was a big wiener-head moment). When he looked for a political mentor in the early days, he looked to transplanted American Tom Flanagan. When CPC held its first convention, Harper turned to President Bush’s speechwriter, David Frum, himself a naturalized American, to help with the words.
And then there is the policy-borrowing from the Republican agenda, from blatant union-busting legislation that is very likely illegal, to the war on science and the environment. Even Harper’s most recent efforts at democratic reform have important roots in the United States.
Objectionable parts of the Fair Elections Act could have been borrowed directly from the state of Texas. There, Republican Governor Rick Perry argued that massive voter fraud required emergency legislation, which he pushed through. What he was really worried about was that Texas had experienced a huge influx of people, 80 per cent of them from minorities not likely to vote for him.
The key feature of the Texas legislation was limiting the kinds of ID that could be used for voting purposes. There was no massive voter fraud – as there isn’t here, but critics did see a clear attempt at voter suppression among minorities and the poor.
When Texas presented its case in one of several court battles triggered by the sly legislation, the judge found the state’s arguments, “invalid, irrelevant, and unreliable” – a pretty good description of what Pierre Poilievre has on offer.
You ever wonder why all of Steve’s men use hockey metaphors to describe trade details and pull jerseys over their pot bellies at the drop of a photo-op? Because Frank Luntz, American political consultant and wind-up Fox News creature, told them it was good politics.
Back in 1998, when Stephen Harper was considering running for the Progressive Conservative leadership, he commissioned Arthur Finkelstein to assess his chances. The guru said no and Harper listened.
It might be worth a call to his old friend to ask about the wisdom of trashing someone who is a lot more popular than you are — and without the pile of dirty laundry that is now higher than the Peace Tower.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
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