A Very Simple Question
I asked this over at Andrew’s, and no-one answered. So I thought I’d ask here. Think it over carefully and try to answer honestly.
Imagine an infallible crystal ball.
Now imagine that this crystal ball suddenly provides an announcement, carried by all media two weeks before the election, stating that on his first day in office, if elected, Stephen Harper will appoint an unelected crony to the Senate, then to Cabinet: and that he will actively solicit a man elected by his riding to serve as a Liberal, encourage that man to jump ship to the Conservatives, and entice him with a cabinet appointment.
Would Harper have been elected?
________________________________
UPDATE:
I’ve actually made this scenario too complicated. Let me simplify it.
Two weeks before the election, Stephen Harper announces that one of his first acts as Prime Minister will be to appoint an unelected crony to the Senate, then to Cabinet: and that he will then actively encourage a man elected by his riding to serve as a Liberal to jump ship to the Conservatives, and entice him with a cabinet appointment.
Would the Conservatives have been elected?
My Conservative friends are curiously silent.
That’s just silly. The real question is: Will it have any effect on the next election? Short answer is: Probably not. Fortier will presumably be running for a seat in that election, offsetting any negatives from that move. Emerson will presumably be running for a seat as well, as a Conservative this time, also offsetting any negatives. I know this seems like a huge issue right now, but it’s just not.
“That’s just silly.”
Thanks for your evasion.
Now. Anybody care to actually think about and respond to the question?
Okay, I’ll elaborate. If somebody had come out before the election and said that Harper would do this, they would have been laughed at, and there would have been no influence on the election. Perhaps your question assumes that voters would trust your infallible crystal ball? And, if the statement could actually have an effect on the election, is your crystal ball really infallible?
That’s the best I can do.
Thanks for evasion II.
Now. Anybody care to actually think about and respond to the question?
Gee, wasn’t the whole Grewal affair centred around whether Gurmant was “enticed” to jump ship by a cabinet post? Weren’t some members of the CPC still angry when Grewal was cencured by the ethics commissioner recently, caliming that the Liberals had offered him a bribe? Didn’t they loose their freaking minds when Belinda Stronach did this, going so far as to publicly call her a whore and a slut? Does it matter that she won her seat as Liberal this time?
Cottonwood, you must be dizzy from all the spin. Emmerson is no different than what Grewal alleged and what Stronach did. And it was the CPC that campiagned on integrit. Noe Stephen Harper did exactly what he beratted Martin for last spring.
No, what is silly is the partisan sophistry I keep hearing from folks like you, trying to down-paly would would have been an indictable offence ahd the Liberals pulled it.
To be honest…no, he would not have been elected.
I’m a dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying Dipper. My complaint here is with the impossible nature of answering this question. I’m certainly not defending either the Conservatives or the Liberals and their opportunistic politicking.
I do seem to recall a lot of pundits talking about Harper needing to appoint senators (or at the very least, pick cabinet members from existing senators) to represent Quebec in his government back when it was assumed they wouldn’t take any seats in that province. Personally, I never expected any less from Harper before the election; maybe that is clouding my judgement that knowing beforehand would not have changed many opinions.
I’ll stop being obstructionist based solely on the excessively hypothetical nature of the question: If the electorate had been informed of this fact before the election, it would have had a considerable negative impact on the Conservatives’ fortunes, particularly in that part of the West that isn’t Alberta.
Well, JEEZ, Cottonwood, that took long enough. I wasn’t setting up a Jack Finney Time Travel paradox here.
Chelin, are you someone I know from BC?
Nope, it was the Infallible-Crystal-Ball-Future-Effect paradox.
Whooee! Well Balbu, if you could get sum o’ the CPC voters t’ pull their heads outta their poopholes long enuff t’ look inta yer crystal ball, I reckon they might not o’ elected Harpoon. Problem is there’s jest so many who want Stevie t’ be the great white hope fer the great white north that they’re willin’ t’ back ‘im no matter what.
My ol’ Grampaw was a dyed-in-the-wool Conservative. He fought over in Vimy an’ got gassed an’ got haff his ass blowed off by shrapnel. When I first noticed he was a big C feller was when he was cheerin’ fer ol’ Dief the chief. Anyways, Grammaw always sed Grampaw’d vote fer the Devil hisself if he was runnin’ fer the Conservatives. Grampaw died ’bout 30 years back but I figger there’s still sum Cons who’s a lot like ‘im.
From what I been seein’ on the conservative boogs, there’s lotsa fellers an’ gals who voted fer Harpoon an’s pissed off now. I ain’t sure if all of ‘em who’s pissed would pull their vote but I reckon enuff of ‘em would. Onliest troublem is, Balb, yer crystal ball woulda put the ditherer back in the saddle. This way, we get t’ see the HarpoonTossers squirm. Yeow! That’s sum fun!
Yores trooly,
JimBobby
Vindicated by an update!
You are indeed. I don’t know why I make these things so complicated.
>Would Harper have been elected?
Yes. He was elected by a wide margin; I doubt the voters in his riding would have swung heavily against him. Not that it matters, though, since to examine the actions without understanding the reasoning is a pointless theoretical exercise.
Of course he wouldn’t have been elected. Honest politicians never are.
lrC: Would the Conservatives have been elected?
Can’t say. What equivalent revealing statements would you attribute to the Liberals? Why don’t you just posit Harper stating for the record, “We’re going to milk the public until you throw us out” for your little gedanken experiment? It makes about as much sense as attributing to him prognostications regarding actions that were entirely dependent on the post-election arithmetic in Parliament. What if there’d been one CPC member elected in Montreal and in Vancouver and he knew that in advance?
In your selected title for this thread, you misspelled “stupid”.
“Can’t say.”
No, of course not. I do sympathize.
Short of Harper being arrested as a shoplifter the day before the election it would not have mattered what the crystal ball said… and maybe not even then.
The Liberals blew it, they blew it big time, and the result is what we see sitting on the Hill.
Agreed, Stageleft.
If recent Canadian political history is any indication, a government’s chances of re-election are just about nil if it finds itself afflicted with the tandem curses of significant accumulated negative baggage and a desperately inept campaign. That was the situation Martin and the Liberals found themselves in.
If the ” infallible crystal ball ” had been available to Canadian voters in 1993, Chretien would still have been elected, even though his reneging on the promise to repeal the GST would have been known to voters on election day. The PCs were simply unelectable by that point in time.
Similarly, Dalton McGuinty’s lie about not introducing new taxes, if elected, wouldn’t have saved Ernie Eves, even if the lie had been magically revealed to voters in advance of going to the polls.
In my view, the broken promises mentioned above were more egregious offences than Harper’s odious cabinet appointments, and as I said above, I really don’t see either of them affecting the outcome in 1993 or 2003. Perhaps a narrowing of the margin of victory (like that would be meaningful in 1993), but not a transformation of the result.
Secondly, I think lrC makes a valid point in his last comment. When we start monkeying with history to allow for hypothetical alternative outcomes, we can’t lose sight of the fact that a different outcome takes the place of the actual historical one. Erasing a Conservative victory using the infallible crystal ball premise doesn’t mean that nothing happens, it means that something else happens, and in this case, that ” something else ” can only be a Liberal victory.
With that in mind, I guess you owe us an ” infallible crystal ball ” of the Liberal persuasion, Balb. And since a secondary, underlying theme of this topic is that all political parties enthusiastically engage in hypocritical politics when they have both the power to do so, and the preceived need to engage in it, then it’s only fair to assume that the Liberals would have committed some shenanigan of their own.
Of course, then it becomes very confusing, since the first infallible crystal ball changes the course of history to allow for the creation of the second crystal ball, and the events unfolding in the second could undo the outcome created by the first, and then……..
I should probably just shut up now……..
“perceived,” not preceived.
Given the dynamic of second thoughts regarding the CPC in the public during the last week, if this was something that could be presented as provable/certain then it would have almost certainly cost the CPC government and quite possibly returned a stronger Lib government than was defeated. However, as others have already noted this is a pure thought exercise because in reality there would be no way to present something like this, which makes it a nice piece of blue sky “what if”ing beyond that one can make any argument one wants whether it has any effect, a negative effect, or even a positive effect for Harper. There is simply no way to really tell, only speculate. Mine is that it would have hurt him significantly given the mood of the country regarding being lied to by their politicians. Especially when the politicians play the voters for stupid, which this clearly was an example of with Emerson and especially Fortier.
>>”Given the dynamic of second thoughts regarding the CPC in the public during the last week, if this was something that could be presented as provable/certain then it would have almost certainly cost the CPC government and quite possibly returned a stronger Lib government than was defeated.”
Scotian, I know you qualified this comment somewhat, but really, there is no such thing as the ” infallible crystal ball.”
I realize you don’t like the CPoC very much, but you’re overlooking something rather important. Half of the conduct by Harper which you believe ” would have almost certainly cost the CPC ” the election, ….if provable/certain,” was conduct the Liberals had already engaged in with gusto, and to my knowledge have never disavowed.
Harper’s embrace of the same tactic is reprehensible and hypocritical, yet, in an alternate universe, you would have us re-elect a Liberal party that to this day, apparently sees nothing wrong with the practice.
When it comes to partisanship, I see you’re from the ” go big or go home,” camp.
Yawn.
>Especially when the politicians play the voters for stupid
Not half as amusing as when the politicians play each other for stupid. I wonder what Jack! would have done at confidence crunch time on the first go-around if he knew from the Crystal Ball that Martin was just kidding about corporate income taxes.
Perhaps not. But maybe everything would have evened itself out if the Liberals hadn’t suppressed the news of Dingwall’s “compensation” package?
Peter has a very good point. Throw Dingwall’s 417k into the crystal ball with everything else & what happens?
Okay, I am going to let the cat out of the bag.
I don’t, in fact, have an infallible crystal ball. I did, until last year (witness the astonishing accuracy of my Iraq War prognostications) but the warranty ran out last June, and I started using it to crack walnuts with, and then one day…never mind.
Bearing in mind that I’m not a fan of either the Liberals or the Conservatives at this point, my own bet is that the Crystal Ball’s revelations would have cost Harper some support from the old Conservative Party members, caused not much difference with the Reform/Alliance group, and serious losses among disenchanted Liberals. Enought to change the election results? Don’t know. Certainly not enough to lose him his riding.
I think the Harper revelation would have done more damage than the the Dingwall revelation for a very depressing reason.
The Liberals’ main campaign thrust was: vote for us. We’re only a little corrupt nowadays, and we’re not as scary as the Conservatives.
The Conservatives’ main campaign thrust was: vote for us. We’re only a little scary nowadays, but we’re squeaky clean.
Had the Crystal Ball spoken, the Liberals would still be perceived only a little corrupt and still not Conservative: but the Conservatives would no longer have been perceived as squeaky clean. That sound facetious, but I think it’s true: a lot of the anger out there is because Harper promised to be different.
Given that I called the results wrong anyway, however, I wouldn’t trust me. I’ll see if I can get warranty renewed on the Crystal Ball.
“Peter has a very good point. Throw Dingwall’s 417k into the crystal ball with everything else & what happens? ”
And toss in the findings of the ethics commissioner and Harper’s apparent refusal to meet with him regarding the Grewal affair as well. This is a game we could play all morning.
Point is Harper ran on an ethics platform and he isn’t living up to that after only one day in office. Had it been apparent before the election that he would behave like every other government we have had since at least 1984, if not before, voters might have stayed with the devil they knew.
I am personally no longer taking any time to engage “yeah, the Liberals did…” in the context of criticising the Harper government. I never defended the Liberals anyway (except in insisting that accusations of misdeeds be backed up with actual evidence and not just rest on propaganda and smear and all the other road-kill on the information highway), and it’s completely beside the point now. Harper’s in charge, and all that matters is what the government does or doesn’t do.
>>”Had the Crystal Ball spoken, the Liberals would still be perceived only a little corrupt and still not Conservative: but the Conservatives would no longer have been perceived as squeaky clean. That sound facetious, but I think it’s true: a lot of the anger out there is because Harper promised to be different.”
Can’t argue with that. Harper did promise to be different, and supporters and opponents alike are criticizing him for failing to deliver. What remains to be seen is whether Harper’s cabinet appointments are the result of him being ethically challenged, or a case of bad judgment. I’m guessing both, and I’m hoping it involves more of the latter than the former. We’ll see soon enough.
>>”Given that I called the results wrong anyway, however, I wouldn’t trust me. I’ll see if I can get warranty renewed on the Crystal Ball.”
Would you consider renting it out for parties and such? I’d also like to borrow it so I can see how ” Lost ” turns out, without investing 40 or so more hours of my life in the process.
That was one of the last things I asked it before it conked out. The whole thing is a dream of Pam Ewing’s.
I’ll spread the word. Bastards!!
Mike H:
“Had the Crystal Ball spoken, the Liberals would still be perceived only a little corrupt and still not Conservative: but the Conservatives would no longer have been perceived as squeaky clean. That sound facetious, but I think it’s true: a lot of the anger out there is because Harper promised to be different.” Balbulican
That is why I think it would have hurt him significantly enough to potentially alter the outcome, especially in Quebec and Ontario. If the ethics commissioner report of Harper avoiding him for months on the Grewal affair was also included I’d day this was a virtual certainty. The Dingwall thing I really doubt could have countered this for the reasons Balbulican stated in his post numbered 27 in this thread. Keep in mind that under the Liberals the Canadian economy was healthier than it was for years, so the only area for the anger to throw them out came on the ethics/accountability issue, which is why it was what all campaigns ran with and turned out to be the defining election question. That is why if this was known in the days before the election would be the first decisions of a Harper government it can be expected to have had a significant negative effect.
Harper’s One-Man-Band, and Pretzel Tories.
So, a little time has passed, and Harper’s daring moves to impress the electorate with his political acumen have now sunk in a bit. Reaction across the country to his cabinet appointments – and abandonment of principles espoused during the election – have varied from sheer disbelief, to shock, to amusement. Never has a Canadian politician fallen so far so fast. Usually it takes time for power to corrupt, but Mr. Harper is a man in a hurry.
Many Tories have had to swallow their tongues and bend themselves into pretzels defending the indefensible. Some MPs have said they fear going back to their ridings because they will have to explain to their supporters how the Harper crew did a sudden U-turn on the accountability issue, which, after all, was the Tory strong point in the election. Harper ran as Mr. Clean, and painted Martin as Mr. Corruption at every opportunity he had.
Even the rightwing press is stunned and disappointed.
Examples of press reaction:
The Vancouver Sun:
“”I expected some of the superficial criticism I’ve seen,” Mr. Harper told The Vancouver Sun in an interview. “But I think once people sit back and reflect, they’ll understand that this is in the best interests of not just British Columbia but frankly of good government.” Mr. Harper referred to his statements on Monday, when he said he recruited Mr. Emerson to Cabinet to give Vancouver — which didn’t elect a Tory MP in five city ridings — a voice in Cabinet. He used the same rationale to explain why he appointed Tory national campaign co-chairman Michael Fortier, a Montreal businessman, to the Senate and as Minister of Public Works. Montreal, like Vancouver, did not elect a government MP. “I think I was clear what I did and why I did it,” Mr. Harper said yesterday.
The Calgary Sun – Roy Clancy:
“Stephen Harper must be breathing a sigh of relief today. Just minutes after being sworn in as prime minister, he relieved himself of one of the biggest burdens he had carried into the job. No longer must he live up to the impossible standard of political purity and ethical integrity saddled upon him by a naive electorate. …But as widespread moans of anger illustrate, many Canadians took Harper seriously when he promised Monday to “begin a new chapter for Canada.” No wonder they were disappointed when they learned within moments that this new chapter looks a lot like the old one. …Harper’s pragmatic moves may not have violated the letter of his promises to change the way government is run, but they shattered the spirit. …. Monday’s manoeuvres quickly lowered the bar when it comes to public expectations of this new regime.“
The Calgary Sun – Rick Bell:
“See the Tories wriggle. Wriggle, Tories, wriggle. Ah yes, one party’s turncoat is another party’s principled politician. No anger now. No demands to step down and face the voters now. No nasty name-calling now. No sympathy for the poor electors of the riding of the quisling now. … The trouble with talking about the moral high ground is you actually have to walk on it or, like the kid standing by the broken window after throwing the snowball, insist without shame you’ve done nothing wrong. … So the rationalizations flow, the lame explanations are exhaled into the hot air and only those who have drunk the Conservative Kool-Aid will follow as good old ideological ants.â€
So, what lessons can be taken from Harper’s first exercise of Prime Ministerial power? Here are a few for you to ponder:
• Just as it is unfair to accuse every Republican of having the same moral vacuity that President Bush has displayed, so too is it unfair to say that all Conservatives – and all voters who voted for the Tories – lack good moral and political judgment. It is very clear that there are a lot of people who voted Tory because they sincerely believed that it was time for the Liberals to mend their house, and for another party to bring in some anti-corruption measures. These people still have high standards; they are as bewildered by the events of this week as others are.
• Harper obviously believes he is above trifling things like having to take the feelings of others into consideration. This exercise of Prime Ministerial power shows that he will think things through – apparently mostly on his own – and then decide on the best way forward. If he explains his thought process, it is obvious to him that voters will then understand why he is right, and fall into line. There is a word for this: paternalism. Harper shows clear signs of seeing himself as the Big Wise Daddy of Canadian politics. His use of the word “superficial†to describe the reaction of others to his crass abandonment of some of the major planks of his election platform illustrates this very clearly.
• Harper is focused on winning a majority in the next election, to happen within 18 months. Everything he will do or say is geared to that. If lesser mortals within his own party do not understand this, that is their problem. They must suck it up and stay in line. Big Daddy knows best.
• Harper does not believe in a democratic party for the Tory government. It is his way or the highway (witness Stronach). This is perhaps the most worrisome aspect for many Tories: did they realize they were electing a dictator rather than the leader of a parliamentary party fashioned along the lines of a Westminster democracy? How many more decisions will be made by The Leader, and rammed down the throats of the caucus? And how can Canadians expect such decisions to be the best, if they are not tested by vigorous debate within the governing party before being made?
If Harper continues in the same vein for the next 12 months, expect him to join the ranks of the Clarks, Campbells and Martins as a short-lived blip on the Canadian political firmament.
Scotian:
You’re dodging the issue I raised with your earlier comment, and at the same time continuing with this double standard in relation to acceptable political conduct.
If you make the argument that the CPoC deserved to lose the election, in part, on the grounds that it poached a Liberal MP, then how can you overlook the fact that the Liberals have not, to this day, repudiated the practice? How does Harper being a hypocrite on this make him less ethical, and therefore a poorer electoral choice, than the Liberals?
If you decide to give the Liberals a pass on MP-thieving from other parties, then you have to extend the same courtesy to Harper, in the context of whether the practice is ethical. All you’re left with at that point is Harper being guilty of doing the exact same thing he complained the Liberals had done with Stronach. He should be criticized for being a hypocrite on the matter, but I can’t see that being a tipping point during the election. Many seem to forget that the Liberals made far more dire predictions of conservative behaviour, if elected, than what transpired with the cabinet appointments. The electorate wasn’t sufficiently swayed by these prognostications of evil and doom to keep Martin in office.
>>” Keep in mind that under the Liberals the Canadian economy was healthier than it was for years, so the only area for the anger to throw them out came on the ethics/accountability issue,….”
Apples and oranges, Scotian. I have no doubt the majority of Canadians see Adscam as a far more extreme breach of ethics/accountability than Harper’s cabinet appointments. And I’m confident that would have held true if Canadians had been privy to Balb’s Crystal Ball on election day.
“Scotian:
You’re dodging the issue I raised with your earlier comment, and at the same time continuing with this double standard in relation to acceptable political conduct.” Mike H
Wrong. I just responded to it since I just saw it for the first time a few minutes ago. Quite the willingness to assume things though you demonstrated there I must say. As for double standards, well I defer to the CPC and Harper on that basis after the last few days. I spent literally over a decade listening to Harper vilify patronage appointments to the unelected Senate and his first day he does that and one better makes him a Cabinet Minister responsible for the Ministry best know for the patronage plums it gives out. So you can take your chastisement elsewhere, I am being consistent with everything I have ever said, unlike so many CPC defenders the last few days.
As for your apples and oranges dismissal, no they are not. Generally governments tend to be reelected when the economy is in good/great shape, UNLESS there is another issue causing sufficient anger in the electorate, in this case Liberal arrogance/corruption/thievery. That was what ended up being the election question, and it is what brought the CPC to the weak minority government it has today. So no Mike, it is not apples and oranges for you to dismiss as irrelevant, it is central to the issue.
I am starting to question your intellectual honesty between this and your “critique” of me in the prior thread as well.
Scotian:
>>”Wrong. I just responded to it since I just saw it for the first time a few minutes ago.’
What are you talking about? You’re still dodging it now. I’ll try and make this even simpler, not that I expect it will put an end to your evasiveness. I asked you why voters would have kept the Liberals in office if they had known in advance that Harper would poach a Liberal MP, when the Liberals engaged in the same tactic, and moreover, have to this day not disavowed the practice. You haven’t ” responded to it, ” instead, you’ve deflected by referring only to Fortier. Well, that’s a separate issue from the recruiting of Emerson, isn’t it? Very dishonest, Scotian.
>>”As for your apples and oranges dismissal, no they are not. Generally governments tend to be reelected when the economy is in good/great shape, UNLESS there is another issue causing sufficient anger in the electorate, in this case Liberal arrogance/corruption/thievery.”
Scotian, I don’t particularly enjoy arguing with people who are dense. And I get extremely annoyed with dense people who accuse me of dishonesty because they’re too thick to comprehend what I’ve said.
My ” apples and oranges ” comment didn’t involve a comparison of the state of the economy and Liberal scandal, and that should have been obvious to you. Instead, I was pointing out that there is an ” apples and oranges ” difference between Adscam, other alleged Liberal misdeeds, and Harper’s appointment of Emerson and Fortier, in the perception of the public.
The positive state of the Canadian economy has nothing to do with this. But since you’ve brought this into the mix, you’ll have to live with the discrediting effect it has on your own argument. If I can summarize your assertion from this final paragraph of yours; the Liberals would have been re-elected on the strength of the performance of the Canadian economy, but Liberal ” arrogance/corruption/thievery,” effectively negated the positives derived from the economy.
And in the same breath, you’re contending that this same ” arrogance/corruption/thievery,” which cost the Liberals the election, would all have been forgiven, if only the electorate knew in advance that Harper was going to make two hypocritical cabinet appointments.
I can’t decide whether this is more contradictory than it is ridiculous, but it sure as hell is both.
Mike H:
You do not like arguing with people that are dense? Well then, maybe that explains your inability to debate with yourself what you are thinking/saying before you say it.
the reason this would have hurt Harper and the CPC was that it ran completely counter to their message of clean, different, ethical, accountable, and transparent government. If this is too difficult for you to comprehend that is not my problem. I did answer your question, indeed I did so from the outset. While you may disagree with my assertion, to claim I never made it at all is incredible “dense”.
I would watch this intellectual arrogance tone that is coming through in your responses to me, all you are doing is digging your hole that much deeper in demonstrating your own intellectual dishonesty.
As for apples and oranges between Adcam and Emerson/Fortier, you are correct, except that was NOT the point being made. The point being made was that things like Adsam and other ethical/arrogance issues were the only driving force to throw out a government that under its tenure had the economy running very well indeed. Again, this was clear in what I said at the outset, perhaps this density of yours is why you did not understand this.
I am not saying that Liberal faults would have been forgive, again you are claiming I said something I didn’t. What I said was that if the CPC was going to be no better on the ethics/accountability score then they had no good argument to beat the Liberals with. That since the Liberals were a known quantity in social and economic policies and their impacts in our society while the CPC was not, given there was a clear skepticism about the CPC on these very issues. it is unlikely the CPC would have done as well as it did which considering the perfect storm they had with all this against the Liberals was not much of a vote of confidence by the electorate towards the CPC even with the outrage on ethics and the desire for a cleaner more ethical government which was the CPC promise. In other words if the only better reason for voting CPC was on accountability and clean government then the acts of Emerson and Fortier if known prior to the vote would have destroyed that argument/sales pitch of the CPC’s. Therefore it is not unreasonable to believe the Liberals may well have retained their minority, possibly added to it at the outer edge of things. For someone that is making such a big deal of my intellectual dishonesty/inability you are demonstrating a remarkable amount of intellectual dishonesty in claiming I made arguments I did not and then castigating me for them.
Your willingness to spin and create straw man arguments is impressive, too bad your ability to be intellectually honest does not appear to be so.
Scotian:
You’re a kook, and as of this moment, I’m resolved to confine my blog time to discussions with non-kooks.