Does Harper want to win?

Adam Daifallah has an excellent column in today's Ottawa Citizen, advising Stephen Harper - and Conservatives in general - how to win the election. A key point: the same-sex marriage issue has been decided, people who oppose it are going to vote Conservative anyway, the media is looking for an excuse to jump all over the Conservatives for being "intolerant", and it's time to move on:

For the past couple of years, the party has focused on highlighting Liberal corruption and opposing same-sex marriage. This strategy has created three problems, all of which remain unresolved and continue to plague Mr. Harper.

One, Canadians know little about what he actually stands for: they only know what he is against. Two, the Liberals and the media defined the Tory leader before he could do so himself, which explains his personal unpopularity and the Tories' inability to break 30 per cent in polls. And three, the party has not been able to attract new support because it has failed to reach out to new constituencies. Most people who oppose same-sex marriage are already voting Tory. The party has to move beyond that base.
[...]
Everyone already knows the Tories will cut taxes. Now they need some innovative and counterintuitive policies in areas such as social policy, the environment, immigration and Quebec that will bring in new voters.

Instead of harping on same-sex marriage, why not promote the virtues of marriage and family, no matter whether they be straight or gay? Everyone can agree that strong families are the foundation of our society. Mr. Harper should talk about the need to encourage more marriage, less divorce and more child-rearing. Let Paul Martin try to characterize that as extreme!

No prizes for guessing the first big policy announcement of Stephen Harper's campaign:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper launched his campaign Tuesday by steering it straight into the electoral turbulence of gay marriage.

The starting gun for the eight-week race still rang in the air as Harper went out of his way to reopen a politically noxious debate. A Conservative government would move to restore the traditional definition of marriage if Parliament supports the idea, he said. "It will be a genuine free vote when I'm prime minister.

"I will not whip our cabinet," he said referring to process by which Paul Martin's ministers were forced last summer to support a bill that legalized gay weddings.

Harper would consider the matter closed if MPs don't support introducing new legislation to once again define marriage as the exclusive domain of one man, one woman.

Either way, Harper promised to preserve more than 3,000 gay marriages already performed across Canada.

So, we need a new vote on the issue, in which gays' and lesbians' right to marry will hopefully be taken away - for about five minutes, until the Supreme Court of Canada declares the "traditional" definition of marriage unconstitutional - but the same-sex couples who have already married can stay married, regardless. Got it.

For crying out loud, Steve, whose brilliant idea was this?

Posted by damian at November 29, 2005 04:15 PM | TrackBack