Thursday, November 06, 2008
Stra-tee-gery
You gotta hand it to that Stephen Harper for clever strategery ... although, at times it's maybe too clever.
Obama's election puts Harper in a pickle since it will no doubt inspire a worldwide enthusiasm for left-wingery of all sorts. So what does Harper do? He comes at him on the left!
Obama has barely had his post-election breakfast but Harper is inviting him to negotiate a North American climate change accord. I predict that we will see the Canadian Tories take a harder line on the environment than we have ever seen them take before. Hard, hard, hard. They'll probably appoint David Suzuki to be the special ambassador to negotiate with Obama's people.
In other words, they will set Obama up to fail. The US can't possibly afford a hard-over environmental policy right now, so Obama will have to sternly rebuff Harper's crusade to save the environment. This spectacle, if it plays out - Harper as enviro hero, Obama as enviro scrooge - would send the Canadian left into a blank-stare, hand-spinning catatonic state comparable only to autism.
My main concern about this strategy is that it seems just too clever. The last time the Tories tried something this subtle was with the arts cuts strategy during the election, and they made just an awful mess of that - in fact, that was probably the single factor that cost them majority government this time.
So there's a substantial risk of backfire. For starters, I don't think Obama's people are stupid and they'll probably see through this ploy pretty quickly. They'll get their own little Risk armies set up to outflank Harper on this issue.
On the whole, I think Harper might be better off taking the traditional Canadian approach to influencing US policy i.e. schmoozing senators at big swanky booze-filled Washington receptions. Leave the chess board and the Risk game on the shelf for awhile.
posted by Mentok @ 10:18 a.m.,
4 Comments:
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At 11:39 a.m.,
Natsthename said...
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Ouch on the autism remark. LOL.
Interesting.
But, the wankers on TV are already spinning on predictions about how long it's going to take Obama and friends to get their plans in action. Both health care and energy will cost a bundle, and movement toward their goals will take time. So, their first order is to go on a fiscal grab, so they can pay for the rest. Oh, and somewhere in there is the promise of the end of the war. That should free up some dough, eh?
As STipe sang, "Let's play Twister, let's play Risk." -
At 1:41 p.m.,
said...
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i happen to know that obama and his staff are faithful mentok the mind-taker readers, so you've just let the cat out of the bag! now the tories will have to come up with another stra-tee-gery. ;-)
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At 2:04 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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Isn't that what bloggers are for - to let cats out of bags that the MSM won't touch?
The perfect outcome of all of this would be if, in the course of trying to paint Obama in a corner, Harper gets painted into a corner himself and we end up with a progressive continental environmental policy through good-ol' chest-thumping one-up-manship. That would be sweet, no? -
At 2:53 p.m.,
Natsthename said...
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And no hormones would be harmed!
