- With the revelations that in the dying days of the campaign a strategy was floated in the CPC war room that would have Harper come out and declare that this would be his last election, it confirms something that I suspected a few weeks ago: that the election had shifted to a referendum on Harper. When the Nanos numbers started to show a shift for the preferred PM away from Harper and toward Trudeau, the ballot box changed from the CPC message to whether Canadians wanted Harper back as PM. It became a Harperendum and Canadians voted accordingly.
Would a move to distance himself from the campaign have helped? Maybe, but we will never know. - The right wing is predictably blaming the media for the fall of their hero. The CBC bias. The Toronto Star bias. etc., ad nauseum. Favourable coverage to anything not blue and white. Ignoring Liberal gaffes… and on and on and on… They have conveniently forgotten that most of the major news outlets endorsed Harper (well, the Glub and Money endorsed the party but noy Harper, but, but… OK, I still don’t understand that one). Suck it up, buttercups. You lost. But as Mr. Trudeau has said you are not our enemies, you are our neighbours. You will see a lot more kindness from us that we have seen from you over the past 9 years.
- Lots of Liberals are asking – how do we ensure t hat a “Harper” doesn’t happen again? Well, you can’t. That is the nature of a democracy. Sometimes you get the good guys and sometimes the not-so-good. What progressives in this country can do is work together to advance a progressive agenda that will benefit al Canadians. And Canadians will reward us at the ballot box in 2019.
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