Thursday, October 05, 2006

THE HARP-O-METER?

Certain Liberals are interpreting supposedly unprecedented levels of attacks against Michael Ignatieff from Prime Minister Harper and the government as an indication that the Conservatives are deathly afraid of Ignatieff winning the Liberal leadership.

They are so obviously concerned about him that they feel the need to jump quickly to try to "define him", to "frame him", or whatever the heck else Franz Lunz is telling them they should be doing.
To track this phenomenon the Ignatieff campaign has launched the Harp-o-meter.
In honour of the Tories' burgeoning enthusiasm for the leadership race, we're starting our Harp-o-meter to keep track of the number of times before the Convention that Canada's "New" Government fires a shot Michael's way.
This strikes me as one of those gimmicks, common to internal party politics, that has a greater effect on maintaining the morale of current supporters rather than actually convincing potential non-supporters of anything; there's no harm in that as far as it goes.

But do Liberals really think that the Conservatives are afraid of Ignatieff? Based on the Conservative campaign team's success at a strategic level in the last election, is it not far more likely that they are simply "student's of things as they are" and working to discredit the likely Liberal leader even before he assumes office? That is not necessarily fear; simply smart politics.

Posted by Matthew @ 9:54 a.m.