Harper's "Climate"

There are many underlying objective truths that will hopefully remain in tact, as we enter the SPIN dome on the robocall question. No reasonable observer would dispute that these Conservatives have pushed the boundaries of acceptable political behaviour, a "nastiness" attached to the process that Canadian politics hasn't seen, at least in terms of frequency. The tone of the political debate has soured, the way people are attacked has intensified, the low road is now met with almost surrendering shrugs, we've become acclimatised to unseemly tactics.

Rewind a few scant months ago, and you'll see a DESPICABLE misinformation campaign in Irwin Cotler's riding. The formal Conservative arm will distance itself from the robocall question, but here we had a SANCTIONED campaign, with the sole aim of DECEIVING voters. You'll also recall when "outed", all we received from Harper Conservatives was bizarre rationalizations, a "run out the clock" strategy and the issue died, just another fluffed off example of dirty politics. I mention this example, in light of Harper's selective outrage yesterday and PLEDGE to find these unethical individuals and make them PAY! In reality, whether it is found to be a rogue partisan in this most recent instance, it really is the type of behaviour akin to formal war room strategy, as the Cotler example revealed in NAKED fashion.

I've followed the American primary system for a long, long time, and I believe this an objective truth: when it comes to nastiness, dirty tactics, a poisoned well, NOBODY does it better than the Republicans, the Democrats are amateurs compared to the cesspool that occurs when the GOP picks a standard bearer. Sure, you can highlight a particular example here and there for partisan counter, but when you pull back and observe the landscape in totality with any fairness, only a die hard bias would dispute a stronger correlation between conservatism and scumbag tactics. I mention this reality because much of the Conservative thrust is imported philosophy, there has been a concerted effort to adopt certain approaches. This robocall story reeks of American style politics, that type of nonsense is commonplace within their system, nobody bats an eye, it's accepted as part of the game.

John Ibbitson piece today touches on an similar theme:

It could take many months to get to the bottom of the case of alleged voter suppression during the last election. The larger question, though, is whether the Conservatives’ hard-ball tactics are encouraging some people to cheat.

If they are, then the Tories bear a measure of responsibility, even if they weren’t complicit in any unethical or illegal acts...

And they may have instilled such an intensely partisan anything-you-can-get-away-with mentality among their campaign workers that one or more of them concluded it would be okay to cross the line of legality.

Plenty of outrage last week at the idiot that started a twitter account and bashed Vic Toews. This individual had sullied our entire political process, to never recover, a sad indictment of eroding morality and standards in Canadian politics. Perhaps true, but let's hope the same outrage incorporates the wider climate we currently operate in, who sets the tone, who has the most power to change or elevate, who more times than not is at the center of low brow tactics, who sits in first class on Air Douche. See the forest from the trees, that's where enlightenment lies, that's where you start ascertaining and drilling down to find underlying realities.

I could care less if we find the firm tether in this particular instance that leads right to the official Conservative war room. What's truly instructive here is very much the political climate that these "hard ball" Conservatives have brought to Ottawa, how they do politics, this end justifies the means mentality. More concerning, a successful template, these Conservatives sit with a majority, formal affirmation of a strategy which others will surely adopt, in the name of perceived success. When we wake up one day and see little contrast between the way we do politics here, and how they do it in South Carolina, just remember who were the Right Honourable's when the gutter became the norm, because it isn't a coincidence.