Canadian Cincinnatus

My policy on the comments section of this blog

In the last post, one of my readers has taken me to task on what he feels is my too-strict policy for commenting in this blog, specifically the requirement that I must preapprove all comments before posting them. He would like a freer approach that is less troublesome to contributors, and that, becauseof this, will lead to more vigorous discussions in these pages.

While I have no doubt that these things would result, I would like to state my reasons for doing things my way:

1. I want to keep profanity to a minimum. I think swear words should be used sparingly.

2. The comment section of too many web sites have degenerated into shouting matches between commenters. I don’t think it is particularly courageous to call somebody you will never meet face-to-face a @#^%#$, and I don’t think a blog is enhanced when this occurs on the comments section.

3. I don’t want to get into trouble with one of Canada’s various Human Rights Commissions. While I have no respect whatsoever for these unelected kangaroo courts, the fact of the matter remains that these star chambers are out there and one must take their dark presence into account. And they do hold blog proprietors responsible for the comments that are posted. As I write this I have almost 230 posts, each with a comments section and I don’t have time to police them all in case some agent provocateur makes a comment on post 49.

With regard to the spam filters, sorry about that. It comes with typepad.

Dick Morris likes McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign

Dick Morris really liked McCain’s move to suspend his campaign. What I have found is that, while I have some profound policy differences with McCain, I really like his ability to do things out of the box. First, boldly picking Sarah Palin instead o going for the safe choice, and second, doing something decisive about the economy.

Too often politicians with losing hands just sit there gripping their pair of two’s, doing nothing. They think by digging in they are somehow protecting themselves. Rather, they are merely digging their own graves while the world passes by. The key difference between Watergate and Monica Lewinski (as Dick Morris has correctly noted) was that Nixon circled the wagons around the White House while Bill Clinton continued to circulate - and continued to play the political game.

When you have noting to lose, it is time to take big chances. If these don’t pan out, the second place finish will still be there waiting for you.

Iowahawk on Obama’s message of hope

here.

McCain must handle media criticism better

John McCain’s frequent complaints of media unfairness, while entirely justified, come across as too whiney. It makes him appear petty and small.

Instead he should accept MSM criticism as a badge of honour. Sarah Palin’s speech hit the right tone when she said (with a wry smile), “Here’s a newsflash. I didn’t come to Washington for their good word, I came to serve the people.” She came across as spunky and determined, and her detractors came across as jackbooted extremists.

They should continue this line of attack. Take examples of mainstream extremism and hysteria, and reproduce them on their ads (such as the one I outlined yesterday). Make the election a referendum on the influence of left-wing extremism in politics. In such a contest, McCain can’t lose.

With regard to Obama, just leave him out of it. To get back in the game, he will face the horns of a dilemma; either stand up to the kooks or stand up for them.

The real loser will not be Obama (who will lose), but the left-wing nuts, who will get the marginalization they deserve. Like Dracula, these people cannot stand the light of day. The only reason they can operate this openly, is because the mainstream press runs cover for them.

Sandra Bernhardt: John McCain’s Sister Souljah moment

In American politics, the original Sister Souljah moment occurred in the 1992 presidential campaign when candidate Bill Clinton attacked hip-hop artist Sister Souljah for her commentary on the Rodney King beating. She had stated, “If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?" Bill Clinton responded with, “If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black,’ and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech.” This was very popular and helped cement Bill Clinton’s reputation as a centrist politician. It not only helped Bill Clinton to the White House but effectively torpedoed Sister Souljah’s career as a troublemaker. Today she has a day job and a sensible name (Lisa Williamson).

The mainstream press defines the Sister Souljah moment as the instance when a politician repudiates an extremist on their side, thereby gaining credentials with the voters-at-large as a centrist. I think this definition is partly wrong because it implies a symmetry between left and right that doesn’t exist. The asymmetry is that while the extremists on the left are given a wide berth by the media, the extremists on the right have been effectively marginalized by the MSM. They are doing the right a huge favour by doing this. Even though they think they are harming the right by attacking the far right, they are, in effect, doing the right’s housecleaning for them. The lack of mainstream extremists on the right means that it is difficult for a right-wing politician to have a ‘conventional’ Sister Souljah moment.

I think the real lesson is that because the left wing trolls are fundamentally obnoxious to most mainstream Americans, any politician - left or right – who goes after them scores points with the voters.

This is what is happening with the derangement that Sarah Palin has inspired in left-wing extremists. The best example to date is Sandra Bernhardt’s recent comments that Sarah Palin “would be gang-raped by blacks in Manhattan”. Her comments are obnoxious, on so many different levels, that they are simply indefensible.

I have an idea, why doesn’t the McCain-Palin campaign hit them with the following attack ad: Start off with the following montage:

here.

When it ends, simply fade to a simple, “vote McCain-Palin” page.

Don’t bother trying to pin these comments on the Obama campaign. That just leaves Obama with the opening to say he has no formal ties with Sandra Bernhardt. Just let the point hang. People know who supports Obama. Obama will either have to bring up the matter himself in order to distance himself from Bernhardt (the act of which only reinforces the point the commercial makes), or else do nothing, which allows voters to infer themselves that the kind of people Obama represents are left-wing extremist hate-mongers.

P.S. Incidentally, the mainstream press is raving about Sandra Bernhardt’s rant. For instance, Barbra Mackay of the Washington Examiner claimed that the above rant, the “Comedienne delivers enraged optimism. … In the end, oddly and subtly, Bernhard’s message is positive."

Camille Paglia on Sarah Palin

This article, by post-feminist icon Camille Paglia, on Sarah Palin reminds me why Camille paglia is one of the very best women non-fiction writers today.

Note especially the obituary she cites from a 1905 issue of the Globe and Mail:

“Abigail Becker

Farmer and homemaker born in Frontenac County, Upper Canada, on March 14, 1830

A tall, handsome woman "who feared God greatly and the living or dead not at all," she married a widower with six children and settled in a trapper's cabin on Long Point, Lake Erie. On Nov. 23, 1854, with her husband away, she single-handedly rescued the crew of the schooner Conductor of Buffalo, which had run aground in a storm. The crew had clung to the frozen rigging all night, not daring to enter the raging surf. In the early morning, she waded chin-high into the water (she could not swim) and helped seven men reach shore. She was awarded medals for heroism and received $350 collected by the people of Buffalo, plus a handwritten letter from Queen Victoria that was accompanied by £50, all of which went toward buying a farm. She lost her husband to a storm, raised 17 children alone and died at Walsingham Centre, Ont.”

Now that was a woman!

But I suspect poor Abigail would be another one of those self-made women that the left-wing feminists would despise. According to them real women, like Hillary Clinton, rise to the top on their husbands’ coat tails. If the Feminist Movement were really about helping women achieve, they would celebrate all women of achievement – regardless of their ideology. The behaviour of Feminists only reinforces the notion that Feminists (as opposed to small-f feminists) are merely the ladies auxiliary of the left.

The Liberal Party’s existence is unhealthy for the Canadian body politic

The Conservatives stand for small government, individual responsibility and patriotism; the NDP stands for socialism; the Greens stand for environmentalism; the Bloc stands for separatism; but what do the Liberals stand for?

Normally they campaign from the left and govern slightly to the right, but, really, there is no definitive answer to this question. That is because the Liberal Party is the only major federal party that does not have a coherent platform. All the other parties are parties of principle. The Liberal Party is the party of opportunism.

If voting Liberal were no longer an option, the voter would then face a set of clear options. The continued presence of a Liberal choice on the ballot only obfuscates the matter. It gives voters an easy way out – a feel-good option that allows them to avoid a hard decision between two clear, consistent visions (the NDP and the Conservatives). Even worse, the Liberal presence forces both the other parties to water down their ideology in order to pander to the mushy middle. The result is that, instead of clear choices, the voter ends up with a plate full of mush.

Democracies where there are only two major parties - the US, the UK and Australia - are much healthier for it. In those countries, each political party must compete with an ideological, coherent and clear message. This gives the citizen a better understanding of where the country is going and where it could go.

With the Liberals floundering under Stephane Dion’s weak leadership, a historic opportunity is available - but only for a brief period of time. At some point soon, he will be replaced by somebody more competent and this window of opportunity will be closed. In this election, it is my hope that the Liberals will be squeezed enough by both the Conservatives on one side and the NDP on the other that the NDP becomes the official opposition and the Liberals irretrievably lose their credibility.

Obviously I want this because the Conservatives will benefit. But left-wing Canadians should also welcome this because then the NDP will become a viable choice. However, if it comes to pass the real winner will be Canada as a whole, because then, in the next election, her citizens will have two clear visions to choose from.

The recession that isn’t

More good news about the economy from economist Jerry Bowyer.

The bottom line is that the US economy went from -0.2% GDP growth in the 4th quarter of 2007 to +0.9% growth in the 1st quarter to 2008 to 3.3% growth in the second quarter. As I have said before, the economy isn’t shirking, its growing, and the growth is accelerating!

Something I didn’t know until I read it here was that the negative growth happened when the 2003 tax cuts on small businesses expired at the end of 2007. And when the Republicans had them tacked on an “otherwise useless stimulus package”, the economy rebounded.

Stephen Harper plays it safe – so far

Stephen Harper’s federal campaign so far has played it safe – too safe, in my opinion. The focus has been on Stephane Dion and his carbon tax.

While Dion’s leadership has been transparently awful, the weakness of this strategy is that it relies on Stephane Dion to oblige the conservatives by continuing to be awful. What if he stops obliging us? What if he starts making substantive policy statements that aren’t as obviously flawed as the carbon tax? We are then caught flat-footed. Harper’s strategy, of contrasting his leadership abilities to Dion’s is predicated on electoral success (as measured – before election day - by poll numbers). But if those polls go south you have no fallback position. Take John Tory in the last provincial election. He too started to run a campaign based on leadership abilities between himself and Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty. However, when he blew the faith-based school funding issues, he ended up proving that Dalton was the better leader. In the last week of the campaign, he had painted himself into such a corner that he literally had nothing to say. The advantage of running a principled, ideological campaign is that you always have a rallying point from which to regroup your forces if you hit a rough patch.

And while hammering on the carbon tax is a good idea, but if you keep it up without offering any red meat yourself, you run the risk of the electorate saying, “OK, OK, I agree it’s a dumb idea, but what have you got to offer. At least Dion has some kind of a plan.”

The real weakness of the safety-first approach is that you are not following the old rule of political campaigning: start with a positive campaign - to define who you are and rally your supporters, and then go negative at the end - to scare the undecideds into your camp without adversely affecting people’s positive perception of you. Why won’t the negative attacks adversely affect your image? Because you have already branded yourself with your positive message earlier on. This strategy works every time it’s tried. The classic example was Reagan vs. Carter in 1980. When Reagan came out, he was blasted as a loony tune. However, Ronald didn’t pay any attention to his critics. He simply went about explaining his message to the voters, counting on the media critics to amplify it. He only went negative at the last month of the campaign (with the infamous Carter hugging Brezhnev poster). But by that point the electorate knew who he was. The only mystery is why this strategy is employed so seldom.

I suppose it is because, for it to work, the positive message has to be hard hitting. It has to be something that cleanly differentiates you from the opposition. Policies like that tend to be controversial. And politicians, who are taught (erroneously) to go after every vote, are afraid of controversy. Put politicians who are not afraid of controversy – Reagan, Thatcher, Mike Harris in Ontario – do just fine with this program.

As if to underscore my point, the only foray into substantive matters – Harper’s promise to cut taxes on diesel fuel – has been a big hit. This is something that one can use to rally the troops with. And Dion obliged brilliantly by affirming that he was against cutting the price of gas! In fact, he admitted that his carbon tax will increase the price of diesel by 7 cents.

Palin Derangement Syndrome

As Real Clear Politics argues, the left must find Sarah Palin really threatening considering the amount of vitriol and mudslinging (over personal matters like her daughter’s pregnancy). And I agree that this sort of thing will end up backfiring on them because it only serves to alienate them from the American mainstream further and expose themselves as extremist partisan lunatics.

In politics like everywhere else, anger can be a good motivator, causing one to redouble one’s efforts, working late into the night. However to be productive, anger has to be controlled. Uncontrolled anger only makes on look like a fool.

An example of this occurred in the 1999 Ontario provincial election. Mike Harris was running for his second term of office. In his first term, Harris demonstrated himself to be an uncompromising champion of small government which completely unhinged the left. I think it is a fair statement that Ontario’s left felt the same way towards Harris in 1999 as America’s left feel towards George W Bush today.

When the writ was dropped, the Conservatives were well behind the Liberals in second place. The image of the campaign was Harris arriving at a campaign stop surrounded by a phalanx of Provincial Police officers while being completely surrounded by a noisy group of demonstrators who had decided to follow him around the province while he campaigned. Every day, as these images made their way on the TV sets of the voters, Harris’ popularity inched upwards until he ended up winning a solid majority.

In an election, it really helps if the other side demonstrates every day that they are stark raving nuts.

I think Obama understands this and this is why he has publicly distanced himself from the campaign to smear Palin because of her pregnant 17 year old daughter. I think the smart strategy for the Republicans is to lay low and let the anti-Palin vitriol heat up to a fever pitch, until somebody high up on Obama’s campaign says something really stupid, and then pounce on the comment. Obama will then have to disown his loyal lieutenant and apologize, looking foolish in the process through no fault of his own. The Democrats in general will then end up looking evil and weak. Time will tell if this is what McCain is thinking.