Myth
By Eric Dowd
Toronto
– One myth that should
have been buried by the Ontario election is there are geniuses running
campaigns the rest of us should look up to in awe, but unfortunately it is
still flourishing.
News
media have quickly concluded Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty’s successful
campaign was `flawless’ and the head of a polling company (pollsters,
who sometimes but not always know results in advance, have became the new
gurus) called it `truly masterful.’ The Liberals’ campaign director,
Don Guy, has been described as a `genius’ and their party president and
campaign chair, Greg Sorbara, admitted modestly `we ran a campaign that
was perfect in its execution.’
All this ignores the strong case the Progressive Conservatives
under Premier Ernie Eves lost the campaign more than the Liberals won it.
The
Tories dug their own graves by mistakes including clinging like drowning
men to an outdated theme voters prefer tax cuts to efficient services,
changing their minds on major issues so often they looked confused and
unsure, promising policies including tax breaks for parents who send
children to private schools and seniors regardless of how well-off they
are, so they were seen as attempts to bribe special interests, and running
nasty TV commercials attacking McGuinty they had to withdraw.
The
Liberal strategists helped their departure by urging voters to `choose
change,’ which was wise because urging them to vote Liberal would not
have had as much appeal, and avoiding the temptation to respond with
negative ads, but Albert Einstein must be turning in his grave at the
thought this entitles them to be called geniuses.
Some
in the media are ready to see any who run winning campaigns as superhuman.
The Tories steamrollered by the Liberals were praised repeatedly as
geniuses after they helped Mike Harris win elections in 1995 and 1999.
The
best known of them, Leslie Noble, Jaime Watt and Paul Rhodes, also were
called whiz kids, brilliant, inspired and masterminds, and their campaigns
flawless.
But
the facts are Harris in 1995 promised massive cuts in government and taxes
and it was a message voters were desperate to hear and receptive to, the
New Democrats were totally out of the running after their successive
$10-billion budget deficits and the Liberals hurriedly promised their own
tax cuts, but Harris had his in first.
The
Tory whiz kids helped Harris put his ideas in an easily understandable
package, but he talked about them long before they hooked up with him and
it was his victory.
In
1999 Harris merely had to point out he had cut taxes as promised and
McGuinty looked wooden and inexperienced and this was enough, but the Tory
strategists again were called flawless and even legendary.
The
Tory whiz kids’ mistakes in the 2003 campaign were legion and included
advising Eves to unveil his budget in a car plant and run the personal ads
against McGuinty, both of which drew protests from some of their more
sober elected members.
The
Tories’ election wizards have an even poorer record in other contests
they got engaged in .The team tried to get Tom Long, its most senior
strategist until this last election, chosen leader of the right-wing
Canadian Alliance.
But
it fumbled particularly by having workers who put bogus names on the
voters’ list, so Long’s candidacy was dead even before balloting
began.
In
the Ontario Tories’ leadership race last year, Watt lent his magic touch
to Jim Flaherty, Long to Tony Clement and Rhodes to Elizabeth Witmer, but
Eves won without help from any of them.
The
most noted backroom team in Ontario politics, the so-called Big Blue
Machine of Tory premier William Davis, helped win four elections, but in
two managed to elect only minority governments, despite huge advantages in
money to spend.
When
it tried to get one of its members, Hugh Segal, chosen Tory federal
leader, it failed dismally.
If
these strategists were geniuses, they would keep winning elections when
the odds were against them, but they don’t.
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