Politics of desperation

Less than two weeks left and the campaign is kicking into high gear. A speechwriter quits over plagiarism, Stéphane Dion calls Paul Martin for help, and the Liberals get desperate and start releasing attack ads to scare people into voting for them.

It’s almost comical in its predictability — the Liberals started off with good intentions, but quickly abandoned their principled stance (the Green Shift) and moved on to the economy. When that move didn’t help them in the polls, they jumped right to the attack ads. These scare ads barely worked against the Conservatives in 2004, and backfired in 2006. Why Dion thinks these baseless attacks will work this time is anyone’s guess.

They hit a new level of desperation last week by appealing to the absolute dumbest, most lethargic (and probably illiterate) voters with the launch of BushHarper.com, a site that can only be described as pathetic by any sentient being. (For the record, Dion now says the word “Bush” more than the word “green” in every speech.)

And how about the Hitler jokes? Anyone with an IQ above that of a toaster could tell you that comparing your opponent to Hitler completely discredits your credibility. Guess what Canadian left-wingers just love to do! Bob Rae compared the softwood lumber agreement Harper made with the U.S. to the deal Neville Chamberlain made with Adolf Hitler! Composer Walter Boudreau took his cue and compared Harper to Hitler at an arts funding protest in Montreal just a couple weeks ago. A member of the arts community protested the miniscule funding cuts by uploading a video entitled “Adolph Harper loses it,” which features Hitler in the movie Downfall with subtitles implying that Hitler is in fact Harper The irony of someone arguing for arts funding reducing themselves to this piteous act of “artistic” protest appears to be lost on the offender.

While we seem to expect this drivel from politicians, it is very telling that people from only one side of the political spectrum continually and characteristically engage in such disgusting, desperate, and idiotic tactics.

Do a YouTube or Google Images search of Stephen Harper and you’ll find countless videos with Harper-Hitler themes, and images of Harper with a swastika on his forehead. Such bright, intelligent, creative young people on the Canadian left! Just for fun I did a search of all the other Canadian leaders and found nothing of the sort.

The most obvious form of juvenile left-wing political action during campaigns is knocking over Conservative candidates’ lawn signs. Take a trip down any residential road in Winnipeg and count how many Liberal or NDP signs versus Conservative signs are lying on the ground. The executive director of the Liberal Party of Prince Edward Island got caught on camera removing Conservative lawn signs last week. John Baird lost dozens of signs to zealous young anti-Conservatives in Ottawa. The comparable campus equivalent would be during last year’s UMSU elections, when the Regressive Conservatives’ posters were ripped down in mass numbers while the others remained untouched.

And how about those irritating “Students Demand Canada Out Of Afghanistan” stickers that some moron is putting up all over the Isbister building? Again, defacing school property to make their point — and I don’t recall anyone asking me if I wanted troops out of Afghanistan, do you remember being asked? These spineless vandals won’t even put their organization’s name on the stickers they use!

Anyone who has ever engaged a lefty in debate knows that as soon as they are backed into a corner, they resort to personal attacks. In one of Dion’s first interviews as leader of the opposition, he called Harper fat. Now that Harper is about to send the Liberals back to opposition in even weaker shape than before, Liberal commentators have resorted to fat jokes as well.

A couple weeks ago, a “hacker” exploited the PMO listserv. Despite what an amazing (albeit illegal) opportunity this was to reach millions of Canadian voters, this whiz kid sent out a clunker of an e-mail, listing off someone of the lamest and outlandish lies about Harper that wouldn’t fool even the most naïve NDP voter.

Left-wing desperation has also led to one of the most embarrassing, sordid and un-democratic practices ever — vote-swapping. This process appeals to the thickest fucking people on the planet. Not only does it make a mockery of our electoral system, but it is borderline illegal; and let’s not forget to mention that it relies on the honour system, and we all know that it is preposterous to trust a left-winger to do what they say they will. And I doubt that any of the 12,000 people on the vote-swapping Facebook group have given any thought as to what a country run by Jack Layton might actually look like.

Since their viewpoints and policies don’t stand up on their own, the left has a natural inclination to silence the other side and avoid confrontation. They lie and use outlandish statements to make their voices heard. They will accuse you of homophobia, racism, sexism, “Hitler-ism,” and any other “ism” in the book to change the subject in order to avoid having to answer your direct questions. They’ll hack computers, trespass, vandalize, yell and scream at public events, and resort to libel and personal attacks. And Every single debate you engage them in ends up being about George W. Bush and the Iraq War.

Oh well, off to the polls! May the best party win.

Stephen McCreary is a founder of the University of Manitoba Campus Conservatives.