Frame Wars: The election so far

Well so much for all those predictions that the Tories would be running on their economic record while the Opposition would be hammering away at the Harper government’s record on ethics.

The first weekend of the 2011 election has wrapped up and the word, coalition, is on everyone’s lips.

Stephen Harper may be the first Prime Minister in Canadian history whose government has been found in contempt of Parliament. He may be the guy who came into office on the ethics ticket only to be branded as ethically challenged by the Opposition.

But without doubt he is a master at manipulating the public agenda and the media.

Within 24 hours of losing a confidence vote in the House of Commons, Harper managed to put his accusers on the defensive over a hypothetical possibility that should the Tories not gain a majority, the three Opposition parties will gang up and form an evil coalition to take control of Parliament and void the will of the people.

As proof, he cited the ill-fated 2008 coalition by the Opposition to seek the Governor General’s permission to form a coalition government after the 2008 election.

Harper claims the Liberals and NDP plan to take control of the country with the separatist Bloc Quebecois as a partner.

Actually the proposed coalition only consisted of the Liberals and New Democrats. The Bloc only agreed not to vote against the coalition for two years. But what is the truth in politics when you have a convincing narrative.

The feat is all the more remarkable when you consider that Harper himself tried to hatch such a coalition after the 2004 election in a letter with NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe.

The Prime Minister has been called everything from a hypocrite to a liar (by Duceppe). But still his narrative seems to be sticking with most of the voting public as the truth so far.

To borrow a term that came out of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is being ``swift boated.’’ In that election, a group of American veterans of naval swift boats used in the Vietnam War came forward to claim Senator John Kerry, the Democrats’ candidate for president, and a decorated war hero, wasn’t the swift boat commander he was cracked up to be. He was a fraud, according to the swift boat veterans.

The allegations by the swift boat veterans, who were Republicans, turned out to be BS. But it didn’t matter. During the election campaign they framed Kerry as a fraud.

The swift boat episode is a classic case study in the process of issue framing in politics. Whoever can set the ``frame’’ around political issues usually can control the narrative of an election campaign and put the opponent on the defensive.

The Liberals of course didn’t help themselves by being vulnerable when the election began on Saturday. They should have moved before Parliament was dissolved last Friday to rule out participation in a coalition. That would have been getting in front of the story.

Instead, Ignatieff stumbled when the question was to put to him at first and then issued a press release a day later to deny any intention of forming a coalition. Score one for Harper.

The Liberals could have released ads featuring Harper’s 2004 coalition letter. That way they could have planted the idea in voters’ minds that Harper is a hypocrite who will stop at nothing to gain power. Harper of course denies he had any intention of coalition in 2004.

Now Harper has been able to frame or define Ignatieff as a usurper of democracy. Harper has also been able to demonize coalitions when they are in fact a legitimate part of parliamentary democracy.

Remember, this country was founded because Sir John A. Macdonald was able to form a coalition with Sir George Étienne Cartier in support of Confederation.

So far this election campaign has been looking a lot like Bambi versus Godzilla.

What’s interesting is why Harper is not running on his government’s record on the economy, or anything else. Why the fear frame, particularly when Harper has such a commanding lead in the polls?

Perhaps it is because Harper knows Canadians are still uneasy about him regardless of what they might think of Ignatieff. And the only way the Tories can win a majority is by stampeding a fearful electorate, or so he seems to think.

But Harper’s framing tactic could back fire yet. His former chief of staff, Tom Flanagan, has come forward to say, yes, his old boss was looking at possibly forming a coalition with the NDP and the Bloc to take control in 2004.

Score one for Bambi.

Peter MacKay, the sequel

Normally, wearing a baseball cap that mocks your employer anywhere near the office would be considered a dumb career move. And being widely quoted in the media as critical of your employer’s policy would be considered suicide – especially when your boss is Stephen Harper.

But maybe Peter MacKay, Canada’s defence minister (for now), is being dumb like a fox.

In the past week, it has been MacKay’s turn to dole out the humiliation after being very publicly cut out of the loop over the extended mission in Afghanistan the previous week.

First MacKay sported a red baseball cap that said ``Fly Emirates’’ during a fire drill on Parliament Hill. Then he told a couple of fellow Tories in the presence of a radio reporter that continued refusal to allow flights to and from the United Arab Emirates beyond a couple of times a week was unwise.

Subsequently, MacKay told the media at large that diplomatic relations with the Emirates have been set back 10 years by Ottawa’s intransigence on the landing rights.

To finish off the week. MacKay joined the Prime Minister on a flight to Lisbon for the NATO Summit. The atmosphere on the plane might have been a bit frigid.

So what was MacKay up to?

Most ministers publicly breaking ranks like that would be on the back benches by now. But MacKay is in a unique position as the last leader of the Progressive Conservatives before the merger with the Alliance that formed the current Conservative party.

Aside from the fact that Harper owes MacKay for going along with the merger, the Prime Minister knows that bouncing his defence minister from cabinet will set off speculation about a rift in the party.

It is pretty obvious the Conservatives would like to have a spring election after the 2011 budget even though the most rabid Harperites don’t expect to win a majority. An election before economic growth can slow down any more simply makes strategic sense.

Plans for a spring election would have to be shelved if speculation about an internal rift gets out of hand. So MacKay likely is the minister with the most job security at least until the next cabinet shuffle.

MacKay likely will make a career change in the New Year. Perhaps he will join Jim Prentice in self-imposed exile Bay Street and wait for his party’s leadership to come open.

After almost five years of minority government, a Conservative leadership race is a growing likelihood. After all this amalgamated party never did get around to a founding policy convention after its factions – the Red Tories versus the Neo Cons – spent years disliking each other.

The Conservatives likely will win the next election. But a victory with fewer seats would almost certainly bring out the knives for their leader.

In the meantime, Prentice and MacKay and who knows who else may be watching and waiting.

Haiti rescue/relief operation displays good communications

There has been plenty of criticism of how governments communicate in this blog. So let's look at some communications that worked.

It is now pretty apparent that Ottawa has learned and learned well from past mistakes in the humanitarian operations in Lebanon in 2006 and the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004.

The federal government wasted little time in dispatching the DART relief and rescue team to Haiti after the horrendous earthquake there on Jan. 12. This was in sharp contrast to 2004 when the bureaucracy hemmed and hawed before sending the DART team and the media were filled with speculative stories about what might be behind the delay.

This was a case of the short-lived government of Paul Martin leaving mission management to the bureaucrats when political leadership was required. Indeed, the tsunami of December 2004 may have been the watershed of Martin's reputation as Mr. Dithers.

There was much delay in 2006 in rescuing Canadians trapped in Lebanon during the Israeli strike against Hamas. In fact, the Harper government seemed ambivalent about rescuing them at all.

This time the Harper government was careful to leave any politics out of its messaging on Haiti. In fact, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made an unusual gesture of sharing the limelight with Haitian-born Michaelle Jean, the Governor General. Both of them made a touching and heartfelt appeal for help for Haiti.

In all, the federal government has done Canadians proud in the way it has dealt with the disaster in Haiti.

What's interesting is the difference in deportment of the Prime Minister on Haiti and less than 20 days earlier when Harper appeared in the now famous Peter Mansbridge interview.

On Haiti, Harper was very emotional and very clearly showed empathy for the Haitian people as well as the Canadians who were on the island when the earthquake struck. In the Mansbridge interview, Harper acted dismissively of Canadians' objections to proroguing and even sneered while doing it.

Harper seemed sincere on both occasions. We probably witnessed two distinct sides to the Prime Minister's personality, which likely means Harper will remain an enigma to most Canadians long after he has left office.

Since last week's posting of this blog, two prominent pollsters have reported that Canadians' disapproval of prorogation has been so strident that the Conservatives and Liberals are now virtually tied in the polls.

It represents a huge tumble for the Conservatives, who were ahead of the Liberals by as much as 15 percentage points in October.

For the Tories, the latest polls confirm one of the largest strategic mistakes by a federal government since Confederation. And, of course, the remarkable progress the Tories have made in winning over Canadian hearts and minds since early fall has been wiped out.

The Liberals, meanwhile, have been handed, or should that be gifted, a massive do-over for Michael Ignatieff, their leader.

Whether Iggy is able to take full advantage of this gift remains to be seen. But so far he seems to have made a good start toward an effective makeover with his campus tour and decision to summon his MPs back to work in Ottawa next week.

Watch for the Tories to hold a mini cabinet shuffle this week or next. Possibly even a special national caucus meeting in early February to prevents the Grits from hogging media attention.

As for the prospect of the Tories' much coveted majority, the next leader of majority government may not yet be sitting in the House of Commons.