The Toronto Star has an article today detailing the contents of an internal Conservative Party memo regarding the perceived level of threat from each of the main Liberal Leadership candidates. I’m sure heads are going to roll over at the Conservative Party’s headquarters this morning!
Ignatieff was “the most interesting candidate to probe/test.” The memo says he “takes quite a bit of heat for his foreign policy positions” among left-leaning Liberal-Conservative switchers. He’d probably lose votes over foreign policy from Liberal/NDP switchers, says Finley.
“But he is an impressive performer and the more people watched Ignatieff, the more they liked him,” says the memo, adding one woman in London said “he looks, sounds and acts like a prime minister.”Finley considers Ignatieff’s appeal to be strongest among university-educated, middle-to-upper middle class voters in ridings the Tories hope to target, including Don Valley West, West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast and Lac St. Louis.
I’ve been pretty critical of Ignatieff in the past, but if the Torys are afraid of him, he gains cred in my books.
I’d be wary of anything coming out of the CPC offices, and I would withhold any assessment of leadership candidates that was influenced by such ‘leaks’. Disinformation would be particularly damaging in matters like this.
Comment by absolution — September 28, 2006 @ 10:00 am
Where is the “fear”? I think the word overstates reality. And if used, should be followed by “overjoyed”, as in: “the Greens and NDP would be overjoyed.”
Any first year university student (political science not required) could figure out that the most right-wing leadership candidate is most likely to take votes from the Conservatives and lose votes to the NDP and Greens (on the left wing).
As the memo states, the Liberals would/could win: “including Don Valley West, West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast and Lac St. Louis.”
The last time I checked, these three ridings are already Liberal (MPS John Godfrey, Blair Wilson, Francis Scarpaleggia) without a right-leaning leader.
Comment by MississaugaPeter — September 28, 2006 @ 10:20 am
A “confidential” memo just happens to make it to the press??? Not believable. More likely is that the Conservatives really do want to run against Ignatieff and they are trying to get the word out.
Comment by jill — September 28, 2006 @ 10:24 am
Leaking a memo in order to sway the decisions of the members of the party you oppose, just before that party votes on the issue, sounds just like the thing the neocons down south would do upon the advice of, say, a Frank Luntz or a Karl Rove. Let’s not forget that Harper and his new team were addressed by Luntz and seem to be taking his advice on many things, including using disinformation (avoiding addressing global warming but framing it as climate change, etc).
So, speculation about how and why this little surprise memo was written in the first place, and leaked round about now, is valid.
Unless of course Liberals cannot make up their own minds and are now dependent on Harper and his new Tories to tell them what to think …
The Cat’s advice is: forgeddabout it. Think for yourself. Vote your convictions.
Comment by CuriosityCat — September 28, 2006 @ 2:31 pm