Running Scared

Nation, the numbers don't lie - nobody raises more money in Canadian politics than the Conservative Party of Canada. It's not even close.

No doubt, most of that money is being studiously squirreled away for the upcoming election. However, there are expenses that a party has to incur BEFORE an election: Advertising, platform development, branding, polling - the list is long. But it's that LAST one - private polling - that really gets the attention of a party's movers and shakers.

I've been in meetings where the platform was a 5 minute conversation, and internal polling took just about an hour to go over. "How are we doing overall? How are we doing regionally? In urban areas? In rural areas? Who do voters find the most appealing as a leader? Who do they trust? Are they happy with the direction we're going, or proposing?"

The truth of the matter is, nobody is polling more than the CPC, because nobody has more to spend than the CPC. And while most of us mere mortals will never have a chance to take a look at those polling numbers, we can ascertain what they're indicating by watching what the Tories choose to spend their money on... and right now, the answer is pretty clear:

Justin.

You can't turn on the tv or the radio without hearing about how Justin Trudeau is "not ready". Over the past few months we've been treated to commercials featuring Justin stripping, talking about budgets balancing themselves, and pandering to pot activists. Never in the history of Canadian politics has the party in power in Ottawa spent this much time and money attacking the leader of the THIRD party in the House, and so completely ignored the Leader of the Opposition.

As a result, we can safely draw the conclusion that the Tory campaign braintrust are seeing poll results that point towards their chief competition being not Tom Mulcair, but rather the Dauphin himself, the Scion of He Who Shall Not Be Named, Justin Trudeau.

There are, of course, other indicators that the Tories aren't polling as well as they'd like. They've actually found themselves facing the intolerable, unthinkable burden of having to campaign in Alberta. As in, make promises so as not to lose seats. In Alberta. ALBERTA.

ThreeHundredEight.com, who just like any pollster or poll aggregator are far from perfect (but are still right WAY more often than they're wrong) show a good likelihood that if the election were held today, the NDP would increase its seat count in Alberta from 1 to 4 (yes, all in Edmonton). More unthinkable, though, is the notion that 3 Liberals - LIBERALS - would be elected, with 2 of them coming from Harper's adopted hometown of Calgary.

Calgary.

Canada's energy capital.

Electing the party that brought in the NEP.

...

That sound you just heard was Ezra's head exploding.

Now, we don't know if the CPC internal polling shows these same numbers, or if the picture is better (or, even worse). What we DO know, is that the Conservatives are poised to lose their majority, if the current polls bear out on Election Day. It would be a crushing defeat, humbling, and almost certainly spell the end of the Prime Minister's career. The snipes passing back and forth between Mulcair and Trudeau in recent weeks make it unlikely that the 2 men would form a legislative coalition government in the minority scenario, even if the benefit was the removal of the CPC from power.

The conventional wisdom is this, however: Stephen Harper has no desire to finish his term as Prime Minister the way he started it - at the mercy of a minority parliament, out-numbered and unable to pass legislation without compromise. He needs centrist voters, who can traditionally swing Liberal or Tory without compromising their core values either way, to abandon Trudeau and vote Tory. Appealing to likely NDP voters won't work - their values won't let them vote Conservative. The best he can hope for is that those voters stay home on Election Day.

The Liberals. Trudeau. That's who Stephen needs to target. And he's doing it.

Will it work?

Joan Crockatt and Devinder Shory, the Conservative candidates in Calgary Centre and Calgary Skyview, certainly hope so. Because if the polls hold, those ridings will be coloured red after Election Day.

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies...

Rivers and seas boiling...

Forty years of darkness...

Earthquakes.

Volcanoes.

The dead rising from the grave.

Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria.

The Conservatives know who they have to target. The question they need to be asking themselves, and answering honestly, is this: Is it working? Is saying this guy's name at every opportunity turning voters off of him?

Or does it just look like we're running scared?