Thursday night on the CTV National News, Lloyd Robertson asked me what each of the three national parties and their leaders had to do in the coming weeks.
Yesterday, I blogged in a little greater detail on Stephen Harper’s to-do-list. Today, let’s look at what Stephane Dion and the Liberals have to accomplish over the next four weeks:
1. Cherchez la femme – Win Back Women Voters
Liberals win elections when they have the largest share of women voters. It’s really that simple. There has often been a natural affinity between women and Liberal campaigns, in part due to a traditional Liberal focus on social issues, which are often important to women voters. Another reason is that male voters are often more attracted to the “meat and potatoes” campaign agendas of Conservatives. However, so far, at least in the 45 closest battleground ridings in Ontario, Quebec and BC, which we’re tracking for CTV News and the Globe and Mail, the Conservatives are enjoying a significant lead among male voters – and are tied with Liberals among women.
Stephane Dion has some key campaign planks that should appeal to women voters. Surveys show that women are more favorable to his party’s Green Shift. Due to Mr. Dion’s early commitment, fully a third of his party’s candidates are women – more than the Conservatives. He also fought early and firmly to include Green Party Leader Elizabeth May in the leaders’ debate early last month.
But that last item is a good example of how the Liberals aren’t seizing the initiative quickly or dramatically enough. Dion should have been all over the Harper-Layton freeze-out of May in a nanosecond. He should have gone after the other two leaders hammer and thong for a “boys only”, exclusionary approach that was insulting and all too familiar to Canadian women. Instead, he pointed the finger at the consortium of television network executives who negotiated the conditions. Last time I checked, those fellows aren’t on the ballot – Mr. Harper and Mr. Layton are. By the time the leaders of the NDP and the Conservatives saw the writing on the wall, and came around on the issue, it was too late. The Libs could have been leading the parade on behalf of Canadian women. They have to be sharper and more prepared for future opportunities to win back women’s votes. Because they won’t come along very often.
2. Claw Back Votes from the NDP
The Liberals are also bleeding another vital element of their winning base – protest voters who are currently parking with the NDP. Simply put, the size of the NDP vote can mean the difference between Liberal victory and Liberal defeat. Much has been made of the fact that Jean Chretien won three successive Liberal majorities because of a divided right. There is much truth to that. But perhaps even more important – and largely ignored – is his success in suppressing the NDP vote, and how that contributed to Liberal victory. In the 1993, 1997 and 2000 elections, the NDP vote was 7.5%, 11% and 8.5% respectively. In the 2006 election – which the Liberals lost – the NDP vote was 17%. In riding after riding, the NDP increases resulted in Liberals losing and Conservatives winning.
To win this time, the Liberals need to push that NDP vote down. And the best way to do it is by polarizing the choice between the Liberal Party and the Conservatives. They need to hammer home that a vote for the NDP will help elect a Conservative government – a message that would be anathema to many if not most NDP voters.
