The Media Should Not Cover YouTube Attack Ads

If a political party isn't willing to pay to put an ad into places people are likely to find it on their own (like TV, radio, newspaper or even paid online adverstising), the media should not provide free publicity to almost-no-cost "attack ad" content:

There was no day off to celebrate for Justin Trudeau, who won the Liberal Party leadership decisively Sunday night with more than 80 per cent of the vote.

Before Trudeau's first full day as leader had even begun, attack ads against him appeared on YouTube in English and French.

I'm reminded of that West Wing episode where the Bartlett campaign returns a "leaked" attack ad on Bartlett to the Republican campaign, who deviously turn it over to the media, claim they didn't create it and because the "story" of it being anonymously provided to the Bartlett people is "news" - the ad gets major free airtime on all the networks at no cost to the Republican campaign.  Now the Conservatives/Republicans don't even have to trick their political opponents into doing something to provoke media coverage, just post it on Youtube and it gets mucho coverage.

This is even worse though, the media is just volunteering to be gamed.  If the Conservatives aren't going to put money behind their ads to get them in people's faces, no one should be writing about them.  At least if an ad goes viral on Youtube by itself, then, sure, it's already news, discuss it.  This is ridiculous.  If more people are going to see something because of media coverage of it, then would see or hear of it otherwise, it probably shouldn't be covered.

And since I'm clearly in the realm of "shouting at the wind" here because the media's incentives are all wrong, the Liberals and NDP should take their cue from this and return the favour.  If the media wants to fill news hole with vacuous "someone made a practically zero cost attack ad" stories, better feed the beast because if you don't, the cynics on the right gladly will.

(I also can't help but think the gross budget cuts inflicted on the CBC are partly behind their sinking to the level of the for-profit media - not having enough reporters and editors to produce meaningful content that's worth talking about makes an outlet starved for content, these things cost money, and spending time talking about some video the Conservatives posted is free, your existing host can blather about it, you don't even have to send reporters anywhere, but it adds zero value to what Canadians know about politics).

Liberals Should Beware Emulating US Primaries

During the Liberal leadership debate over the weekend, several candidates, including Justin Trudeau and Joyce Murray came out in favour of what they're calling "open nominations."  The idea being that the Liberal candidate in each riding will be picked by the members of that riding association, and the national leader will not intervene.

This is an appealing idea for some obvious reasons and clearly popular among rank and file Liberal party members as a means to weaken the tight grip of the national leadership on the party.  I fear this takes the Liberal party toward US style party-primary elections.  I have two major problems with this, based on what I've seen watching US politics:

• Small, local elections are the easiest ones to buy or rig.  They get almost zero media coverage, and in that environment, sheer name recognition will usually carry the day.  Rather than being meaningful representations of true voter desires, the person whose name they recognize from ads or direct mail will usually win.  
• The people who win can be widely divergent from the National party's positions, and in particular the Leader's positions.  This sounds much better than it works in practice.  The US Parties, and the Democratic Party in particular are often incoherent and poorly coordinated affairs.  Voters frequently are confused over what the parties stand for, and the reason is at least partly because the Democratic party has elected officials who call themselves "conservative" and others "moderate" and a few that admit to being "liberal."  Some are pro-gun control, others against.  Some pro-choice, others pro-life. At some point a Big Tent becomes so big as to be just a circus, with the leader reduced to ringleader.

The fallout of this is that it has the perverse effect of decreasing democratic accountability by leaving voters without clear choices in government.  Right now the parties are fairly easy to distinguish, and to understand what they stand for.  The road the Liberals are going down leads to a leader unable to respond to members who openly flout the leader, and the loss of party discipline.  After, all if the leader can't deny a member the party's nomination in the next election, the biggest means of enforcing party discipline is lost.

I am all for giving ordinary members stronger input into the party's positions and ideology.  Having a set of Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson style gadflies who delight in spiting the leadership to side with other parties as splashy shows of independence is not an effective way to do that.  Parties need coherence in order to remain meaningful organizations that actually stand for something.  Reducing the Liberal Party to a 338 member confederacy may leave it an incoherent mess, and easy prey for the other parties that do not follow suit in immunizing their riding nominees from national control.

Joyce Murray for Liberal Leader

While I see some positives in Justin Trudeau, I will be voting for Joyce Murray.  Trudeau has taken the "safe" route for frontrunners in avoiding releasing very much policy and some of what he has said seems to put him on track to be something other than what Canada needs.  Murray believes in a vision of a sustainable society, including real action on Climate change, the overriding and growing crisis of our era.

Further she has taken a bold and courageous stand in supporting cooperation with the Greens and NDP rather than continuing to play the zero-sum game which allows the Conservatives to win elections despite strong opposition of a majority of Canadians.

I'm aware that Trudeau is overwhelmingly favoured to win and if he does, well I can hope that a strong show of support for Murray influences the direction he takes.  Politicians usually go where they think votes and donations are, and I have donated to Murray and will vote for her.

Removing Harper's lot from the levers of power will be the overriding priority in 2015, but who replaces them will matter a great deal.  I know my own vote for the Liberals in 2015 is not a done deal, and will depend a great deal on where the new leader takes the party for that race.  A cowardly Conservative-lite campaign is not what Canada needs.

Justin Trudeau

Pro:

• He appears to have won a tough nomination fight for the Montreal riding of Papineau back in 2007, and won the competitive seat held by a Bloc Quebecois incumbent (though historically a Liberal held seat) during a pretty bad election for Liberals in 2008, and subsequently survived the 2011 Liberal implosion.
• He backed longshot Gerard Kennedy, a pretty decent liberal, in the 2006 Liberal leadership race rather than the "safe" frontrunners of either Ignatieff or Rae.
• He has dual bachelors degrees from Canadian public Universities and has worked as a teacher, in both private and public schools.  
• I understand he's fluently bilingual
• It's not the biggest deal in the world, but facing down a stockier and younger opponent (and winning) shows some kind of mettle.
• He's not the US/UK Ivy league educated and former Goldman Sachs profiteer technocratic saviour that the remaining Liberal elites seem to be desperately courting, Stephen Harper's pick for Bank of Canada Governor: Mark Carney.
• I wouldn't put much stock in a flash poll finding that he'd win a federal election as Liberal leader, but it's of course good to start out as known brand that Harper's ad shop will have a difficult time defining negatively.

Con:

• It's undeniable we would not be talking about him as Liberal leader seriously if he was not his father's son.  Yes he is charismatic and so on, but it's difficult to imagine people would be half as aware of his charisma if he didn't have a famous name.  There probably are back-bench MPs who are charismatic but don't have that leg-up to household name recognition.
• What does he believe?  What kind of Liberal party would he lead?  What would his priorities be as Prime Minister?  His issues page is wafer thin.  He has my interest, and I take his support of Gerard Kennedy as a decent sign, but he has a ways to go to earn my support.
• At this point, it might be best for Canada that the Liberals pick a forgettable leader who leads them to a predicable 3rd place finish in the 2015 election.  There's a real danger of a giant NDP/Liberal vote split that keeps the Conservatives in power thanks to our antiquated first past the post voting system.  If you're a loyal party Liberal, you of course want the party to have the strongest candidate.  If you're a small-l liberal first, you want a progressive party in power and the more experienced Mulcair has to remain the more credible person to do that at this point.

Interesting/debatable:

• He conditionally endorsed the idea of a Liberal/NDP merger.  I'm disposed to be in favour of some kind of cooperation between these parties, and am glad he's at least open to it.  It also says something about his politics, as the Liberals who are against this tend to be the most conservative ones who still think liberalism is about repealing the Corn-Laws and letting invisible hands fix everything.  That said, I could be wrong, and it could be that a merged NDP-Liberal (NDP get top billing now as the bigger caucus) party pushes enough die hard NDP supporters Green, recent soft federalist Quebecois back to the BQ and blue Liberals to the Conservatives to still lose.  It has other potential downsides in the long term but I'm not going to give the topic a fuller treatment right now.

I'm going to need to read further on the Carney angle.  Right now my instinct is that keeping Canada out of the maw of the Vampire Squid is worth supporting a "legacy" pick who almost certainly cannot live up to his father's image and legacy (which are different from his father's actual record).  It could be an unfair impression but there are too many ugly signs on that book cover to ignore completely.