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Tuesday March 23, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 23, 2021

O’Toole’s pitch to get Conservatives to embrace ‘change’ may be off to a shaky start

Erin O’Toole told Conservatives this weekend that their party must change — because if it doesn’t, he said, it won’t be able to win the votes necessary to defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in the next election.

May 2, 2019

And if the Liberals do win, he added, they’ll be able to implement their own changes — changes that O’Toole cast as frightening and potentially ruinous.

But O’Toole didn’t tell Conservatives exactly how they need to change. And then delegates delivered a potentially damaging vote on climate change policy that suggests his party base might not be ready to move very far.

O’Toole is on solid ground when he says the Conservative Party needs to try something different. His own polling numbers make that obvious. But so did the last federal election.

In 2019, Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives ran on an implicit promise to return to the policy agenda of Stephen Harper’s government. Scheer promised to smile more than his predecessor did but stopped short of offering a new approach — particularly on climate change.

June 23, 2020

The Conservatives won 34 per cent of the popular vote in that election. That was two points better than the party’s performance under Harper in 2015, but its national result in 2019 was inflated by the massive Conservative turnout in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In Ontario and Quebec — where 199 of the country’s 338 ridings are located — the Conservatives actually lost ground under Scheer.

A year and a half later, O’Toole’s Conservatives are sitting at 30 per cent nationally. And O’Toole’s personal approval rating might be even more of a problem.

August 25, 2020

According to survey results released by Abacus Data last week, 23 per cent of Canadians are committed to voting Conservative in the next election and another 23 per cent would consider voting Conservative.

But as the Abacus numbers point out, the differences between those two groups are substantial. Compared to those who have decided already to vote for O’Toole’s party, those potential Conservative voters are younger, more diverse, much more concerned about climate change and much less angry about Justin Trudeau.

September 1, 2020

O’Toole said his party must have a “serious” and “comprehensive” plan for climate change. But he doubled down on his criticism of the current federal carbon price and fell back on a framing that casts “the environment” as a discrete issue — as opposed to a broader view that sees climate policy as intertwined with almost all other areas of public policy.

“As important as climate change is, getting our economy back on track is more important,” he said.

In his prepared remarks, he said he wanted to defeat the “lie” that the Conservative Party is a party of “climate change deniers.” On Friday night and then again during a question-and-answer session with party members on Saturday afternoon, O’Toole declared that the “debate” over climate change is over.

But in between those two pronouncements came the news that Conservative delegates had rejected a resolution that would have declared that “climate change is real” and “the Conservative party is willing to act” — while committing the party to targeting high emitters and supporting innovation.

The headlines generated by that vote might be a serious setback to O’Toole’s goal of rebranding his party. Liberals will no doubt be happy to remind him of that vote at every opportunity in the weeks and months ahead. (CBC)

Sketch of being pulled back from the big kids’ pool

 

Friday February 7, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 7, 2020

Is Donald Trump America’s new normal?

November 16, 2019

The political fates are fickle. This was supposed to be Donald Trump’s worst week as America’s president, but it’s turned into his best.

This was supposed to be the week his impeachment trial exposed him as unfit to hold the highest office in the land, the week his abysmal record in the Oval office came back to haunt him and the week his Democratic opponents proved they’re ready to take him on in November’s presidential election.

None of it happened. The Democrats, who invested so much political capital into impeaching Trump, need to come up with Plan B. Their Plan A was a flop and the Democrats are stumbling just when they should be hitting their stride.

If you think Trump’s presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for the planet — and we know the vast majority of Canadians do — you should be worried by all this. Very worried.

October 10, 2019

Instead of signalling the death of his erratic presidency, Trump’s impeachment trial breathed new life into it. There was clear proof he pressured a foreign country — Ukraine — to discredit one of his potential political rivals — Joe Biden. We know he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last July. We know Trump was withholding $391 million (U.S.) in military aid to Ukraine, too.

Despite the damning evidence against him, it was always going to be an uphill struggle to convince two-thirds of the Senate, which is dominated by Trump’s own Republicans, to convict him. Trump’s acquittal was predicted. But because the Republicans blocked the testimony of key witnesses, the trial was a sham that discredited a once noble house of Congress.

As for the great American public, it largely tuned out from the televised tedium. No wonder Trump gloated. The latest Gallup poll gives him a 49 per cent approval rating from Americans, his highest score since being elected. And on Tuesday, the day before his Senate acquittal, Trump had the opportunity to sing his own praises in his annual State of the Union address, claiming undeserved responsibility for what he calls the “Great American comeback.”

November 2, 2019

Clearly the prevailing winds are at Trump’s back. What’s more troubling is they’re blowing in the faces of the Democrats. They were thoroughly embarrassed by the technical glitches that delayed the results from their Iowa caucuses Monday.

Far more seriously, the party is badly split, uncertain whether its path to victory runs through the moderate centre or the progressive left of the U.S. political spectrum. Nor would we recommend betting your house on an election win for any of the Democrats’ current crop of candidates, including the self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders or the leaden, former vice-president Biden.

As we look at an America and cherished American institutions that increasingly seem unrecognizable, we wonder if three years of Trump have succeeded in deadening the nation’s senses to the divisions and disruptions he has sewn at home and around the world. If you live with a clown long enough, maybe you’re comfortable in a circus.

Of course, we’re commenting partly on the events of one week. The election remains nine months away and Trump’s presidency could still end in a train-wreck. But Trump became president in 2016 with less than half of the popular vote and could do so again.

It will be up to American voters to rid their country and the world of this president. It will be up to the Democrats to choose a candidate who can convince the country to do this. Today, sadly, neither of these things is at all certain. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

Saturday March 24, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 24, 2018

An Election with no Centre

As Doug Ford was declared the new leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, critics and political opponents wasted no time portraying the new party chief as a radical, hard-right conservative who poses a threat to civil liberties and women’s rights.

November 28, 2017

A statement by the Ontario Liberal Party declared that Ford’s win signalled the Tories had “gone back in time to pick the most conservative leader they could find” and by selecting Ford had in part chosen “religious extremism over the rights of women.”

De Clercy noted that during the leadership campaign, there was little ideological distance among the candidates.

Kathy Brock, a political scientist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., said he has to bring together factions of the party and appeal to a broad base of voters.

“Doug Ford is a very politically astute person,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that he’s not going to say some things that are polarizing, but he also understands the need to build with different communities.”

June 11, 2014

Ford himself recently told CBC News that the party is “always going to be progressive” and “have a big social heart for a lot of social issues.”

Conservative strategist Jason Lietaer says Ford ran a relatively moderate, measured and practical leadership campaign. 

“It certainly wasn’t an ideological campaign other than a strong commitment to fiscal conservatism and low taxes.”

He said the Liberals are just engaging in fear-mongering, and that when voters start paying attention, they will ask themselves if Ford really looks like the “radical right-wing lunatic” his political opponents are making him out to be. (Source: CBC News) 

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Tuesday March 13, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 13, 2018

Christine Elliott concedes to Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford

Christine Elliott is conceding defeat to Doug Ford, congratulating the new Ontario Progressive Conservative leader and promising to run for the party in the June provincial election.

Her move brings to an end the extended drama of the party’s tumultuous leadership race, triggered six weeks ago by the sudden resignation of Patrick Brown amid allegations of sexual misconduct.  

Elliott initially disputed the results announced late Saturday, alleging “serious irregularities” in the voting. The party declared Ford the winner by a margin of just one percentage point.

But in a statement issued Sunday night, Elliott struck a conciliatory tone.

“Our team took the last twenty-four hours to review the results of an election that was incredibly close,” she said in the statement. “After completing my review, I am confident in the results. I extend my congratulations to Doug Ford on a hard-fought campaign.”

As CBC News reported first, Elliott initiated a meeting with Ford on Sunday afternoon. The pair met for “several hours,” according to a senior official on the Elliott campaign.

While the official said the campaign team believes they have a good case to dispute the result, the only recourse would be to go to court, and that is not something Elliott or her team want to do with the party facing an election on June 7.  

“Christine is choosing not to challenge this,” said the official. “Christine and the team were unanimous that this was the right way forward. The name of the game is unifying the party.”

“Ontario needs a Progressive Conservative government to finally defeat Kathleen Wynne,” Elliott said in her statement. “I look forward to running as a candidate.” (Source: CBC News) 

 

Friday October 26, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday October 26, 2012

How ‘Moderate Mitt’ might steal this election

Hope and Change offered by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney

What’s welling up in America’s ruling Democrats is not yet a full-throated scream of desperation.

But as Samuel Johnson famously remarked, the prospect of being hanged in a fortnight concentrates the mind wonderfully.

For the most part, Barack Obama’s supporters are still clutching the cloak, woven of equal parts optimism and moral certainty, that they wrapped around themselves four short years ago.

But the fear that their world is falling apart has begun to take hold. As it should.

Four Novembers ago, they were marching, led by the first biracial president-elect, a man who would, by his very appearance and preternaturally calming nature, restore the world’s faith in America and end the hateful, paralyzing polarity into which this country had descended.

I was in Chicago’s Grant Park to watch him accept the nation’s resounding verdict last election night. I count it among those rare moments of history that reporters occasionally get to witness.

Barack Obama fairly glowed with an aura of triumph and generational change, and soon after would promise to preside over a great “healing.”

How, then, did he arrive at the place from which he debated Monday night in the third and last of this election’s televised debates?

Resorting to rehearsed zingers and smallish attacks, as the rather awkward fellow who couldn’t even capture the Republican nomination four years ago sat, taciturn, across the desk, politely deflecting him? (Source: CBC News)