10.03.2012

Justin Trudeau’s Opening Speech Showed Why He's the Best Hope Harper's Got in the Next Election


After working all afternoon in the raspberry patch i sat down tired, sweaty and predisposed to enjoy Justin Trudeau’s speech announcing his run for the leadership of the Liberal party. Whadda bummer! The Globe and Mail said in an editorial this morning , "...the speech was no better than a D." They were being generous.

Justin's speech was one platitude after another, it had no substance, it offered no new ideas just an appeal to the virtue of being in the mushy middle. Maybe some of the terrible delivery and timing can be attributed to having 50% of it delivered by a correct by unemotive translator, maybe. Even when Justin touched on any policy topic he offered only tired old ideas. As Blair Williams said in his Ottawa Citizen editorial this morning, "The very traits that Trudeau possesses may mesh very well with the celebrity-seeking culture we live in. If our newscasts and the popular media are any indication, we want to be entertained more than we want to be informed or educated."

In my opinion, a Justin Trudeau Liberal leadership win would be the best thing that could happen for Harper's conservatives because Trudeau's rock-star status will garner enough media attention and enough unenlightened voters to insure Harper's opposition remains divided in enough ridings to keep him and his right-wing junta in power. Harper's supporters should be contributing as much money as possible to Justin's campaign, he's the best hope Harpo's got in the next election.

A few months ago, during the NDP leadership race, Harper's media machine launched a series of personal attacks on Bob Ray. At the time i couldn't understand why. Now though it seems that back then Bob Ray hadn't totally withdrawn his name from the race and the Harperites reasoned that he was the only potential Liberal leader with enough political savvy to make a deal with the NDP if Nathan Cullen had won and the NDP offered the Liberals an olive branch. As long as Canadians remain evenly divided between the NDP and the Liberals Harper and his oil industry benefactors will continue to rule. Divide and Conquer - a time tested successful formula for holding onto power.