Liberal Messaging

Since Peter Donolo took over, Liberal messaging has been 100 times better. Still, problems remain. The party badly needs an attack dog or dogs. Politics is a blood sport. You have to be prepared to give as good as you get. If the Conservatives want to dig up old quotes, the Liberals should do likewise. It is laughable that Conservatives have been able to play the nationalist card with quotes like these from Harper lying about.

"Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status"

"Any country with Canada’s insecure smugness and resentment can be dangerous."

The Liberals also need to start developing additional talking points aimed not at a broad audience but at political pundits, and political junkies. Above all else the party needs to challenge the legions of conservative columnists least various conservative position become received wisdom. Factual errors need to be pointed out, non sequiturs need to be mocked and detailed arguments provided. Again the party needs to be vicious. Ignatieff talks about wanting to the be the party that bases its decisions on sound reasoning and science. A good way of establishing such a reputation is take a conservative pundit out to the wood shed on occasion. When a conservative columnist retires the Liberals should share Trudeau's lament: "I'm sorry I won't have you to kick around any more." Darwin had Thomas Huxley; the Liberals need their own bulldog.

Lastly, the Liberals need to touch on hot button issues again. Since the 2006 election the Liberals have steadfastly avoided them. Politically this has been disastrous. Social issues have always been the Conservatives Achilles' heel. Of course, the ability of the Liberals to capitalize on such issues by just talking about them only goes so far. So long as the Liberals show an unwillingness to put forward socially liberal policies, the Conservatives are not likely to oblige the Liberals by talking about hot button issues. The Liberals have to put forward a socially liberal agenda in order to fully capitalize.