On high-risk maneuvers

When word first came out about the Libs' planned carbon tax, my comment was that the Libs would be best served to make it clear that their plan wouldn't in fact claim to somehow benefit everybody (and particularly those who are most affected by increased fuel prices). The strategy with the best chance of dividing and conquering the Cons' territory would have seen the Libs recognize who's likely to gain and lose under their plan, looking to push a large class of clear winners - particularly urban voters who already live a lower-emission lifestyle - into the Libs' column, while setting up the Cons to also lose ground to the NDP by ensuring that those who lose out would be no more pleased with the Cons' stance on current fuel prices than with the carbon tax.

Unfortunately, the Libs are instead pretending to be all things to all people. And the result doesn't look to be a good one for either the Libs as a party, or for the likelihood of taking down the Harper government:

Dion will claim most Canadians – particularly low-income earners, the elderly and rural residents – would get back more in tax savings than they would be paying in higher energy costs under his "green" economic blueprint, sources say...

Sources said the plan will provide special assistance for rural residents, the elderly, natives and others who might feel the impact of higher energy prices disproportionately. To help protect low-income earners from the rising costs of fuel and food, a Liberal government would bring in more "refundable" tax credits, which produce payments for those who don't have enough income to pay taxes.

It's fair enough to say that the plan might have to attempt to account for disproportionately affected Canadians to at least some extent. But the Libs' attempt to claim that Canadians already hard hit by high fuel prices will actually benefit from their plan looks awfully dangerous.

After all, a simpler plan which didn't claim to overcompensate for its own aim at reducing emissions would have led to a far easier sales pitch. Rather than having to deliver what are bound to be contradictory messages to the effect that disparate and contrasting types of voters would all magically benefit from their plan, they'd instead be able to take a consistent stance about what their plan would do.

And it's not as if the Libs couldn't have defended that type of move on principle. Given that the entire carbon tax scheme is based on the premise that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced, surely the argument could be made that that it's fair to reward those who have made efforts to avoid greenhouse gas emissions at some cost to those who haven't.

Instead, the Libs are going out of their way to avoid admitting that anybody stands to lose out. And if they're not willing to acknowledge who's going to draw the short end of the stick under what's supposed to be a significant societal shift, then it'll be far easier for Harper to sow doubt that anybody will actually benefit from the plan either - which means that the Libs will have to work harder just to defend their current turf.

Mind you, it's not hard to see what the perceived upside of the strategy might be. After all, any clear dividing line between winners and losers under the plan would likely create enough of the latter to effectively rule out a Lib majority. In contrast, the groups singled out as beneficiaries of largesse under the shifting scheme are ones where the Libs probably do have room to gain enough votes to get near a majority if all else breaks in their favour - and if they're able to deliver a spectacularly effective campaign to avoid the contradictions in their own message.

But there's the rub. There's no apparent reason to think that Dion personally is anywhere near up to the game of political whack-a-mole which he's being asked to play: so far he's had trouble selling even simple messages, which makes it highly doubtful that he can manage to convince contrasting groups of voters that they're all on the right side of the carbon tax scheme. And any failed attempt to do so figures only to test the limits of whether his public perception can fall even further, as his list of faults would expand to include blatantly dishonest pandering.

In sum, faced with a choice between a consistent plan which would present the best opportunity to take down the Cons, and an all-or-nothing gambit which gives Harper a far better chance of both maintaining power and winning a majority, the Libs seem to have decided on the latter. And if that decision proves as dangerous as it looks now, then the Libs' willingness to prop up the Cons over the past year may be the least of the gifts they ultimately wind up giving to Harper's conservative crusade.