- Sadly, the Libs have declined to participate. But as Susan Delacourt notes, the adult conversation on the Canadian political scene includes a discussion on ground rules to make coalitions and other arrangements work. (Though I wouldn't go quite so far as to say parties should defer entirely to the panel discussion rather than including it as an important factor in determining how best to represent their constituents.)
- While the appeal of a strategy based on narrow segmentation is fairly obvious for most political parties, I'll second Paul Adams' assessment as to what figures to cause the next major shift in federal politics:
The parties are fishing in the diminishing pool of voters, and in doing so largely neglecting the concerns of non-voters, which is likely further to alienate them from the system and reinforce their behaviour. The recent vogue for negative ads plays into this even further. We know from American research that negative ads work in large part not by winning voters over, but by persuading potential voters for the other guy to stay home.- Meanwhile, John Ibbitson makes the converse point that every factor that serves to turn off voters can be reversed if people make the effort to support alternatives.
Politically, this phenomenon of ever more feverish attempts to cultivate those made of such robust stuff that they still turn out to vote, seems to be treated by the parties as more or less inevitable. But doesn’t it seem obvious that the political future will belong to whichever party or politician is able to tap this growing pool of non-voters?
- And finally, who says a party can't have a sense of humour during a campaign?
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