'Gotcha' tactics alive and well and working in Canada
Updated Mon. Sep. 29 2008 8:58 AM ET
Sean O'Malley, CTV News
This just in. Olivia Chow, the incumbent MP for Trinity-Spadina in Toronto, has been caught by the political paparazzi hopping into a limo after one of her events on Sunday. So says Liberal incumbent MP Jim Karygiannis in an email to campaign reporters that includes the offending photos. "While Jack and the NDP state that they support the people of Main Street," he says, "they get around like Wall Street tycoons." Who knew?
For the record: Chow's office says that, as the wife of party leader Jack Layton, RCMP security issues prevail when choosing her mode of transportation ... just another day on the election desk.
With debate season upon us north and south of the border, and the prime minister last week decrying "gotcha" journalism on the campaign, it is time to disabuse Canadians of any smug notions we may have that the content and tone of political debate in this country is more honest and less sleazy than in America.
The United States is rightfully known as the nonpareil when it comes to knee-in-the-crotch politics. Even casual followers of the political scene remember some of the puss-filled attacks that changed the course of presidential campaigns. It has become conventional wisdom that the "Willie Horton" ads used in the campaign of Bush the elder in 1988 helped turn a large Michael Dukakis lead in the polls into defeat on Election Day. Willie Horton, for those of you who don't recall, was a black convict who raped a white woman while on a weekend furlough in Gov. Dukakis's home state, Massachusetts.
Like father like son: Bush junior's campaign played the race card in South Carolina in the 2000 Republican primary to hold off a resurgent John McCain, spreading rumours that his adopted child from Bangladesh was in fact an illegitimate black child. We will never know, but it is possible that without those appeals to American racism, neither of the Bush men would have ever become president.
This year, John McCain has hired many of the shaved elbow apparatchiks who worked for Karl Rove and company to defeat him eight years ago. The result? A widely panned ad showing Obama with a dumb smirk on his face that makes the argument that he supports sex education for children before they are old enough to read. The sliver of truth to that was that Obama pushed for programs that street-proofed young children to the dangers of sexual predators, but the intent again was to portray him as a Willie Horton liberal.
We like to think we are above that kind of thing here, but if we are it is not by kind, but by degree.
In the last federal election, Paul Martin's Liberals were rightly mocked for a TV ad that implied that a modest Harper proposal to station some soldiers near major cities to assist in rapid response to a civic emergency like a flood or forest fire was in fact part of a stealth effort to turn Canada into a military dictatorship. Never mind the insult to Canada's military, the suggestion was simply ludicrous and Canadians saw right through it.
But Harper is not immune to these base instincts it showed last week. The campaign started with a warmer and more compassionate Harper, who quickly turfed senior campaign insider Ryan Sparrow for questioning the motives of the father of a soldier who died in Afghanistan when he spoke out against Harper's pledge to end the combat part of the mission in 2011.
But last week the veneer of civil discourse cracked. Harper claimed that Dion was "cheering" for a recession, echoes of John McCain's claim that Obama was willing to lose a war to win an election. Harper cannot possibly believe Stephane Dion wishes economic devastation for millions of Canadians any more than McCain believes Obama wishes death and defeat for American soldiers on the battlefield.
Canadians can judge for themselves the truthiness of that claim, but they should rightly see Mr. Harper's complaint that his party is the victim of "gotcha" journalism for the pot-calling-the-kettle-black politics it is.
That's because there are at least two levels of war room correspondence in this campaign. There are the official statements distributed to all media and posted on their website for all Canadians to see and judge for themselves. But there are also the unofficial emails that go only to political reporters.
It was one of those unofficial "just between you and me" emails to CTV that got Mr. Sparrow in so much trouble. By spinning reporters directly in this fashion, the hope is that the reporter will work it into his or her story so it appears that they did the muck-raking on their own instead of having it done on their behalf by political operatives and the Conservatives do it better than anyone.
Not to say that the Liberal war room has been above the fray in this regard. When Winnipeg Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes was revealed to have peddled the hoary conspiracy theory that some Jews were given a "heads up" about the 9/11 attacks, they tried to wag the dog by alerting the media to Calgary incumbent MP Lee Richardson's Archie Bunker-style musings on immigrants and crime in an interview with a local magazine.
That was the "gotcha" journalism Prime Minister Harper was referring to specifically this week for public consumption. But at the same time, the Conservative war room sought to level the playing field by sending out quotes made in years past by Liberals that they hoped would be seen as just as ugly as what Mr. Richardson was quoted as saying.
So for Mr. Harper to decry the same kind of gotcha journalism his war room is engaging in is a bit rich, but here is hoping that when the leaders debate this week they rise above the "I am rubber, and you're glue" level of debate we saw last week.
Sean O'Malley runs the election desk for CTV News.
Comments are now closed for this story
Blah I am sick of this already. GO HARPER.I won't change my mind no matter what any one throws at me.I like the way things have gone the last couple of years, I think we may be in for some tough times and I think Harper is the only one that can get us through it.I know the opposition is going to be digging for anything they can throw at him.So I don't blame him for the tit for tat thing he is doing at all.And damn it, Harper and his wife look good.HAHA,That will make people angry.
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As if the coming of fall in this country isn't bad enough, the mood that fellow citizens are in, is horrible. I work with the public daily. I have never feared the thought of putting a political sign on my lawn, like I do now. The campaign that Mr. Harper is running is by far the culprit. Every time I see one of his television ads, I cringe. It is bullying tactics like this that fuel the AVERAGE citizen's anger on past parties' governments, leaving the voter with no mind to rationalize what is truth and what is brainwashing. It is not the type of behaviour that is admirable in any party, let alone a so called strong leader. It will be a dark day in hell if I would ever support for anyone or any party that shows that as their main agenda. Where is the ethics committee? Accountability my ass!
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What amazes me is that we don't hear more from the media about how Harper tries to control them. Locally many of Harper's MPs are not even allowed to talk to the media. It just shows how much of a control freak Mr. Harper is.
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I hope Canadians are smarter than to buy into this "gotcha" crap. Politicians are people, and EVERYONE has baggage. If the people of this ountry are as Liberal as they claim, maybe a bit of tolerance and "live and let live" attitude should be more prevalent. I am voting Harper because he has the best policys, is the best leader, and is not buying into "the sky is falling" BS that seems to have gripped the Liberal Party. I've voted Liberal and Conservative federally, and even voted NDP once provincially. It comes down to who can offer the most rational plan. The Liberals have gone off the rails, and the Conservatives have a balanced budget, with a tidy 3 billion dollar surplus. All this "gotcha" crap, in effect, could hurt this country by misleading the common voter. It's up to the media to have the integrity to report what's important, and leave the quick headlines to the "gossip papers".
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When are the various journalists creating these blog stories going to give some coverage of the NDP policies, platforms, election performance. Thus far, I keep reading articles on the Conservatives and the Liberals. If there is any mention of the NDP, it is typically like this one where there is some hokey couple of lines on some totally inconsequential item that then leads into a more substantive discussion of other parties' items.
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Give me a break. If Gotcha politics is working why on earth are the Liberals tanking?
The conservatives and NSP have both had exposure to gotcha through missteps, misquotes and innacurate portrayals.
Olivia Chow is somehow not about the values the NDP promotes.
I mean give me a break, I am no where near a lefty and I can see through this stupid facade by a desparate liberal who points to a limo as some sort of indication that she has abandoned her principals?
The problem with this accusation is that most of the liberals think it would be nice if they had the driver and the nice car.
Mainstreet does not believe the Liberals when they jump out from behind the curtains and say See? I told you?
When it comes to purity of principal the Liberals remind us all more of a story called the emperor's new clothes.
As that little fable evolves in modern times the people watching the parade say "look at the Liberals, they haven't learned a thing about why we gave them a time out"
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Perhaps Mr. Harper's suggestion that Mr. Dion was "cheering" for a recession was a little hyper but he was responding to Mr. Dion's suggestion that our economy is unsound like the American's and that it is Mr. Harper's fault when he well knows that our financial system does not have the problems the American's has and the only way we will be affected is if our American customers are no longer able to buy our products. The latter is not something a Canadian government can control. Which shows Mr. Dion is willing to stretch the truth all out of shape to fool some voters. You forgot to mention that part.
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Why is it that the only thing Libs have to say on these forms are that the Conservatives are running a nasty campaign - they are running a very good positive campaign - professional, understandable, steady leadership and they are telling the truth about the others on the left regarding taxes and how their platform will sink our economy. PM Harper is a really nice guy. I am a female voter and feel very secure and extremely happy to vote for the Conservatives and put a really big Conservative sign on my front lawn, a sticker on my car - the only thing I really want is that sign I saw in Ajax that read "I've got a crush on Harper". He is the best leader ever.
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Limos aside, I seem to recall that when Mr. Layton first went to Parliament, it came out that he was living in what amounted to subsidized housing in Toronto. It was some sort of favourable rent-controlled building.
Does he still live there or have he and Ms Chow, with a combined income somewhere around $300,000 a year, moved, thereby freeing that unit for someone with limited means?
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Despite all this side stuff, the real issue for me is the economy. I have been pleased with Mr. Harper's handling of economy this last couple of years. I have made up my mind, and the Tories will have my vote. We should not be risking grandoise "green shift" plans, when we should be concentrating first on surviving a world economic, political and religious crisis. First things first.
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I agree that "gotcha" politics are irrelevant and tiresome. So why does the media report them? If they didn't work so well, they wouldn't be used so frequently. The media loves to report that politicians and their hypocrisy. Unfortunately, the media is an enthusiastic participant.
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The problem is we are going through a time of cultural change where the old does not understand the new. An example is the Republicans sinking the bailout out even though it was a Republican president and Republican leadership who endorsed it. Non leadership Democratics sided with their non leadership counterparts. Harper is the new culture and Dion is the old - to the old the new is somehow suspect. Just like in the 60s where anyone listening to Rock and Roll was lazy, immoral, dirty and probably taking drugs! harper said "virtually" as a summation of the backward economics of Dion.
Reporters should have listened to the content not looked for a gotcha.
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This Gotcha journalism is mostly a canadian invention. It has been perfected by the CBC all the way back to Joe Clark's missing luggage.
The most blatant examples of "news" in which the sole purpose is to smear a candidate are CBC's recent Palin attacks and their attack on Stockwell day for his religious beliefs.
Long gone are the days of proud unbiased journalism. In fact the only real newscaster left is Canada is CTV's own Lloyd Robertson.
As far as the Bush ads mentioned in this article. The Horton ad is fair game as race had nothing to do with being soft on crime. The Illegitemate Child was never linked to the Bush JR. Campaign, but nice try for some good old canadian gotcha journalism.
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