ThinkPol just today posted an article discussing why Lynton Crosby's wedge issue "dog-whistle politics" didn't seem to work here in Canada. Their main conclusion?
"On October 19, the good people of Canada did something to prevent evil from triumphing. They voted."
Then, of course there were the expected comments from some of the very same journalists who, mere days before, were endorsing either the Conservatives without Harper, or with him, or a hope that he might leave if we voted for him, or who knows. Their comments can be summarized like this:
Andrew Coyne opined that everything Harper were not outgrowths of conservatism. Dawg's Blog begged to differ.
Was it, as this article suggests, because Harper surrounded himself with people who wouldn't stand up to him. Interestingly, I understand this article was originally posted, then removed and is now available only from an archive copy. Who knows?
The election seems to have exposed a less tolerant underbelly of Canadian attitudes, as this article from HufPo suggests. The niqab issue would seem to highlight that point, as did some people's response to the Syrian refugee crisis. The Tyee also weighed in on this unhappy side of some of us.
It could be something in the Canadian psyche that caused us to respond to Harper's "fear and loathing" campaign tactics the way we did, as discussed here.
The NDP lost in a big way. This could be explained by voters swarming to the Liberals, seeing them as the best bet to defeat the Conservatives, or it could be the change in direction of the NDP that people disliked. The NDP, then, also has some self-analysis to go through, as discussed here.
These were at least some of the things that could explain what happened on October 19th. No doubt some of them are closer to the truth than others. I may post a few more in the coming days, but the reality is that, as a bumper sticker I saw some years ago put it: "End of an Error". It's over and it's time to move on. That's what coming posts will address.
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