Distracted by corruption reprise

Life has been keeping me busy with other things than blogging the last few months. But while my life has been progressing – I now live in a new city and have a new job – other things have, unfortunately, not changed.

The Conservatives are still screwing up.

They are so preoccupied with Liberal corruption that they are falling into behaviour similar to that which they condemn. Last time it was Grewal. This time it is Brian Pallister.

To help me ease back into this, I am going to reprint an earlier post from my Random Notes blog in early June, which the provider so thoughtfully decided to erase. The central point still holds: Canadians know the Liberals are corrupt, but if they are ever going to vote for the CPC, they want to know how the party will govern.

Distracted by corruption

Enough already. If Canadians have not figured out that the current Liberal government is corrupt, they don’t want to figure it out. There is more than enough evidence for any rational person to make up their mind about it. It is time to move on to other things.

The last thing the Conservatives need is to be making stuff up. All the credibility they have earned on the corruption issue is down the drain if the Grewal tapes have been doctored. All those tasty tidbits implicating Tim Murphy and Ujjal Dosanjh will be forgotten if it is true.

Once again the ball was in the Conservatives court and they hit it straight into the net. The Harper team is proving to be a bunch of amateurs. You cannot score points like that.

In my view, the Conservatives’ preoccupation with corruption is a big distraction. Sure, Canadians are concerned about Liberal corruption. But they also want good government.

Not being Liberal is not enough to get elected. Canadians want to know what you will do if you are elected – what you will do for Canadian families, what you will do to restore democracy and stop corruption, what you will do to deliver value for our tax dollars.

Given that more than half the electorate somehow considers the Conservatives to be “scary,” it is all the more imperative that you communicate your vision for the country. So what if the Liberals steal a few of your policies. If they adopt your policies, they can hardly accuse you of being scary.

It is going to take time for Canadians to become comfortable with the Conservatives. However, there will not be enough time if you wait for an election before telling Canadians what you are about. You have established that the Liberals are corrupt. Now is the time to talk about how you would govern.