"One candidate believes in low taxes, gun rights and a strong national defense. The other has a dog named Kyoto and promises to levy a new carbon tax on industry. Any guess who is favored to win the Canadian federal election set for October 14?"
So began an editorial in The Wall Street Journal last week. The full endorsement of Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is here.
UK Conservative MEP Dan Hannan has also backed Mr Harper, in an article on First Post:
"At a time when virtually every incumbent government is suffering from the recession, his Tories might increase their numbers. Not bad when you remember that, in 1993, Canada’s Conservatives were left with just two MPs. So how did Harper do it? Well, he stopped fretting about the handful of Liberal-Tory floating voters, and went after the 40 per cent of Canadians who had stopped voting altogether. He shed his party’s Establishment image, and embraced an anti-politician, decentralist, tax-cutting agenda. His party duly lost support in the posher parts of Toronto, but more than made it up in suburban and rural Canada – including Quebec. ("There are guys out there who listen to French talk radio and French country music", Harper’s chief strategist told me). The result? Canada is becoming less like Scandinavia, more like the rest of the Anglosphere…"
The Globe and Mail notes how the Canadian Conservatives have put together a sophisticated database to help them reach voters:
"The Conservatives have enlisted neighbourhood leaders – sports team
coaches, community activists – to report information on voters to the
party’s data collectors and introduce potential supporters to party
campaigners, a technique known by its acronym of FRAN: Friends,
Relatives, Acquaintances and Neighbours."
Read the article here.
This website is great for tracking Canadian polls and this link will take you to PlayPolitical’s collection of Stephen Harper campaign ads.