Biological Clocks And The Worst Way To Make A Point
On Poilievre’s Comms Disaster
The fundamental tragedy of Kim Campbell is she was right, and it doesn’t matter.
When Campbell uttered the famous “An election is no time to discuss serious issues” quote, she was right. Election campaigns are about soundbites and visuals and utter nonsense that they shouldn’t be about. When I beg for Carney to tell us whether he’s a Fully Completely or 5 Days in July guy, I’m not saying it because I think any Canadian should care about his dad rock tastes, but because we know that amorphous traits of likeability and perceived normalcy are important.
Jack Layton broke through in 2011 in large part because he was affable, even though many who voted for him were completely unaware of what he stood for beyond vaguely being left wing. Seriously, how many English Canadians do you think knew Layton would let Quebec separate on a 50%+1 vote, no matter how vague or spurious the question? Not many, I’d bet.
The problem for Campbell is that she made a reasonable point in the worst possible way, which brings us nearly to today’s controversy, Biological Clock-Gate. Is Pierre Poilievre correct that some couples delay having kids until they’re financially stable enough to properly raise their kids? Yes. Are housing costs a big reason why financial stability is so far away for many under 35s and under 40s? Yes. Is it reasonable to frame lowering housing costs and the reforms to achieve that as pro-family policies? Yes.
Does saying that he will stand for women “whose biological clock is running out faster than they can afford to buy a home and have kids” communicate those reasonable points? Fuck no, all it does is make him sound like a lunatic. And at a time when the Conservatives are under scrutiny not just for the points they make but their word choice, tone, and tenor, it’s a fuckup.
Should it, in an ideal world where people have perfectly calibrated priorities, matter more than Paul Chiang’s now-ended candidacy? No, but we don’t get to choose what should matter in a democracy. I made the fairly banal observation that the Liberals have come back from much worse scandal to win in 2019 and that I don’t get why people think this one is a game changer, but that doesn’t mean it’s not bad.
(On Chiang, who dropped out last night - the three nightly tracking polls now have samples that are entirely post-*comments*, and none of them show any problem. Whether “Teachable Moment” and the decision to stand by him will matter is unclear and we’ll need to wait till Thursday to see it, though with the tracking polls being very good for the LPC right now a slight narrowing the next two days will not necessarily mean it’s Chiang related. That said, good riddance.)
The problem for Poilievre is that too many people are treating this quote from Poilievre in a vacuum, one that ignores two basic principles - that the same words spoken by different people play differently, and that a political party that has never cared about context or good faith readings of quotes doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt. The political party that screamed about Trudeau’s “the budget will balance itself” quote when the first half of the fucking quote was “The commitment needs to be a commitment to grow the economy” in the context of Conservative claims there was no structural deficit doesn’t get to say “well #actually” here.
On the other point, it’s a fact of basic reality that certain messages are communicated better, or more accurately heard better, when delivered by some people than others. Talk to any woman and ask them how they feel about a random guy complimenting their dress - it comes off a lot different if it’s an effeminate gay guy with a high pitched voice doing it than if the person doing it sounds like the beginning of being hit on. Hell, to be more blunt, there’s a reason there’s memes about what is acceptable if you’re hot and what is unacceptable if you’re not. It’s always been the case that messenger matters as well as message.
Does Poilievre have much good will with female voters to get away with this? No, according to every poll he doesn’t. The problem is, Poilievre’s burned a lot of that goodwill by taking so long to say he supports the child care deals, by tolerating pro-life members of his caucus, and by generally being an asshole. Now, are there going to be many millennial women who look at that as a crass but true statement? Sure, because he’s not wrong on the substance of the point. But it’s just so off putting.
The problem for Poilievre is that he’s much more comfortable politically talking about our history, or about very online things. There’s a lot of stereotyping in this, but there’s a reason that History Dads and Crypto Bros are two reductionist stereotypes. Poilievre is both of those things, and that’s true whether you view those monikers as insults or compliments. But it’s not shocking that his touch isn’t great.
This guy tagged everyone of his YouTube videos with an incel hashtag for years. He’s someone who admits to going down YouTube rabbit holes when he sleeps. He’s someone who spends a lot of time in male-dominated spaces online. That doesn’t inherently make you a sexist - I’m a sports sycophant, and as much as it’s getting less male dominated it’s still pretty male heavy - but it does run the risk of making you forget that not everybody talks the way you do. The problem is that this isn’t me forgetting to stop asking people to “sauce” me something when out at a dinner, it’s a national campaign.
The problem for Poilievre isn’t that this is terminal, because it is not. I have been clear that the gaffes of Week 1 by Carney were never going to resonate, and with the Bloc falling further and further every day and the Liberals’ rising, it’s clear I was right. It’s not that this is terminal, it’s that it’s another day wasted by the Conservatives when they’re losing. Any day you’re losing, a draw works for the guy winning. This week is shaping up to be pretty hard for the Conservatives because of the nature of Liberation Day. If Carney gets a reprieve he’s strong and worth re-electing. If he doesn’t, we need to elect him to deal with the threat of Trump. It’s a nifty catch-22 that fucks the Conservatives. And now they have to clean this up.
With the NDP collapsing and the Bloc handing Liberals gains by the bushel in Quebec, the Conservatives have to be near perfect to win. Biological Clock-Gate is a sign they’re not. The Tories are losing, and by a lot. They cannot afford to waste time, but they threw away a day with this. If they’re smart they’ll keep the damage at 1 day.
Nothing I’ve seen from this Tory campaign can be considered smart, though.
With some humility and empathy Poilievre could turn his biological clock moment into an opportunity. He could start today’s press conference with:
“Well, that was awkward. Anaida told me that it is never a good idea to talk about other people’s biological clocks. As usual, she is right. But that does not mean that the problem is not real. Right now couples are delaying getting children because they are not in the financial situation where they feel they can afford children. Recently I met Ellie and George in Milton, they are not sure they will ever be in a financially stable situation to have children. I want to help Ellie and George. Ellie and George deserve our help. Here is how common sense Conservatives will do this etc. etc.”
But that requires admitting a mistake, requires somewhat of an apology. And Pierre is not big at these things as he believes they make him look weak. The problem of a one dimensional candidate.
I’m actually a big proponent of the idea that elections should be about general personality and principles, rather than policies. We’re electing people for 4-5 year stretches, and we have no idea what will occur.
In the 2019 election, no one was running on what their policies would be in a global pandemic. In the 2021 election no one cast their vote based on who would best defend our sovereignty against the USA.
Even if I like a candidate’s policies, six months later outside forces might render them unworkable. That’s life. I want a candidate that I can trust to adapt and adjust