Ignoring Poilievre may or may not be good advice for Carney, but your analogy doesn't make your case. Scorsese's dismissal didn't stop Joker from earning $1.1 billion dollars at the box office, making it the biggest R-rated box office smash of all time. Nor did it stop Joker from getting five Oscar nominations including Best Picture and a win for Best Actor.
(Both Irishman and Joker are great films and Scorsese was put in a difficult position when asked to comment, since Joker was an homage to Scorsese, especially his King of Comedy. Whether or not Scorsese would have been so reticent if Phillips had been trashing him is the question.)
It is true that in an ideal campaign a party leader should remain above the fray and let their attack dogs do most of the dirty work. In Canada, this isn’t always possible due to the media’s impulse to degrade politics into a personality contest (And by “personality,” they mean the caricature they deliberately construct).
It's a bit more complicated than that in our multiparty system. So what are the leaders currently doing, and what should they be doing?
Pierre Poilievre, grifter that he is, has been running a pure grievance-based campaign targeting angry and low-information voters, the manosphere, seniors, the car-brained suburbanites, etc. Being an attack dog is his entire professional identity. It's worked up to a point, with inflation high (thanks in no small part to Conservatives joining the Liberals in blocking NDP affordability bills) and the carbon tax false-framing eagerly mainstreamed by compromised journalists. But now that Canada is under all out attack from Poilievre’s MAGA pals, he's desperately trying to shift and diversify by adding dashes of the vision thing. And face-planting. "Canada Last"? He's going to need better copywriters.
Mark Carney is running as a steady hand for a world in turmoil. He is a self-made Canadian who did good on the international stage and is now a returning saviour. And it's working. But then the cracks start to emerge: He has a delusion of a mythical "far left" threat; He cancels a wealth tax on super tax dodgers because wannabe broligarchs got to be free to do their "innovation" thang; He commits to an extra $50B/year for NATO (without mentioning development aid); He wants to lead a party filled with genocide supporters but won't touch the issue. Carney's honeymoon is rapidly coming to an end and he badly needs better advisors.
Jagmeet Singh is living in the moment and representing workers and unions, as an NDP leader should, but without fully taking advantage of the moment. As an NDP leader, Singh is faced with a far more hostile and discriminatory media landscape. If he holds the Liberals to account, he gets falsely slandered as "working with the Tories," so he's forced into a position of always criticizing Lib-Cons at once – admittedly not hard to do as they vote together so often. The issue is that voters are so low-information that they have no idea how close the Lib-Cons are in Parliament, they barely know how the electoral system works – so he has the additional task of patient educator. More than any leader, Singh needs to present himself as part of a government in waiting, push his deep bench into the spotlight (Heather McPherson, Peter Julian, Matthew Green, Alexandre Boulerice, etc. are all obvious cabinet material), and delegate the attack dog role to Charlie Angus and others. Singh would then be freed to present a grander, bolder vision for Canada: transformational climate infrastructure like high speed rail, electric regional rail, a Dutch style national safe cycling infrastructure fund, community centres for creative and cultural industries and workers. The NDP also needs to leverage their status as the only party opposed to genocide - a sleeping issue that could really turn out voters sick of Canada's complicity under the Liberals.
I am not steeped in the strategy and tactics of running political campaigns but wonder how much it matters what traditional media is covering. Not saying that it does not matter, however, it doesn’t seem that Mr. Polievre achieved his high standing in the polls due primarily to having his issues in the A slot on Power and Politics. Targeted social media posts seems to have been important. As well, focussing on local media rather than the big national media outlets would appear to be a key element of his strategy. And having a significant cross-Canada news purveyor like PostMedia very supportive of him must have an impact.
At the moment Carney seems to be following a similar path with focus on controlling media and social media access in order to find a way to frame his image as he wants it to be seen rather than as his opposition’s take. Moreover, is his concentration now not on those voting in the Liberal leadership race rather than the country at large? He will not have the luxury of building with the party first and then lots of time to direct his attention to the general public given the short campaign time and possible move to an election. However, if he controls his image effectively when winning the leadership, surely that will bleed out to the perception of the general public?
Ignoring Poilievre may or may not be good advice for Carney, but your analogy doesn't make your case. Scorsese's dismissal didn't stop Joker from earning $1.1 billion dollars at the box office, making it the biggest R-rated box office smash of all time. Nor did it stop Joker from getting five Oscar nominations including Best Picture and a win for Best Actor.
(Both Irishman and Joker are great films and Scorsese was put in a difficult position when asked to comment, since Joker was an homage to Scorsese, especially his King of Comedy. Whether or not Scorsese would have been so reticent if Phillips had been trashing him is the question.)
Scrimbag , you really would like the WEF running Canada . I'm sure most Canadians would not.
It looks like Canadians do not want Musk’s choice Pollievre running Canada.
It is true that in an ideal campaign a party leader should remain above the fray and let their attack dogs do most of the dirty work. In Canada, this isn’t always possible due to the media’s impulse to degrade politics into a personality contest (And by “personality,” they mean the caricature they deliberately construct).
It's a bit more complicated than that in our multiparty system. So what are the leaders currently doing, and what should they be doing?
Pierre Poilievre, grifter that he is, has been running a pure grievance-based campaign targeting angry and low-information voters, the manosphere, seniors, the car-brained suburbanites, etc. Being an attack dog is his entire professional identity. It's worked up to a point, with inflation high (thanks in no small part to Conservatives joining the Liberals in blocking NDP affordability bills) and the carbon tax false-framing eagerly mainstreamed by compromised journalists. But now that Canada is under all out attack from Poilievre’s MAGA pals, he's desperately trying to shift and diversify by adding dashes of the vision thing. And face-planting. "Canada Last"? He's going to need better copywriters.
Mark Carney is running as a steady hand for a world in turmoil. He is a self-made Canadian who did good on the international stage and is now a returning saviour. And it's working. But then the cracks start to emerge: He has a delusion of a mythical "far left" threat; He cancels a wealth tax on super tax dodgers because wannabe broligarchs got to be free to do their "innovation" thang; He commits to an extra $50B/year for NATO (without mentioning development aid); He wants to lead a party filled with genocide supporters but won't touch the issue. Carney's honeymoon is rapidly coming to an end and he badly needs better advisors.
Jagmeet Singh is living in the moment and representing workers and unions, as an NDP leader should, but without fully taking advantage of the moment. As an NDP leader, Singh is faced with a far more hostile and discriminatory media landscape. If he holds the Liberals to account, he gets falsely slandered as "working with the Tories," so he's forced into a position of always criticizing Lib-Cons at once – admittedly not hard to do as they vote together so often. The issue is that voters are so low-information that they have no idea how close the Lib-Cons are in Parliament, they barely know how the electoral system works – so he has the additional task of patient educator. More than any leader, Singh needs to present himself as part of a government in waiting, push his deep bench into the spotlight (Heather McPherson, Peter Julian, Matthew Green, Alexandre Boulerice, etc. are all obvious cabinet material), and delegate the attack dog role to Charlie Angus and others. Singh would then be freed to present a grander, bolder vision for Canada: transformational climate infrastructure like high speed rail, electric regional rail, a Dutch style national safe cycling infrastructure fund, community centres for creative and cultural industries and workers. The NDP also needs to leverage their status as the only party opposed to genocide - a sleeping issue that could really turn out voters sick of Canada's complicity under the Liberals.
I'm afraid Singh sunk his boat long ago. Sorry, but he is an ineffectual leader and needs to be replaced.
Singh sunk himself
Great advice.
Carney should resist getting sucked into Poilievre's manipulative framing.
So far, Carney has sounded suitably dismissive of Poilievre's ideas, albeit a bit slogany himself.
Note to Carney team: let Mark be Mark!
Edit: predominantly, not predominately.
I am not steeped in the strategy and tactics of running political campaigns but wonder how much it matters what traditional media is covering. Not saying that it does not matter, however, it doesn’t seem that Mr. Polievre achieved his high standing in the polls due primarily to having his issues in the A slot on Power and Politics. Targeted social media posts seems to have been important. As well, focussing on local media rather than the big national media outlets would appear to be a key element of his strategy. And having a significant cross-Canada news purveyor like PostMedia very supportive of him must have an impact.
At the moment Carney seems to be following a similar path with focus on controlling media and social media access in order to find a way to frame his image as he wants it to be seen rather than as his opposition’s take. Moreover, is his concentration now not on those voting in the Liberal leadership race rather than the country at large? He will not have the luxury of building with the party first and then lots of time to direct his attention to the general public given the short campaign time and possible move to an election. However, if he controls his image effectively when winning the leadership, surely that will bleed out to the perception of the general public?