According to an article in The Globe and Mail, the Conservatives are planning to stoke fear about the Liberals because they might form a coalition with “socialists and separatists.”
The article does a good job explaining the potential damage such a campaign could do to the Conservatives in Quebec, but it misses some other important ways that demonizing the coalition could really hurt the Conservative party.
While it might serve to fire up the Conservative base, it’s a strategy that could blow up in their face. The Liberals and NDP can easily counter it by: a) reminding voters that it’s a strategy that Stephen Harper tried to use, so he sounds incredibly hypocritical now that he is on other side and b) reminding voters of all the reasons the coalition came into existence in the first place – gross mismanagement on the part of Harper and the Conservatives.
Finally, the opposition parties will be able to remind voters that the coalition worked – it forced Harper to enact legislation that he would never have dreamed of enacting had the coalition not been forcing his hand.
For those reasons the Liberals and the NDP might be relishing the idea of this new Conservative election strategy.
