Modeling Journey

Read this:

"Meanwhile, Montreal MP Marlene Jennings, who's been part of the Liberal-Conservative panel looking for a compromise on employment-insurance reform this summer, rattled off a whole list of issues this morning on which she said the government deserved to be defeated.

She said that Conservatives had not presented any ideas to the EI panel this summer, simply rejecting all the suggestions the Liberals brought to the table. Jennings compared the Conservatives to a "two-year-old child" refusing food being offered.
"It's time that Mr. Harper and his government started acting like a responsible government and act in the best interests of Canadians, which they have not been doing. And not just on EI — EI is not even the tip of the iceberg," Jennings said.
Last week, Senator David Smith, campaign chief for the Liberals, said they would not be provoking an election over EI this fall. Jennings said yesterday that there were plenty of other reasons to vote no-confidence in the government.

"Let's talk about the medical isotopes. Let's talk about the drought that farmers are living with, and having to leave their farms, give up life careers on that. Let's talk about the salmon disappearing out in B.C., millions of salmon disappearing and the government isn't doing anything. Let's talk about the fact that we have a deficit now — an import deficit that we haven't had in how many years, how many decades — under this government. Let's talk about 1.6 million Canadians who are out of jobs and this government is doing virtually nothing for them except saying 'no, no, no, no, no.' Well, the government needs to grow up. That's what they need to do," Jennings said.

Mississauga MP Paul Szabo says that it's not important for the Liberals to have just one reason to call an election - it's the collective picture of all the reasons.

"There's no one issue that is a critical mass to say an election is necessarily. But all of those things collectively paint a picture that the government cannot be trusted and there's no confidence that they have a plan to get us out of a structural deficit situation and to address the litany of problems that Canada has right now," Szabo said."

The Cat offers one suggestion to Paul Szabo: there IS one major reason to call an election – the issues is the mismanagement by the Tory government of a Canadian economy in crisis.

This one issue of mismanagement unites all the specific examples of such mismanagement, and also includes the manner in which the Tories are trying to govern the country (their inability to get all parties on the Hill to work together with them to help all Canadians).

So the theme of economic mismanagement of an economy in crisis covers not only what the Tories did in the past, but also what they are doing right now, and what they are not doing right now.

So this general theme (framing) of mismanagement of an economy in crisis allows Liberals to discuss with voters in the campaign the Tories' foot dragging, their inability to see what was coming our way, their refusal to face up to the need for swift, prompt, all-party-supported stimulus measures, their frittering away of billions on spending which will not position our country for the future, their reluctance to help the 1.6 million jobless Canadians and all those under-employed Canadians, their insistence that our cities match the stimulus funding, and their lack of information flow to Canadians about what jobs we can expect from the billions being spent; and, of course, their reluctance to address the methods to lessen the deficit in the future except by denying that anything needs to be done – the classic Tory avoidance of reality technique.

Frame the issue properly, repeat the framing each and every time, and then campaign on the framing issue.

Remember: The Liberal elephant that the Tories fear is the Tory mismanagement of an economy in crisis.

Tories might be OK to some Canadians in good times, but in bad times like now most Canadians (61% according to the polls) want some sound economic management right now.

Now let's talk about the Liberal elephant -from now until election day!