I was looking over John Duffy's excellent book Fights of Our Lives yesterday to see if I could find any paralells between this campaign and past ones. Seem a good example might be 1957, where Diefenbaker defeated a tired, overconfident Louis St. Laurent. Dief, of course, won a minority government that year, and went on to a landslaide majority a year later.
Obviously, it's too early to tell. But the omens for the Tories are nothing but good. But one line from the book struck me as particularly noteworthy. In fact, it's the very first sentence of the book, and it's only two words long: Elections matter. This campaign is living proof of that. It is why predicting election outcomes, while loads of fun, is an excercise in futility. All predictions are is examining past behaviour, applying it to the present, and assuming it will happen again. None one could have predicted that the Liberals would be running a Kim Campbell-esque campaign. No one. These guys are supposedly the best. Long institutional memory, latest techniques and technology, advice from James Carville, blah blah blah. It all means nothing. Elections matter, and a great campaign from one side combined with a disastrous one on the other + a desire for change = major movement.
I hope John Duffy updates his book to include this campaign -- and after Jan. 23 I have a feelingn he will the time to.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:31 AM
