If you’ve read any Conservative attacks lately, you may have noticed the Harper gang has a new favourite word: elite.
Over the course of the past year, that five-letter word — defined by the Miriam Webster dictionary as “the best of a class” — has become a go-to.
In fact, elite and its cousin, elitism, have repeatedly crept into a multitude of Conservative speeches and emails to supporters. The party’s No. 1 “elite” target: Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.
However, while the Conservatives have lambasted the Liberal leader for his class standings, Trudeau is not the only target on the party’s elite radar. Journalists, or rather, as the party’s fundraising director Fred DeLorey put it, the “urban media elite,” are also being targeted.
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In an Aug. 26 email, DeLorey begged party supporters for $5 donations to fight against an Ottawa press corp that the party accused of “mobilizing against us.”
The email, DeLorey wrote, was triggered after Toronto columnist Heather Mallick wrote a column for the Toronto Star comparing Justin Trudeau to Stephen Harper.
So what does this expansion of the Conservatives’ vocabulary mean?
Conservative attack ads are nothing new. The familiar practice has become so commonplace within the party rank and file that the negative barbs have evolved into some kind of protective shield, rolled out whenever the Conservatives feel threatened or see a potential threat.
With an election looming, that threat is undoubtedly Trudeau, whose Liberals continue to surge in the polls.
And while the Conservative fundraising system is a well-oiled machine that pulled in more than $18 million last year compared to the Liberals $7 million, the Liberals have since overtaken the Conservatives in membership numbers.
There’s no question Conservative attacks have worked in the past. Remember, Conservative barrages against Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff — the latter who was always “just visiting” — played a role in at least two Liberal electoral defeats.
It would be natural, then, to assume similar attacks would work against Trudeau. If the dictionary is correct, Trudeau is an elite. As the son of a former prime minister, he is in a league of his own in terms of wealth and social status.
And thanks to an unfortunate break-in at his home, everyone now knows he lives in Ottawa’s Rockcliff Park, an exclusive neighbourhood favoured by Ottawa executives and top political hacks, including several Conservatives.
It’s a far cry from the down-to-earth ways of the Conservative base made up of farmers, blue collared workers and the like.
Still, one cannot help but notice the irony rooted in the Conservative’s “Trudeau is elite” argument.
After all, this is the party whose scandals include former Conservative senators with questionable expense claims, accused of using their positions of power to manipulate taxpayer dollars to their benefit.
But back to Trudeau, the elite thorn in the Conservatives’ side who has managed to dodge every bullet the Conservatives fire his way.
Conservative attacks against him simply aren’t sticking.
Despite the mud flinging and the personal accusations that Trudeau is “in over his head,” the polls tell a different story.
The ineffectiveness of the Conservative barbs is likely two-fold.
First, Trudeau has never denied he comes from privilege, an upbringing he’s often characterized as “fortunate.”
Then there are his people skills. Like him or not, one cannot deny Trudeau has an uncanny ability to charm a crowd. Any crowd. Even in the Conservative heartland, the young Liberal leader has managed to draw the attention and curiosity of hundreds.
Compare that to the prime minister and it’s a different scene altogether. While the prime minister has been said to be the life of a party, particularly in small intimate settings, it’s a side of him few have been allowed to see. This, one might add, despite pleas for more access from reporters barred from such events, which are often banquets for Conservative supporters or receptions on Parliament Hill.
If the warning signs are true, the 2015 election is going to be a political race like none this country has ever seen. For the first time, the scandal plagued Conservatives’ near decade long reign is at risk.
They are vulnerable on all sides, and with Trudeau managing to brush off gaffs of his own (his comments at a women’s event last November on China come to mind), the Conservative commanders are wary.
It’s going to be nasty.
