The Coming Culture War?

 Ekos pollster Frank Graves told a Liberal gathering that it ought to impose a culture war on the Conservatives. According to Lawrence Martin of the Globe&Mail, Graves

..... has told the Grits that the wedge politics of the Conservatives provide them with an opportunity to stake out a stark alternative. Stop worrying about the West, he’s told them. No need to fear polarizing the debate. It’s what worked for Mr. Chrétien against Preston Manning and Stockwell Day.

In his advice, Mr. Graves could hardly have been more blunt. “I told them that they should invoke a culture war. Cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, secularism versus moralism, Obama versus Palin, tolerance versus racism and homophobia, democracy versus autocracy. If the cranky old men in Alberta don’t like it, too bad. Go south and vote for Palin.”

Graves, who is the CBC's go to guy for opinion polling, later apologized and tried to explain what he meant. Well sort of. According to another G&M article, Graves said, 'polling data shows the Conservative Party “does seem to provide a haven” for people with xenophobic or homophobic views.'

This, of course, dove tails nicely with people's ideological views of the Conservatives and previous scare tactics used by the Liberals. But Graves'assertions raise some important questions that Grave ought to answer.

First, xenophobia and homophobia are traits that defy political ideology. The Bloc and the Parti Quebec, for examples, are hardly sources for immigration friendly policies. And liberalized and secularized Quebec's tolerance and accommodation commission was little more than a podium for French-Canadian racist attitudes. The current Quebec Liberal governments pandering to anti-Islamic attitudes over the niqab is just a new incarnation of the same old attitudes.

Second, what does Graves mean precisely by homophobes and xenophobes? How is he measuring these attitudes and what is the statistical significance of his measure? Is Graves declaring people "homophobic" if they oppose teaching about homosexuality in grade 3 or does he mean something else. If you have legitimate concerns about immigration and refugee policy, are counted as xenophobic?

Second, what does Graves mean by "more" and by "empirically accurate"? Give us the numbers.

Third, where exactly do the Liberals, Bloc and NDP sit on Grave's scale of xenophobia and homophobia. What's the comparison?

Without numbers and data it's impossible to understand what Graves actually means. It would be possible to say, accurately and fairly, that the Conservatives attract more wackos than the Liberals or NDP even if it were only 1% more in comparative terms (although we all seriously doubt it's 1%).

Unless we have the hard numbers to review, it's impossible to know what Graves means and to evaluate its importance.

The accusation of xenophobia and homophobia originates in the Reform family values platforms of the 1990s. Preston Manning and the Reform Party used the social conservative trend as a wedge issue, working to divide support for the Progressive Conservatives, and expand beyond Alberta into rural Ontario. A political party will always vacuum up wing-nuts and extremists when it mines discontent and disenfranchisement for electoral gain.

Although Stephen Harper has successfully killed off or quarantined much of the wing of the party, so-cons still exert some influence and are therefore the soft underbelly of the Conservative Party. Conservative opponents love to poke the aging so-con lions through bars of their cage because the resulting roar makes excellent headlines.

ps: Chris Shelly of the National Post reports that G&M reporter Lawrence Martin stands by his claim that Frank Graves said that he told the Liberal Party about his strategy directly, which contradicts Graves' line that it was really "unsolicited advice" given to a newspaper reporter.