My attitude towards the forthcoming election has soured somewhat in recent days. Frankly, I think that the chances of another Liberal majority government are higher than they were if the election had been called a month ago (I’d say that there’s a one-third chance of a Liberal majority, a one-third chance of a Liberal minority, and a one-third chance of a Conservative minority). The balefulness of my mood has increased with a new insight into the Liberal campaign playbook that was revealed to me a few days ago.

The Liberals today are a lot like the segregationists of the old South. When they are secure they are free to hide their latent nastiness and campaign on platform which promise infrastructure and social spending. However, when their power is threatened, they are capable of sheer demagoguery on a grand scale.

On an average day, segregationism would be cloaked in the rhetoric of “state’s rights” (a deplorable gambit which has tarred by association many legitimate defenders of the rights of the states under the Constitution). However, when in trouble, the segregationists would resort to less temperate language and images.

In 1970, when he faced a strongly-contested primary in the race for Alabama Governor, Wallace distributed flyers which depicted young black men hovering over a white pre-teen girl, warning of what would happen were his opponent re-elected. Wallace won. Now that the Liberal’s power is threatened, I fully expect them to unleash equal nastiness upon the Canadian people.

Watch for the common use of the word “American” as an epithet in the coming campaign. Were I advising the Liberals, I’d strongly encourage them to refer to pretty much everything the Conservatives propose as being “American-style” and hope that the media picks it up (which, of course) they will. Warn that the Conservatives want “American-style” tax cuts which will force “American-style” health care while at the same time they will send your children off to die in “American wars.” You don’t have to walk past the massive displays of the traitor Michael Moore’s anti-American scribblings in virtually every bookstore in the country to tell you that such a gambit would have a very high chance of success.

In fact, there’s an example of just such a strategy being put into practice. After his government fell to a no-confidence vote in 1963, John Diefenbaker ran a campaign based almost entirely upon anti-Americanism which came very close to success despite the fact that the Progressive Conservatives were in disarray and his Cabinet had collapsed. We don’t even have to look back forty-one years to find out that such a strategy has a good chance of success: German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder used anti-Americanism to come from behind in the polls and win re-election in 2002.

People who really care about Canada’s relations with the United States are going to vote for the Conservatives anyways. But, by suddenly becoming the leading proponents of anti-Americanism the Liberals have a strong chance of peeling away both soft New Democrats and the United Empire Loyalist faction of the Conservative Party.

If I were a Liberal advisor, I’d tell Paul Martin to run this election against George W. Bush instead of Stephen Harper. I’d send out some of my mid-level surrogates to say negative things about the United States until some major conservative commentator down there says something about Canada in turn. Then I’d make sure that their anti-Canadian comments got as much play as possible and that any links between that commentator and the Conservative Party (there are bound to be some) are heavily played up.

This is a brilliant strategy because it works against both opposition parties. I suspect that anti-Americanism is one of the main reasons for the rise of the NDP. However, many hard-core anti-Americans could be seduced away by the promise of a government with anti-American policies versus that of an opposition party able only to shout anti-American slogans in the House. It would hurt the Conservatives even more dearly for the very obvious reason that a great many Conservatives are pro-American (and, more specifically, pro-Bush and pro-Republican) at a time when the United States, George Bush, and the Republican Party are rather unpopular among the Canadian public as a whole.

The only thing Conservatives can do is fight back as hard as we can and on as many fronts as we can. Perhaps we shall yet carry the day. If not, well, then it we not be the fault of those of us in the West and it will be time for us to consider other options.