CANADIAN ELECTIONS: CARBON TAX SINKS LIBERALS AND GREENS

ELECTION 2008 - Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca

If Mr. Harper’s big campaign error was blowing potential gains in Quebec, Mr. Dion’s was building a campaign around the Green Shift.

Electorally, it was a shift that simply didn’t work for the Liberals. It shifted old supporters out of the party in fear that it would raise their energy costs, but did not seem to shift idealistic new ones in.

Although Mr. Dion was, as he fairly claimed, the greenest mainstream party leader on offer, green voters didn’t come to him in any numbers in the end. The shift was beyond what mainstream voters were ready to do for the environment; the green vanguard proved fickle and so the great green gamble was a fizzle.

For this and for betting so much on this huge sales job before he had sold the public on himself, Mr. Dion is going to have a hard fight holding on to the Liberal leadership, if he still wants it.

And the failure of even greens to rally around the Green Shift may ensure that it’s a very long time before another party leader goes out on a green limb again.

(Via Benny Peiser)