I talked yesterday with a guy that has a good handle on politics. He understands, in my opinion, the elements of successful political strategy.
And he says that (as I have stated in previous blogs), Premier Lord has made a series of highly successful political moves in recent months that, barring any major change, should shore up his changes of winning another majority government next time.
His Moncton strategy:
-New bridge
-Hospital expansion
-French-language high school
-Premiers meeting here in 2007
The optimism around here combined with the lavish praise of the local paper should ensure a clean sweep or close to it in Moncton.
But where is the private sector investment? All the new residential construction and retail stores will dry up with no new manufacturers, call centres, IT shops, etc.
His Saint John strategy:
Lepreau – masterfully orchestrated – will make people forget that Saint John has had one of the poorest performing urban economies in all of Canada since the late 1990s. He should take most of the seats in Greater SJ.
His Fredericton strategy:
Significant pay increases for the civil servants
Significant expansion of the civil service – even the government was shocked with the recent labour force survey showed several thousand new civil servants in recent years. All these new happy government workers should shore up most of Fredericton – although there is some elements of discontent with policy and direction but that should be made up by pragmatism.
His upper SJ river valley strategy:
Bring and Indian firm in to run the Nackawic mill. He will look like a hero and win a majority of seats.
His northern New Brunswick strategy:
Put the screws to them. They didn’t vote for me before and I don’t need ’em.
Now, this sounds like good political strategy to me. Give the people a lollipop to make them forget that there was no food in the house to feed them for the past week.
But maybe someone’s stomach is growling??