Image by jcbear2 via FlickrJust reading The Globe and Mail discussing Stephen Harper's strategy for getting a majority. Essentially it boils down to targeting urban ridings with a 'tough on crime' message while targeting the remaining rural ridings he doesn't already have with a 'long-gun registry' message.He might just get away with it. Which is frustrating, because it's cynical as hell. I mean, given that the long-gun registry was implemented to combat crime in the first place. Now, one may not agree on its effectiveness, but to be truly 'tough on crime' is, certainly, to consider all options out there for fighting crime. Not merely those ones that are politically expedient.
After all, the RCMP themselves came out in favour of the long-gun registry, calling it an effective way to fight crime. A prime minister doesn't have to follow RCMP recommendations (self-evidently), but not doing so certainly ought to come at the price of a loss in legitimacy for a 'tough-on-crime' stance, right?
Or, if nothing else, certainly flouting a 'tough-on-crime' stance and screaming 'they want to take your guns away!' at the very same time is self-evidently hypocritical, isn't it? Ah, but it might well work. Conservatives can always scream 'tough on crime' louder than the other parties. And the emptiness behind the rhetoric, sadly, gets overlooked. Again and again...
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