Quotulatiousness

July 9, 2013

Narcissistic Policy Disorder on parade

Filed under: Middle East, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:29

Greg Weiner looks at the full-blown Narcissistic Policy Disorder of Senator John McCain:

The recently published fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual contains no diagnosis for Narcissistic Polity Disorder — the book’s scope being confined to the personality disorder of a similar name — but should the editors ever wish to expand into political science, they will find an excellent case study in the interview Senator John McCain gave on CBS’ Face the Nation last Sunday. It turns out the Egyptian coup, which gave all signs of being a conflict among Egyptians about Egypt, was in fact about — well, us.

[. . .]

Sectarian violence in the Middle East, an ancient and evidently incurable phenomenon, an American failure? That’s one powerful reflection staring back from the water. It is also a powerful fantasy, with roots in the same place — and the metaphor is separated from reality by only the narrowest of margins — as narcissistic personality disorder, one of whose hallmarks is the proclivity to interpret foreign events in terms of oneself. Any event, anywhere, anytime becomes a test of American leadership: He who does what America wished he had not done had no autonomous motives; he meant to stick a thumb in the American eye.

Thus McCain’s understanding of leadership and its breathtaking condescension — in, ironically, the name of the neoconservative project of spreading freedom. Note that within that model — someone is going to lead and it is therefore best for it to be a, make that the, righteous nation — little room is left for the very thing McCain claims he wants to promote: nations actually making choices about their own futures from within. In the present case, Egyptians are fighting about Egypt; the real issue, according to McCain, must be what the United States had to say, or failed to say, about it. The generals could not possibly have been motivated by (a) different aspirations for Egypt, (b) venality, (c) power or (d) some combination of the above: We must understand their motives for the coup in terms of whether they complied with our request that they “not do that.”

July 1, 2013

The rise and fall of economic powers

Filed under: China, Economics, History, Japan — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:30

Charles Hugh Smith has a guest post at Zero Hedge, talking about the theme of economic decline of great powers:

Our collective interest in the rise and fall of empires is not academic. The meteoric rise of China and the financialization rotting out global capitalism are just two developments that suggest we are entering an era where some great powers will collapse, others will remake themselves and others will gain ascendancy.

[. . .]

In 1987, pundits were predicting that Japan’s “5th generation” computing would soon dominate what was left of America’s technological edge. They were spectacularly wrong, as the 5th generation fizzled and Japan became an also-ran in web technology, a position it still holds despite its many global electronic corporations and vast university research system.

Japan’s modern economy was set up in the late 1940s and early 1950s to exploit the world of that time. Sixty years later, Japan is still a wealthy nation, but its relative wealth and power have declined for 20 years, as its political-financial power structure clings to a model that worked splendidly for 40 years but has not worked effectively for 20 years.

The decline is not just the result of debt and political sclerosis; Japan’s vaunted electronics industry has been superseded by rivals in the U.S. and Korea. It is astonishing that there are virtually no Japanese brand smart phones with global sales, and only marginal Japanese-brand sales in the PC/notebook/tablet markets.

The key dynamic here is once the low-hanging fruit have all been plucked, it becomes much more difficult to achieve high growth rates. That cycle is speeding up, it seems; western nations took 100 years to rapidly industrialize and then slip into failed models of stagnation; Japan took only 40 years to cycle through to stagnation, and now China has picked the low-hanging fruit and reverted to financialization, diminishing returns and rapidly rising debt after a mere 30 years of rapid growth.

There is certainly evidence that China’s leadership knows deep reform is necessary but the incentives to take that risk are low. Perhaps that is a key dynamic in this cycle of rapid growth leading to stagnation: the leadership, like everyone else, cannot quite believe the model no longer works. There are huge risks to reform, while staying the course seems to offer the hope of a renewal of past growth rates. But alas, the low hanging fruit have all been picked long ago, and as a result the leadership pursues the apparently lower-risk strategy that I call “doing more of what has failed spectacularly.”

Though none of the historians listed above mention it, there is another dangerous dynamic in any systemic reform: the very attempt to reform an unstable, diminishing-return system often precipitates its collapse. The leadership recognizes the need for systemic reform, but changing anything causes the house of cards to collapse in a heap. This seems to describe the endgame in the USSR, where Gorbachev’s relatively modest reforms unraveled the entire empire.

June 27, 2013

Calgary’s mayor Naheed Nenshi gets praise from unexpected source

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:23

The Calgary Sun gets all gushy and enthusiastic over the mayor they usually like to beat up:

No one goes after the mayor of this city harder than we do.

We don’t apologize for that. It’s our job and we like to think we do it louder than most.

But it’s never personal.

So, with that as background, we would like to take this space today to commend Mayor Naheed Nenshi for his amazing leadership under the most trying of circumstances.

He has been a beacon of strength, support and optimism as Calgary battles the affects of the single-biggest disaster to hit our city.

The mayor, as always, has been a great communicator.

Through social media, traditional media and constant briefings, Nenshi has made it his personal undertaking to deliver the most up-to-date information to all Calgarians through all mediums.

June 26, 2013

Australian PM deposed in party coup

Filed under: Australia, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:22

It may seem fitting that Julia Gillard was ousted from the premiership in the same way she achieved the position – an internal party coup:

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday pulled off one of the most sensational political comebacks in Australian history, ousting in a party vote Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the woman who replaced him as leader of the Labor Party in a 2010 party coup.

The victory by Mr. Rudd in a closed-door vote late Wednesday paves the way for an end to the rocky tenure of Ms. Gillard, who had called the surprise vote in an effort to head off a challenge from Mr. Rudd’s backers. Much of the momentum to reinstate Mr. Rudd came from a steady drumbeat of polls showing that the party under Ms. Gillard was almost certain to face a catastrophic loss in elections to be held in September.

Ms. Gillard became Australia’s first female prime minister in a 2010 party coup that ousted Mr. Rudd, who was derided during his tenure for an authoritarian leadership style. But she has seen her poll ratings plummet since announcing in January, unusually early, that federal elections would be held in September.

[. . .]

Despite Mr. Rudd’s victory within his own party, he is not automatically assured of becoming the new prime minister. It remained immediately unclear whether he had enough support from the independent lawmakers whose backing allowed Ms. Gillard to form a government after Labor’s disappointing showing in the last elections. The process starts when Ms. Gillard now formally asks the country’s governor general to make Mr. Rudd prime minister.

April 11, 2013

Akaash Maharaj: Can the Liberal Party rediscover its ideals?

Filed under: Cancon, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:28

In the Globe and Mail, Akaash Maharaj wonders if the LPC’s long time in office — and the resulting accretion of power-seekers rather than idealists — can be atoned for in time to regain the hearts (and votes) of Canadians:

There is no denying that the Liberal Party’s long association with domination made it a magnet for individuals drawn to power rather than to public service, a tool of Liberals of convenience rather than Liberals of conviction. The question that will confront its next leader is not whether the Liberal Party can rebuild its fabled political machine into one capable of waging an effective campaign; it is whether it can rediscover its ideals and return as a party deserving of our country’s trust.

If it is to have any hope of doing so, it will need to find the courage to resist the lure of comforting self-deceptions and the seduction of recent polls.

The party’s decline at successive elections was not due to some lapse in judgment by a rueful electorate that yearns to repent at the next opportunity. It was not a want of resources that can be remedied by a new crop of bagmen or ward heelers. It was not an absence of messianic personalities whose charisma could substitute for grassroots renewal.

The Liberal Party instead received a calculated rebuke from Canadians against the divisions and hubris they saw gnawing at it. It was dismissed by an electorate who concluded that the Liberal Party was no longer willing or able to deliver liberal policies or governance.

He then goes on to enumerate what the Liberal Party should be — and it’s a pretty fair list — but not what most people would associate with the Liberal brand, unfortunately. Since Stephen Harper has co-opted the position the Liberals used to occupy (both in the political and philosophical senses), there’s definitely room in the Canadian political spectrum for a party that believes “liberty is the highest political good, and that as a result, the first duty of government is to seek the greatest liberty for the one that is compatible with liberty for all.”

A party that truly believed and worked towards that would be a Liberal Party worth supporting. Maharaj seems to want the Liberals to become more libertarian … and I think that would be a great improvement.

February 22, 2013

Andrew Coyne: Liberals still trying to avoid serious reforms

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

Andrew Coyne tries to explain why the Liberal Party of Canada increasingly looks like it will embrace Justin Trudeau as its new saviour leader.

Perhaps it was an impossible thing to expect. Perhaps it was even unfair. To demand that the Liberal Party of Canada, after a century and more as the party of power, should reinvent itself as a party of ideas; that it should, after a string of ever-worse election results culminating in the worst thumping in its history, ask itself some searching questions, including whether Canada still needed a Liberal Party, and if so on what basis — perhaps it was all too much to ask.

Because, on the evidence, the party isn’t capable of it. Or perhaps it simply doesn’t want to. Either it does not believe such a process is necessary. Or it does, but can’t bear it. Whatever may be the case, nearly two years after that catastrophic election, the party shows no interest in reinventing itself, still less in any healthy existential introspection. The policy conference that was to be the occasion for this came and went; the months that followed were similarly void.

[. . .]

Because the party seems determined to give itself to Justin Trudeau, come what may. Now, it is true that Trudeau has himself offered up a policy morsel or two. He favours liberalizing the drug laws and accepting takeovers by foreign state-owned enterprises in the oil sands. He opposes tightening Quebec’s language laws and boutique corporate tax credits. He was for the long-gun registry, but is against bringing it back.

But beyond that? He has his father’s views on the Quebec question, without doubt. But the only broad statement of his economic policy we have is his unswerving devotion to “the middle class.” And while the same criticism could be made of the other candidates — a grab bag of positions does not add up to a philosophy, still less a raison d’etre for the party — only Trudeau has made a virtue of his opacity. To take more forthright positions now, he argues, would prejudge the sorts of grassroots consultations he intends to hold — after he is leader.

January 15, 2013

The Who-the-heck-is-who of the federal Liberal leadership race

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:03

Andrew Coyne gets in the first “who the heck is that” survey of the field of candidates for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada:

With nominations now closed for the Liberal leadership, let me be the first to cackle smugly at the cast of non-entities that have put their names forward. George Ta-who? Karen McWha? Hee hee. Ha ha. Hoo hoo.

Actually, the nine candidates (assuming Martin Cauchon’s last-minute application made it under the wire) make an impressive bunch, all in all. If several are lacking in political experience or name recognition, that should not detract from their many personal and professional accomplishments.

George Takach is a prominent Bay Street lawyer and professor with three degrees and four books under his belt. Karen McCrimmon was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Canadian Forces and the first woman to lead an RCAF squadron. David Bertschi was a Crown prosecutor and founding partner in his Ottawa law practice. Deborah Coyne (yes, my cousin) holds degrees from York and Oxford, taught constitutional law and was a central figure in the battles over the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords.

And so on. Martha Hall Findlay founded her own legal and management consultancy, and was a candidate for party leader in 2006. Joyce Murray was a minister in the B.C. government and is the owner-operator, with her husband, of a company with more than 500 employees. Cauchon was minister of justice in the Chrétien government. Marc Garneau was Canada’s first man in space.

[. . .]

But isn’t the debate over before it has begun? Hasn’t Trudeau got this whole thing locked up? With four times the support of his nearest rival (Garneau) in the polls, a massive fundraising advantage, and more endorsements of note than all of the other candidates put together, the dauphin would indeed appear the prohibitive favourite: confirmation that the monarchical principle is alive and well in Canadian politics.

But there are three months to go, and several reasons to hold off on the coronation just yet. First, there is Trudeau’s own tendency to get himself into trouble, on show of late in the matters of the gun registry and the influence of Albertans in federal politics. The five debates will offer the other candidates further opportunities to rattle him, in hopes a brick or two again falls from his mouth.

December 19, 2012

Leslie Frazier, calm man in a crazy job

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:12

At the Star Tribune, Jim Souhan explains why Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier deserves consideration for coach of the year … and a contract extension:

That Frazier has won eight games this season after winning three in 2011 is impressive, but it is not nearly as impressive as his ability to becalm a franchise that has given “Chaos Theory” a bad name.

In the past year or so, Frazier has dealt with a major injury to franchise player Adrian Peterson. He has dealt with the great Percy Harvin complaining during a minicamp and on the sideline in Seattle, then being lost for the season.

Frazier has managed a struggling young quarterback. He has replaced one of his hand-picked coordinators. He has faced down a midseason slump that could have unraveled the team.

Now, 14 games into his first full season following an offseason not limited by a lockout, Frazier has positioned the Vikings to compete for a playoff spot. His team is 8-6 despite Christian Ponder’s erratic play and the loss of Harvin. Young players have improved. Role players have contributed.

Frazier has accelerated the development of a rebuilding team while turning major disruptions into nothing more than minor annoyances.

He is the first Vikings coach since Grant who can turn potential controversies into footnotes. Had Harvin screamed on the sideline at Childress or Tice, the story would have become a national talking point. With Frazier, the story withered on the vine.

Frazier is giving Wilf the competitive team he craves and the class organization he demands. He is winning games in December with a team considered a year or two away from contention. He and General Manager Rick Spielman are following a methodical blueprint that should lead to sustainable success.

December 13, 2012

US Army study confirms what every NCO already knows

Filed under: Humour, Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:28

The US Army recently conducted a study on the effectiveness of their officer corps:

Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno announced today the results of an Army-wide study on company and field-grade leadership, which showed Majors are far more dangerous to soldiers than Second Lieutenants.

“While this was something we suspected for a long time,” Odierno said, “this study confirms it and provides the scientific background so we can appropriately react.”

[. . .]

After several pie-chart-rich slides, Bond summarized, “While we all know 2LTs have no experience and practically no training to mitigate that, no one expects anything more than marginal performance from them and no one gives them any real responsibility. That rests with their platoon sergeants.”

“Majors, on the other hand,” Bond explained, “with around 10 years’ experience in the Army are expected to actually know something and can be given positions of pretty significant authority. With that authority, bosses expect these majors to perform. Unlike when they were lieutenants, these majors seriously think they can succeed without a senior NCO carrying the weight for them.”

Odierno admitted that this was a problem he has had his eye on for a while. “Remember I was there once. When I was a 2LT, I had a Platoon Sergeant looking after me. When I made major I was the battalion S3, Ops Officer, and suddenly the Battalion Commander had expectations. Fortunately they were low expectations. At least I didn’t lose two vehicles like the major in supply. Of course Dennis recovered and he’s the Commanding General at Army Material Command now. Our boss just kept reminding us we were really lucky he graded on a curve.”

H/T to John Donovan for the link.

November 20, 2012

Microsoft’s essential problem

Filed under: Business — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:43

ESR explains why Microsoft has been languishing in the doldrums for the past several years:

This is why Microsoft looks so doomed and desperate. Yes, Steve Ballmer is a colossal fool who has never met a strategic decision he couldn’t bungle, but in an important way that is symptom rather than cause. Dysfunctional leaders arise from dysfunctional cultures; the problem behind Ballmer is that Microsoft’s culture is broken, and the problem behind that is that the monopolistic/authoritarian goals around which Microsoft’s culture was constructed are incompatible with any other kind of excellence.

A more poetic way to put this is Tolkien’s “Oft evil will shall evil mar.” Google’s “Don’t be evil” isn’t mere idealism or posturing, it’s an attempt to sustain the kind of culture in which excellence is possible. (Whether and how long this will be a successful attempt is a different question.)

Apple’s turn is next.

October 30, 2012

Meet the new Chief of Defence Staff, General Tom Lawson

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:54

David Akin reports on the change-of-command that happened yesterday as General Walt Natynczyk handed over to General Tom Lawson:

Canadians have a high regard nowadays for their military.

Not only did our soldiers earn our admiration and thanks for the way they conducted themselves in the longest war in Canadian history — the last decade in Afghanistan — but the last two chiefs of defence staff did much to advance the cause of uniformed men and women with their own outsized personalities.

Gen. Rick Hillier, the top general from 2005 to 2008, was a quote machine and a favourite for the TV cameras. His popularity sometimes caused headaches for his political masters, but the troops loved him.

He was followed by Walt Natynczyk who, though not as over the top and outgoing as Hillier, was so much a favourite of the troops that he was given the nickname Uncle Walt.

Uncle Walt finished his four years as chief of defence staff Monday in an emotional ceremony at the Canadian War Museum, handing off his responsibilities to Gen. Tom Lawson with the words, “My duty is complete. The nation is secure.”

[. . .]

Lawson seems a very different leader from the two tank commanders who were his predecessors. Though he may yet flower in front of the TV cameras or develop a “bone-rattling” back-slap, he does not seem to to be the media personality his predecessors were. That’s not a criticism, but it does mean that Canadians and the 65,000 men and women who now serve under him will see a different style at the top.

He is well spoken, crisp in his speech and smart. But there is a coolness to his manner that was absent from Natynczyk and Hillier.

August 30, 2012

General A.G.L. McNaughton and the First Canadian Army

Filed under: Books, Cancon, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:21

Randall Wakelam reviews a new biography of Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton, the first commander of Canada’s major field formation in World War 2:

Lieutenant-General A.G.L. ‘Andy’ McNaughton was one of the key staff gunners in the Canadian Corps in the Great War and went on to be Chief of the General Staff in Ottawa from 1930 to 1935. From 1935 to 1939 he established and led the National Research Council. He was recalled to active service in 1939 and took 1st Canadian Division overseas. Once there he would spend four years building the Canadian field force first to corps and then army level. Relieved of army command in late 1943, he was for a short while Minister of National Defence and in the postwar years continued to serve Canada as the Canadian co-chair of the Canada-US Permanent Joint Board on Defence. Not a bad record of public service, but he is most remembered for his apparent failures as general officer commanding-in-chief (GOC-in-C), First Canadian Army.

[. . .]

Previous portraits show McNaughton to be a general who argued vehemently against breaking up his force for errant missions and, who at the same time, was a failure in field exercises. He has also been seen as an inflexible man who could not get on with his military or political seniors. Historians of no less repute than C.P. Stacey, Jack English and Jack Granatstein have created that portrait for Andy.

[. . .]

Rickard has gone well beyond what we have to now generally accepted as the tragic character that was Andy McNaughton. He has drawn from an impressive range or primary sources in building a case for, if not accepting McNaughton as a viable, but unlucky commander, then one whose flaws are now better understood in comparison of those of his peers. While not all will agree with Rickard’s assessment of McNaughton it could be argued that such disagreement is born in large part because of the complex nature of high command and the management of armies and national forces in coalition warfare – what might be termed Clausewitzian fog and friction both on the battlefield and in the meeting rooms, and with more than a pinch of ambiguity added when it comes to strategic-level discussions and decisions. Such has been the case recently for Canadian politicians and commanders in Afghanistan and the Mediterranean; both they and students of Canadian history will enjoy John Rickard’s fresh and refreshing study of Andy.

August 28, 2012

What can Caesar’s Gallic War commentary tell us about Afghanistan?

Filed under: History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:10

According to this reading, lots and lots:

I finished Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War this weekend […] and a few things struck me:

a. The successful Roman counterinsurgency campaign in Gaul took eight years.

b. The enemies against which Rome fought were not a unitary actor, and neither were Rome’s allies.

c. Rome’s allies one summer were often Rome’s enemies by winter. And visa versa.

But the two things that made the biggest impression on me were the following:

d. Caesar was the commander for eight full years, and he enjoyed similar continuity among his subordinate commanders.

e. Caesar very rarely sent green units into the offensive. By the fourth and fifth year of the campaign, he is still making those legions which were the last to be raised in Italy responsible for guarding the freaking baggage. He relies over and over again on those legions — most especially the Tenth — that have proven themselves in combat in Gaul.

With Caesar’s commentaries in mind, I read Doug Ollivant’s lament about Gen. Joe Dunford. Gen. Dunford will be the fifteenth commander of NATO-ISAF in eleven years of combat in Afghanistan and the ninth U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Each of his subordinate commanders have rotated on an annual basis. Gen. Dunford — who is, by all accounts, an excellent officer and highly respected by his peers — has never served in Afghanistan.

The cultures, politics, tribes and peoples of Afghanistan are at least as complex as those of ancient Gaul, yet we Americans are so arrogant to think that we can send officers there with no experience and, owing to our superior knowledge of combat operations, watch them succeed. We will then send units which have never deployed to Afghanistan to partner with Afghan forces and wonder why they do not get along.

H/T to Tim Harford for the link.

July 8, 2012

Britain’s “two-tier” army after the recently announced cuts

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:49

At the Thin Pinstriped Line, Sir Humphrey looks at some of the potential problems the reconfigured British army may face:

In summary, the Army will comprise two very distinct elements, the so-called ‘Reaction Force’ and the ‘Adaptable Force’. The Reaction Force will comprise what appears to be a slimmed down Armoured Division, built around three brigades, and augmented by 16 Air Assault Brigade (and effectively 3 Commando Brigade) plus supporting units to provide the short notice rapid response capability. The Adaptable Force is built around those units which are held at longer readiness to move, and which will provide the routine garrison, training and roulement duties. Within this structure some units will be held at different levels of readiness depending on how the security situation looks. Essential to this plan is the use of some 30,000 trained Army Reserve personnel to augment both forces, through a bolstered set of employment rules.

[. . .]

That said, there are real challenges that will need to be overcome in order to make this a success. From the outset real leadership is going to be needed to avoid the accusation and emergence of a ‘two-tier army’. It seems clear from looking at the wiring diagrams that large swathes of the Infantry and supporting units is going to be working under what was previously seen as the Regional Forces. Assuming that the Arms Plot has not been reintroduced, and that battalions will remain locked into their roles, it is going to take a lot of effort to convince people to join a unit which is posted to the ‘Adaptable Forces’. Who is going to want to join the part of the Army that is unlikely to deploy anywhere exciting, or where deployment is likely to be peace keeping, and not high intensity warfare? It will be a real blow to the morale of many soldiers if they perceive that their soldiering careers are in future going to be spent on Salisbury plain practising feeding Orphans or watching fake militias simulate slaughtering innocent civilians whilst they have to stand and watch in accordance with their UN ROE. Meanwhile their peers in the Reaction Forces will be charging around playing with the best equipment, newest kit, and better deployment prospects.

The Army manning cell at Glasgow is going to have to come up with a very good way of ensuring that those who join for a career regularly cross between the two forces. There already exists a sense of ‘them and us’ between the Regional Forces and the rest of the Army. One feels that this will only get worse over time, particularly if deployments go to units such as the Paras or Guards, which enjoy better publicity in the eye of politicians.

The danger is that the best posts get earmarked for the high flyers, and that over time the Officer Corps will emerge with the best and brightest occupying all the promotion jobs, while everyone else is left to stay in the Adaptable Forces. This could lead to a real challenge as good officers walk early, not leaving sufficient leadership across the Army as a whole.

June 26, 2012

The “Draft Andrew Coyne” movement

Filed under: Cancon, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:49

I’ve met Andrew Coyne. We had a pleasant chat about political matters a few years ago (although I was one of dozens of Toronto-area bloggers he talked with that night: I doubt he remembers me). I often agree with his writings (and even when I don’t, he’s usually quotable). But how would he fare as a candidate for the Liberal leadership? Abacus ran the numbers:

Nationally, most Canadians told us they didn’t know enough about Mr. Coyne to say whether they had a favourable or unfavourable impression of him. Sixty-four percent were not sure of their opinion while 15% said they had a favourable impression while 21% had an unfavourable impression. Unfortunately for Mr. Coyne, the percentage of respondents who had “very unfavourable” was higher than those who had a “very favourable” impression of him (9% very unfavourable vs. 3% very favourable).

Nonetheless, there are “pockets” of Coynemania out there.

  • Men are slightly more likely to have a favourable impression of him than women (men 18% favourable, women 12% – women were also much more likely to be unsure).
  • There was no significant age difference although older Canadians (no surprisingly) were more likely to be aware of Mr. Coyne.
  • Regionally, he is more popular in Manitoba and Saskatchewan (25% favourable) than in other regions of the country. He is a tough sell in Quebec where his favourable rating is a mere 8%.
  • Considering his occupation and the audience likely to read and watch him, it is no surprise that respondents with a university degree were most aware and favourable to Mr. Coyne. 24% of those with a bachelor’s degree and 29% of those with a post-graduate degree had a favourable impression of the National Post columnist.
  • He is also more likely to be viewed favourably by those who live in urban communities (urban 18% favourable, suburban 13% favourable, rural 12% favourable).
  • Mr. Coyne is also viewed more favourable by those who own stocks, bonds, or mutual funds: 20% favourable vs. 10% among those who don’t own those kinds of investments.
  • Finally, there isn’t a significant partisan difference. Those who voted Liberal in 2011 are only slightly more likely to view him positively than NDP and CPC voters but the differences are marginal. He is a post-partisan candidate!

I don’t know if he’s actually interested in a political career, but he’d at least be a different kind of candidate than the Liberals have had in decades. I’ve never voted Liberal in my life, but I could imagine voting for a Liberal if Andrew Coyne was the Liberal leader. He appears to actually believe in smaller government and free markets — which is why he’d never be able to run as a Conservative. He’s on the record as being almost libertarian in his views on individual rights (especially on Nanny State issues) — which is why he couldn’t run as a New Democrat.

It’s not clear whether there are any members of today’s Liberal Party of Canada who could cope with a classical liberal as leader. But it would create a viable third choice in federal politics: that’s worth a lot in my books.

Update: There’s a Twitter hashtag for the movement: #coyne4lpc, and Jesse Helmer points out that there’s a Facebook group, too:

Update, the second: Apparently Andrew Coyne is getting into the swing of being a big-time politician, having already fired his first campaign manager:

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