GhaleonQ said:
As an American conservative, I know I should be horrified by any Liberal Democrat power gains even if the Tories do nothing for me, but this is going to be too hilarious and riveting to care. Question, though: what electoral "strategies" that haven't been used yet could significantly shift the current polls? Every party's get-out-the-vote system is equally strong, right, and there's no time for big policy shifts? Is everyone just waiting to see whether Clegg's bump is temporary and what that means for the Conservatives? I know campaign rules are different from ours, but not how.
Well so far the big two parties have dabbled in a number of things to try and dampen voters' views about the LibDems, but none of it is working.
Tory bloggers, fed information by various spin doctors in the party, have tried to smear Clegg about when he did an internship at a lobbyist firm about eighteen years ago who had links to Colonel Gaddafi. It hasn't worked.
In the debate Cameron tried to infer that the LibDems took dodgy donations from a "criminal on the run", but the party had been completely exonerated for it many months ago. That one failed.
Right wing media have tried to attack Clegg personally on his nationality. Yes, he's British, but he's of mixed heritage and some people have chosen to highlight that he's only "one quarter" British in blood. As Dale points out,
personal attacks on Clegg are misguided:
Personal attacks on Nick Clegg will not work. They will backfire on those who make them and rightly so. Everyone who knows Nick Clegg likes him. He's a transparently likeable individual. Anyone trying to make out that he's anything else will come a cropper.
Since the smearing failed, Cameron has tried to lovebomb Liberal voters by saying the Tories are the true progressives who want change, but that hasn't washed with a predominantly social democratic electorate, either. The most recent Tory tactic is to fearmonger and say that a vote for the LibDems will get Brown back into office. The sad fact is, Labour are saying the reverse and it makes them look more similar than different.
Labour have tried similar tactics, but have a tougher time "shooting down" LibDem policy because they don't want to alienate their core vote. Remember that the LibDems and Labour "share" a common progressive strand, and both parties are trying to woo traditionally left wing voters into believeing that their brand of progressiveness is the right way. Labour will have a hard time attacking the LibDems out of fear for alienating their own, so they've tried wooing them and discussing their policies, and the scaremongering too. They won't smear them, though, because that's risky business. The sad thing for Labour is that the more they discuss LibDem policy, the more attractive it becomes, so the new tactic is to just ignore them, which will fail just as badly since we have another two TV debates left.
I think another reason the Tories are more aggressive in their attacks on the LibDems is because they know that if a LibDem government or coalition is formed, the game is up. They will push through a progressive, proportional voting system which will keep the Tories out of office without a coalition for a very, very long time. In a proportional system, Labour's strongest supporters are very tribal, so it's likely they'll always get a sizable proportion of the vote. The Tories have been lucky that their core constituencies are shaped the way they are, otherwise they'd have potentially far fewer people in office if things were more proportional.
Neither of the parties can really attack LibDem policy because, unlike the Liberals, the others are in an unenviable position of having a manifesto that promises things that haven't been costed (or, at least, they won't reveal where the costs are). The funding for Tories' proposed National Insurance cut has been plucked from thin air, and everyone knows it'll lead to a rise in VAT (a tax loathed almost as much as Council Tax) which will hit the poorer people most.
Trying to stick to your question, though, short of some national paedophile scandal, it's too late to stem a lot of the LibDems' popular surge. The cat is out of the bag, and the only person who can destroy the LibDems' lead right now, knowing what we know, is Nick Clegg himself. Of course I'm not a party strategist, so I'm sure the spin doctors in both parties are conjouring up a way of trying to battle the LibDems. Whether it'll work or not, I honestly don't know.
The biggest test is this week, though. If the LibDems can maintain their current share of the polls, or grow them, up until the next debate, which is the same length of time between the final TV debate and the election day, then the two big parties have a lot to fear. It shows that the LibDem surge isn't just a blip and that if they play their cards right, they could ride the popularity wave unhindered until May 6th. Even worse, if they can survive unhindered until the next debate, there's also fear from the other parties that support will snowball week on week.
The Tories would be in trouble because 25 of the 100 or so seats they need to take a majority in Government are LibDem marginals, and Labour because, whilst they have less to fear from a seats perspective (Labour can hold the majority of seats on such a small number of votes), there will be a national scandal bigger than MPs expenses if Labour "win" with the smallest vote share out of the big three.
Right now talk is on a hung parliament, so all isn't lost for Labour and they're banking on things staying this way and shoeing Gordon back in as a minority PM who will govern on a policy-by-policy basis. As far as the Tories are concerned, if they can't put the LibDems back "in their place" in the 19-20% poll share, Cameron won't be PM. Conservatives have a reason to be disheartened and aghast right now. All that Lord Ashcroft money, slick PR and advertising since 2005 has been undone in one night of debating.
and Sheffield Hallam was Clegg's constituency, but otherwise it's mostly red.