New York—In this weekend’s New York Times magazine, Ken Mehlman, George Bush’s campaign manager in 2004, separates elections into two basic categories: crunchy and squishy. Crunchy elections are fought on meaningful policy differences, while squishy elections are fought on personality.

Mehlman’s context is the threat of terrorism, and how Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are addressing it. But the distinction applies generally. In Canada, the classic “crunchy” election was the battle over free trade in 1988; more often, candidates avoid clear positions on divisive issues. The squishy approach doesn’t do much to stimulate public debate, but it’s good strategy: a clear position, once taken, is hard to back down from, and if you don’t get the reaction you hoped for, there’s not much you can do about it.

Which is why John Tory’s pledge to extend public funding to religious schools is so interesting — not because the idea looks set to define the provincial election campaign, which launches today, but because it’s a risky way to win. In the Times magazine article, the crunchy campaign in question is that of Rudy Giuliani, who would be an unlikely frontrunner if he hadn’t been mayor of New York six years ago this week.

Giuliani’s campaign is built on the image of him rallying the country from ground zero, and so running a campaign that clearly divides his approach to fighting terrorism from others’ makes sense. In fact, as a twice-divorced Catholic who supports abortion rights, it’s really the only conceivable way for him to campaign.

There is no comparable dynamic that pushed Tory to campaign on funding religious education. It’s not an issue that plays to his strengths, nor is it an issue that was crying out for reform. What seems more likely is the calculation that appealing to the so-called ethnic vote would peel away Liberal voters, putting a few more GTA ridings into play and forcing the Liberal campaign team to awkwardly defend a status quo that wasn’t their doing. The fact that Dalton McGuinty is Catholic, the thinking probably went, would be the cherry on top.

It must have looked like a great plan on paper. But when Tory let himself be led into talking about public funding for teaching creationism, it highlighted the reason why issue-driven campaigns are so rare: there’s usually a corollary to your position that you haven’t thought of, or haven’t come up with a good answer for.

From a public interest point of view, issue-driven campaigns are crucial: there is no time outside of an election campaign that a majority of people will devote meaningful attention to politics. If politicians want a mandate for a real policy departure, they need to talk about it during a campaign. And that’s why Tory’s religious education play is so unfortunate. Not only is it questionable policy, which seems to have been motivated more by electoral calculation than anything else. The real shame is this: the next time a candidate thinks about running on a big idea, her campaign manager is going to say, “Remember John Tory?”

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Posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 10:40 am. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.