In recent column for the Ottawa Citizen, Susan Riley wonders why the Liberal Green Shift plan isn’t catching on.

So I decided to answer her with a letter to the editor, published today:

Re: Liberals shift down, Sept. 5.
Columnist Susan Riley’s impassioned defence of Liberal leader Stéphane Dion and his Green Shift plan completely misses the point.

Mr. Dion’s scheme might be good economics, as Ms. Riley believes, but it’s terrible politics.

Here’s the problem: any political idea you need to explain to voters before they will accept it is by definition a bad idea. In politics you want people to react, not think.

Winning political ideas are the ones which you don’t need to explain because they resonate with a voter’s emotions: fear, anger, pride, patriotism.

And it’s hard to get emotional about a complicated Green Shift plan that’s more about tax codes and subsidies than saving the environment.

This is a lesson the Liberals might have to learn the hard way.

Gerry Nicholls, Oakville

This entry was posted on Monday, September 8th, 2008 at 9:23 am and is filed under Canadian Politics, Environment, Federal Election. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.