Globe and Mail uses torturous logic to endorse CPC, but not Harper:

[Saviolo]

The Globe and Mail has endorsed the CPC as deserving of another mandate in the upcoming election, but says that Stephen Harper does not.

Link to the article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/the-tories-deserve-another-mandate-stephen-harper-doesnt/article26842506/?click=sf_globe

Some samples of the pretzel logic they use:

The election of 2015 has been powered by a well-founded desire for change. But it has also been an election where the opposition has recognized the electorate’s desire for stability and continuity on all things economic. That’s why the Liberals and the New Democrats, while running on the rhetoric of change, put forward economic platforms built largely on acceptance of the Conservative status quo.

The key issue of the election should have been the economy and the financial health of Canadians. On that score, the Conservative Party has a solid record. Hardly perfect but, relatively speaking, better than most. However, the election turned into a contest over something else: a referendum on the government’s meanness, its secretiveness, its centralization of power in the most centralized Prime Minister’s Office in history, its endless quest for ever more obscure wedge issues, and its proclivity for starting culture wars rather than sticking to the knitting of sound economic and fiscal stewardship. It turned this election into a referendum on the one-man show that has become the Harper government.

The thing is, the other two major parties have so much respect for the Conservatives’ record on economic, fiscal and tax policy that they propose to change almost none of it. Did Tom Mulcair’s NDP run on a promise to raise income taxes? To massively increase spending? To run deficits? No, no and no. The NDP tax platform was, essentially, the Conservative Party’s, plus a small increase in business taxes. The slogan may have been about “Change,” but the platform was about trying to reassure voters that an Orange Wave would leave the Conservative economic status quo largely in place.

The Liberals have in one respect been slightly different from the NDP in offering change – their call for the federal government to spend more on infrastructure, financed by two years of small deficits, deviates from the Harper government brand (though not its record) of balanced budgets.

Canada needs a change. It also needs the maintenance of many aspects of the economic status quo. What Canada needs, then, is a Conservative government that is no longer the Harper government.

The Conservatives have been a big tent party in the past, and they must be once again. Fiscally prudent, economically liberal and socially progressive – the party could be all of those things, and it once was. But it won’t be, as long as Mr. Harper is at its head. His party deserves to be re-elected. But after Oct. 19, he should quickly resign. The Conservative Party, in government or out, has to reclaim itself from Stephen Harper.

So, their logic is the Liberals and the NDP have moved to the centre/right, but they haven't moved far enough to the right. They're indistinguishable from the CPC, but they're too far to the left of the CPC. We need change, but not -that- much change. So, vote change, vote CPC! And then just clap your hands and hope really loud that Mr. Harper just really nicely steps aside after he's elected.

It's just crazy. And what's all that talk about "If it's about the economy, the CPC could win, and deserve to..." What? Last I checked they've spent the last decade flushing the economy down the drain.

The Ottawa Citizen has also made the case for the Tories: http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/editorial-the-case-for-returning-the-conservatives-to-power

And once again, the logic here is that the NDP has moved to the centre/right, but not enough, and Trudeau just isn't ready (where have we heard that over and over and over?) and what we really need is change, so vote CPC. Straight out of the CPC talking points.

This para from the Ottawa Citizen article makes me want to yank my hair out by the roots:

Nevertheless, there are two serious issues facing Canada right now: Ongoing economic uncertainty, and an increasingly unstable situation in the Middle East. In the face of the worst economic downturn in a generation, Harper has made sure that Canada remains on secure economic footing, something both his opponents’ plans put at risk. When it comes to confronting ISIL and the threat of global terror more generally, only the Conservatives are prepared to treat the matter with the strength of conviction it deserves.

Ugh, Monday can't come fast enough.

Remember to get out there and vote, folks. And Heave Steve!

[Spazito]

1. That is a bizarre endorsement as well as cowardly, imo

They tried to play both sides against the middle and failed miserably. I can't wait until Monday night, have already voted in the advanced polls, am SO ready for this to be over.

[Saviolo]

2. It's maddening

I'm beginning to suspect that the Globe and the Citizen (being an Ottawa paper) are trying to pet everyone equally to avoid losing access. I can think of no other reason for such a twisted and torturous "endorsement."

[Spazito]

4. Yep, they want the Cons, just come right out and say it...

instead of taking a cowardly path in hopes of not angering their subscribers. Cowards end up angering everyone.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

5. Interesting theory

I personally think that any party can still win this, maybe they do to.

[Metric System]

3. As if Harper would win another mandate AND resign. What are they smoking? No wonder the reaction

has been almost universally negative. The Conservative party IS Harper.

[Saviolo]

6. Pretty much everyone calls it...

...the Harper Conservatives, anyway. He's obviously the driving force.

Apparently his own riding is a little bit in danger. He won it last time with 75% of the vote or so, and the latest polls have him ahead by only a couple of points over the Liberal candidate. I'm happy to see that he's even threatened in his own home riding!