Touchdown: Obama scores with comment that hobbled Harper

Two politicians, both leaders of their respective nations, say the same thing, albeit at different times. One is largely pilloried for his comment on sharply lower stock values being a potential buying opportunity; the other takes precious little flack and, from some corners, wins praise for trying to rekindle the flames of optimism in the market. Poor Stephen Harper. Our Prime Minister must have choked on his lunch this week, when he heard U.S. President Barack Obama talk of potential buying opportunities among equities with a much saner profit-to-earnings ratios amid the current market turmoil. That was precisely the same thing Harper told the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge last fall, a comment for which the PM was promptly savaged by his political opponents for being “elistist” and “out of touch” with what the average Canadian was feeling. So why does Obama skate while Harper stumbled? Three key reasons: timing, context and credibility. Regardless of the accuracy of his comment, Harper made his in the midst of an election campaign, when rhetoric and reaction are torqued to the highest of heights. Second, Harper’s comment came at a time when he was being criticized for downplaying what was then a gathering economic storm, indeed predicting at the time that Canada should end up largely unaffected by what was happening elsewhere. Obama, on the other hand, has several things going for him, which let him escape similar criticism for saying exactly the same thing: he’s not in the midst of a campaign, indeed, he’s still in the flush of his political honeymoon; and, he has spent so much time up until now warning of the dire extent of the economic morass, and reflecting on how it impacts on the average American family, that he has built up sufficient credibility and political capital on this front to the point that he can go exactly where Harper went, but without being attacked for it. As the ancient Vulcan saying goes, “Only Nixon could go to China.” Only Obama can offer investment advice without getting labeled an out-of-touch elitist. I raise all of this not to knock Harper, nor to praise Obama, but simply to note the differing dynamics at play which translated into a Fumble for one, and a Touchdown for the other, despite running virtually the same communications play.