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“And always keep a-hold of Nurse

For fear of finding something worse.”

— Hilaire Belloc, Cautionary Tales for Children

After the loathing, the fear. For five weeks the Liberals and Conservatives have taken turns attacking each other’s leaders as, variously, a compulsive liar, an anti-woman American, a racist, a fool, etc.

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But with the campaign limping to its inconclusive end, party strategies have turned, as expected, to fear of what lies beyond. Gone is the pretence, on either side, of a “positive” campaign, asking voters to support the party’s program of government because of all the good things it would do. We are down, rather, to the real election, in which the voters are urged to cast their ballots, not in favour of either, but strictly in fear of the alternative.

For the Liberals, the fear is simple enough: a Conservative government, and the grim age of “austerity” that would supposedly then dawn. The message is particularly aimed at those left-of-centre voters innocent or stupid enough to be considering voting for the Greens or the NDP — or any party, really, that is not the Liberals. You are not just throwing your votes away, the Liberals warn, in tones of escalating severity. You are literally electing the Conservatives.