A War Room in Canada: Politics, Journalism, Publics and the Competition for Credibility James S. McLean A Thesis in The Department of Communication Studies Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada October 2008 © James S. 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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada ABSTRACT A War Room in Canada: Politics, Journalism, Publics and the Competition for Credibility James S. McLean, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2008 The central objective of A War Room in Canada is to develop a richer understanding of the subsumed motivations behind the practices of political war rooms, the organizations that drive political communication at election time. To do so, this dissertation examines the role of the war room of the New Democratic Party during the general election campaign of 2005-06, providing an insider's view with respect to the underlying stakes in play for political actors, journalists, and publics. It considers an arc of theoretical positions from Durkheim's notion of organic solidarity and its conceptual link to contemporary democracy, to neofunctionalism and its concern for legitimation and symbolic action. Theoretical gaps in the neofunctionalist view are employed as a platform to project a line of thought that brings together notions from Pierre Bourdieu's conceptualization of capitals and fields, scholarly debates arising from Jurgen Habermas's theorization of the public sphere, and recent conceptualizations of the relationship between publics and counterpublics. From these articulated theoretical relationships, the notion of credibility is posited as a specific form of symbolic capital, one that acts as a medium of exchange within and between the fields of politics, journalism, and the field of power/publics. A series of war-room communication measures, strategies and tactics mobilized through the competition for credibility, are then considered with respect to their resonance among voters and, ultimately, the exchange of credibility for votes and votes for constitutionally-credited power. ill ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my daughters Zoe and Katie who were born during the writing of this dissertation, and to my daughter Emma who grew from a tyke into a lively seven-year- old, I would like you to know that you were the driving force behind it all. To my wife Anna, my respect, admiration, and deepest gratitude for keeping our family grounded, providing insights when matters got muddled, and flinching not one iota through ups and downs that included a household move from Saskatchewan to Quebec, establishing a new job in a strange city, and juggling the daily needs of three small people. My accomplishment, reflected in these pages, pales in comparison. This work is dedicated to you. To my colleagues in the Department of Journalism at Concordia University my deepest thanks for your support and encouragement. To Dr. Enn Raudsepp in particular, my gratitude for making it possible for me to teach and contribute to the department that would eventually become my home in the academy. Your patience and goodwill are greatly appreciated. Finally, my profound and sincere thanks to my thesis advisor: Dr. William Buxton. It is for good reason that Bill's name graces the acknowledgements page of so many Concordia dissertations. His dedication to scholarship, his thoughtful guidance, and his respect for the intellectual struggle of those who labour at the rock-face of this particular life's chapter make him a treasure to the greater community of which we are all a part. I am proud to call him my friend. CONTENTS Chapter One Introduction: A War Room in Canada Chapter Two Bourdieu's Fields and Capitals: The Implications for Political Life 32 Chapter Three The Public Sphere, Politics, and Journalism 63 Chapter Four Methodology 91 Chapter Five The War Room 114 Chapter Six The War Room in Action: Tactics 144 Chapter Seven The War Room at Work: Strategies 173 Chapter Eight The War Room, Journalism, and Public Discourse 204 Chapter Nine Political Communication and the Journalistic Field 236 Chapter Ten Conclusions 271 Works Cited 303 v Chapter One Introduction: A War Room in Canada It is late morning on a biting December day in the nation's capital. In a room full of cubicles in a nondescript building on a street lined with similar buildings, people emerge from their work spaces, drawn to a bank of television monitors on a rickety stand in one of the few common areas. None of the television sets match in size, make, or model, but one of the larger ones is tuned to CBC Newsworld, the all-news, English- language cable channel run by the national public broadcaster. The anchorperson, veteran journalist Nancy Wilson, reads a standard script promoting the upcoming round of leaders' debates (they will be carried on Newsworld in the coming days), then throws to a "live hit" in Regina, Saskatchewan. It is week three of the winter election of 2005-06 and the New Democratic Party, represented by leader Jack Layton, has come to the birthplace of publicly funded medicare in Canada to invoke the spirit (metaphorical and possibly otherwise) of T.C. "Tommy" Douglas in a bid to bolster its "ownership" of the issue of universally accessible, single-tier health care. The people back in Ottawa, the ones who normally occupy the cubicles, are NDP campaign workers and this staged event, carried live on national television, is a rare opportunity for them to join in a good, old-fashioned stump speech (albeit from a few thousand kilometers away). This is because the real star of this show is not leader Layton but Shirley Douglas, daughter of the late T.C, an actor of long-standing who can be counted on to rally the troops behind her father's health-care legacy. It is one of the few times that Jack Layton, after a brief declaration of intentions, seems content to stand in the background in support of this living connection to the party's social-democratic past. 1 There is general quiet as Douglas begins to speak and nods of approval as she lashes out at those "right wing politicians like Stephen Harper and the prime minister." The mood in the room turns electric as Douglas, her voice rising, declares: "We will not permit the dismantling of Canada's single-payer health care system!" There are nods of approval. The group breaks into heightened applause when Douglas attacks the Liberal government's plan to inject billions into health care and "just hope it gets to where it's needed!" The odd "Hallelujah!" would not be out of place, but nobody obliges. The point is made. The climactic moment comes and goes. But Douglas continues to talk, to extol the virtues of equal, accessible health care for all. Her speech becomes repetitious. Those who are watching seem uncomfortable. A few quietly slip away, returning to their cubicles and the day's campaign responsibilities. The manager of the strategic communication unit, the so-called "war room," mutters that the event has gone on too long, that Douglas is losing momentum, losing her audience. Jack Layton, still in the televised crowd behind Douglas, claps and nods with each point made and remade, but his smile is beginning to look a bit forced. The war-room manager repeats his concern more loudly. This draws the attention of a senior party strategist. He crosses the room to ask if there is a problem. "She's going too long," is the reply. "She's on national TV live," responds the strategist. "This is not a problem." Those who have stayed to watch the performance are suddenly more attentive, more willing to clap when a major point is repeated, more willing to cheer on this firebrand link to a glorious past because she is, after all, their firebrand. And if the spirit of Tommy Douglas, Baptist preacher turned cornerstone prairie socialist, isn't exactly in the room, with a little prompting his political inheritors can still be made to feel a touch of the spirit.