Harper really should lose BIG TIME if the votes are honestly counted (not a given). Trudeau and the Liberals will likely be the big beneficiaries.  It’s just math.

Mulcair and the NDP are improving their numbers all the time, however.  But slowly.  They have no sex appeal, no ability to capture the moment or create celebrity magic.  They plod.  They are not aligning new followers like they need to.  Their marketers aren’t good enough.  If that trend continues, it will likely result in a minority government with the Liberals and the NDP controlling the house together.

But Mulcair and Trudeau don’t like each other.  The parties can’t seem to cooperate.  That is NOT the recipe for an alignment, a minority government.  How do they form the next government when they can’t even endure a lunch date?

I personally like minority governments but they don’t last.  Politicians want power, not progress.  And I have a theory about that.  And that is the real point of this blog:

I’ll keep it brief.  Politicians go into the ‘poli-business’ basically to do good.  I believe that. Mostly. In the beginning, anyway. Doing good is one of their prime motivations.  They are joiners.  They are team-players. They are patriots.  They are do-gooders. They love their country. They believe in the system.  They want to serve it.  But, of course, like all animals, they want to survive first. Survival is the top and prime motivation for all living things.

Service to others is a distant second (or even lower) on the priority list.

And that me-first concept is even acknowledged in law. We are pretty much allowed to do what we have to do if our own survival is at risk.  Survival, not service, is rule #1.  The real key question is ‘what constitutes your definition of survival’.

For most of us, it is simply eating, sleeping and breathing regularly.

But for politicians – and for many driven people – survival of the ego is the same for them as real, basic, life and death survival.  They are the image they hold in their heads. They feel they are allowed to do whatever it takes to survive as ‘they see themselves‘ surviving.  For politicians, surviving in a public setting is just as primal a need as eating, sleeping and breathing is for the rest of us.

They will sacrifice a lot of morals and ethics justifying their kind of survival.

But they are NOT the real problem.  Others (society, corporations, institutions) want to recruit and harness that kind of energy.  Those ‘ego’ people are eminently exploitable. “There’s money to be made in those egos!”

“You exaggerate! Nobody is that weak, susceptible or that crazy.”

You are right.  They aren’t that crazy from the get-go, anyway.  First they have to experience the institutionalized supplanting of their basic, personal ego with other, larger-concept things.  Enter: egos in training.  We teach them all kinds of ways how to do that in western society. They are taught to relate to their school. “Go Wolverines!”  They are taught to relate to their favourite team. “Go Canucks!”  They might eventually relate to Rotary or their province or, if they become really, really patriotic and/or political, they may buy a membership card in a political party.  “Vote Liberal!”

They will drink the kool-aid.

Being an egotist and a politician requires eventually transferring the basic, personal ego-survival tendency to a party or a team or religion or something even bigger – to the max.

And we encourage that habit of allegiance transfer because we (society) want to recruit them as soldiers in to our particular-interest army. Our society is built around that kind of recruitment.  “I’m a Chevy man!”  See Facebook.  Study marketing.

Also see: teens around the world seeking something larger than themselves and joining ISIS. See: teens around the world joining the Young Republicans or Christian Missionaries or the Crips.  See yourself defending your politics, your religion, your country.  Or your favourite football team.

We are born with ego and trained to join up.

It is not a hard sell, really.  People inherently know that there is something bigger and better out there than just themselves and so they transfer their personal survival skills to whoever recruits them best.  That used to be the churches.  Then nation-states.  It might be the Canucks, the Marines or the Young Conservatives. The Greens are currently out there wooing the young ‘for the planet’.  Marketers are the new priests because money is the new GOD.  For many, it is all a religion. We get recruited.  We all get recruited.

So, ask yourself…..do you have some HUGE allegiance to a sports team, a religion, a political party or even a dog breed?  Willing to dole out for them are you?  If so, your own personal survival mechanism may have been somewhat hijacked by them.  The basic ‘you’ has been compromised.

Marketers are generally pretty good at what they do.

Now imagine that you have been so completely hijacked by them, you are them.  You are the leader of the party, the head of the church, the top breeder of water spaniels…..whatever….

….what are you willing to do for them?  Where would you stop?

Are there any limits?  ……any limits in behaviour that might jeopardize your sense of survival?

What do you think Steve, Tom or Justin is willing to do or say to survive?  What about Elizabeth?

Let the electioneering begin!