Mike's Minute: Is being Trump-like still good for politics?

For a while there being a tough guy was good for your credibility. 

Look at Victor Orban, Javier Milei and Nayib Bukele. They all revelled, and succeeded, at the polls with their macho, Trump-esque persona. 

The world was moving away from "Me Too" and progressivism. There has been a very distinct move to conservatism, especially in parts of Europe. 

Being like Trump was, more often than not, good for your political aspirations. 

Peter Dutton had a touch of that, but sadly in the length of an Australian campaign it's all changed. The more he has looked like Trump, talked about Trump, and promised policy that sounded like Trump, the worse it has got. 

Chances are by Saturday night, he will be a loser. 

In the meantime, in Canada, who are voting now, the reason Mark Carney is in the lead is twofold. 

1) The bloke who ran the place before him was a progressive sap and was a victim of the movement against the left. But he also had been there a decade, and his clock had run out. 

2) His replacement has made much ground in the new-found vein of political success of looking not at all like Trump, but being tough enough to stand up to him. 

Mark Carney will most likely win today and if he does, the fortunes of his Liberal Party will be one for the ages. 

The same anger, frustration and impatience that led Trump to victory over a hapless socialist, should have played out the same way —and was going to play out the same way— north of the border. 

Yet in the space of a couple of months, the entire scenario has been tipped on its head. 

Looking like Trump, like Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives do, is no longer currency. It's bad news. 

They have tried desperately to direct the campaign towards the issues that had Canadians so upset for the past ten years; cost of living, cost of housing, and jobs. 

But the tariffs and Trump and his insults have fired them up and off into a new direction, which is hating on America. Carney and the Liberals have seen it, grabbed it and run with it. 

The last polls have a 3%-ish point gap to them. The Liberals have come back from 20 points down, it's astonishing. 

Let's do the counting. But if they win, what's it say about the distaste for Trump? What's it say about a single-issue campaign? 

And will there have ever been a bigger victory snatched from the jaws of defeat? 

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