I wrote below that the Progress Party's support of the US in the conflict with Iraq is evidence of a deeply held belief, not mere populist tactics. Why else would they take such a clear stand for such an unpopular view?

In a new poll, however, the Progress Party is up 2.5% over last month, and election researcher Frank Aarebrot interprets this as a consequence of the party's support of the US. There is only one party in Norway that wants to have Saddam ousted, with or without the UN, and consequently there's not much competition for the small but existing pro-war segment of the population. Clearly, then, (as one NRK reporter suggested this morning), it's all a calculated attempt to gather votes.

It is true that the Progress Party has come out more clearly on this issue in the last couple of weeks - they're being quoted all the time now. (Today it's foreign policy spokesman Per Ove Width proposed providing the US with military aid - special forces, ships, transport planes.) This can suggest that it at first considered the issue too controversial for a clear stand, more likely to scare off voters than to collect new ones.

I don't think that's it, though. If this is calculated to appeal to anyone, it's not new voters, (who are more easily won over on other issues), but old ones, the party base. The Progress Party is always derided as populistic and unpredictable, without core issues. (This is a step up from a few years ago, when pundits conjured up the sound of stormtroopers' boots at any increase of PP support.) But it does have core issues, and support of the US - a feeling of ideological kinship - is one of them.

It's not unthinkable that Hagen's populistic instincts could have made him decide to keep his party quietly deferring to the government on this issue. It is unthinkable, however, that the Progress Party could have come out clearly any other way than in firm support of the US.

Trackback URL: http://bearstrong.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/97