Angry in the Great White North

Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff is talking tough:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff did not mince words in issuing a warning to Stephen Harper on Saturday night.

Ignatieff told the Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal convention in Gander the prime minister must learn: "If you mess with me, I will mess with you until I'm done."

Oh, that's scary.

Then it struck me as so odd.  Why would Michael Ignatieff want to appear aggressive?  Why wouldn't he just be aggressive?

Put it another way.  If the Liberal Party had the money and the ads and the guts, why not just starting "messing" with Stephen Harper and the Conservatives right now with their own ad buy?  Why just threaten to get tough?

I think this is an example of what biologists call dishonest signalling.

It happens a lot in the animal kingdom.  Facing a stronger rival, the weaker opponent essentially bluffs.  The fiddler crab is an example of an animal that routinely uses dishonest signalling.  Fiddler crabs are the ones with the one outsized claw:

During courtship, the males wave their oversized claws high in the air and tap them on the ground in an effort to attract females. Fights between other males will also occur, which are presumably meant to impress the females; if a male loses his larger claw, the smaller one will begin to grow larger and the lost claw will regenerate into a new (small) claw.

Fiddler crabs such as Uca lactea mjoebergi have been shown to bluff in regards to their fighting ability. Upon regrowing a lost claw, a crab will occasionally regrow a weaker claw that nevertheless intimidates crabs with smaller but stronger claws.  This is an example of dishonest signalling.

Dishonest signalling is employed by weaker animals that know they will lose in a fight.  A stronger animal doesn't waste time with dishonest signalling.  The stronger animal just attacks, wins, and enjoys the spoils of victory.

Except, of course, when the stronger animal doesn't realize it is the stronger animal.  If the weaker animal's bluff is successful, the stronger animal will retire from the field of battle.  The weaker animal wins by default.

That's what I think is going on here.  As we all know, the Liberals did try to respond to the ads being run by the Conservatives.  The Liberals created an ad and put it on YouTube, which is free of course.  Despite all the links from Canadian newspapers and from Liberal-friendly blogs, the ad has been viewed less than 25,000 times.  Given that a high proportion of those views are from Liberal partisans instead of undecided voters, it doesn't suggest a successful ad campaign.

Indeed, it was a weak response to the far stronger move by the Conservatives to prepare multiple ads and buy ad time on Canadian television during prime time. 

So the weaker rival engages in dishonest signalling in order to scare the stronger rival off. 

Oh yeah, but we've got some real nasty stuff ready to use, and we'll use it, unless you back off.  So back off.  Or we'll use it.  Uh-huh.  Don't make me.  I mean it. 

But if the stronger rival does not fall for it, the weaker one will be the one who gets messed up, and bad.