View topic - NP: William Watson backs Stephen Harper... :: Free Dominion - Principled Conservative - Party and Canadian Politics

PUBLICATION: National PostDATE: 2004.03.18EDITION: NationalSECTION: CommentPAGE: A18COLUMN: William WatsonBYLINE: William WatsonSOURCE: National Post
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Why I would have voted for Stephen Harper
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I was going to begin this column explaining why I had joined the Conservative party and would vote for Stephen Harper in this Saturday's leadership balloting. Reporters should pretend to objectivity, I'd have argued, but columnists are in the business of taking sides. If because of the crazy rules the party has chosen votes in my home province of Quebec get extra weight -- "You could be worth 50 points all on your own," the operative who recruited me sighed -- why simply stand by and watch when you could actually help achieve what you'd be telling readers you favoured anyway? Full disclosure is the best policy for politicians. Why not for people writing about politicians? Besides, if regular readers would be shocked, shocked to learn my political sympathies, then I really haven't been doing my job right.

It would have been an interesting argument, but in the end, a mix-up with a credit card number meant I missed the filing deadline. As a result, I'm back to being officially objective.

Why would I have voted for Stephen Harper? Both negative and positive reasons.

The negative reasons are Belinda Stronach and Tony Clement. Ms. Stronach is a welcome addition to Canadian and conservative politics -- even if, at heart, she doesn't seem all that conservative. With time, if she stays in the game and works hard at it, she may become a talented politician. But she isn't one yet. A national race against Paul Martin would make that catastrophically clear. Lots of Canadians are in the mood for a change in Ottawa. If they concluded Ms. Stronach wasn't up to the job, they might well jump to Jack Layton. That would be ideologically incoherent, but swing voters, God bless 'em, aren't as doctrinally obsessive as op-ed readers or writers.

If Ms. Stronach does stay in the game, what kind of caucus, shadow-Cabinet or -- let's dream a little -- Cabinet colleague would she be? That so many heavyweight Tories are backing such an obviously underqualified candidate suggests great animus in some parts of the new party against Stephen Harper. If the Conservatives actually win the next election -- a one-in-five shot, down from one in a thousand just three months ago -- or if they get close to power, dissension won't be a problem. But anything less and they may revert to fratricide. The Liberals have been surprisingly fast learners at family blood sport, but it's still the Tory specialty.

Tony Clement is a much better politician than Ms. Stronach and would be an attractive addition to the Conservative front bench, but few Canadians would see him as a potential prime minister. Too nerdy, too eager, too inexperienced at the federal level, too tainted by association with the failed Eves Tories. Politics is cruel but if Mr. Clement, too, hangs around, he could grow on people.

Which leaves Stephen Harper. Process of elimination may indeed win him the job but in fact there are many reasons to be enthusiastic about him. He's young (compared to Mr. Martin), smart, hard-working, an economist by training -- which means he thinks in terms of costs as well as benefits, a habit we need in people spending public money. He's also not a lawyer from Quebec and once in a half century we should let someone be prime minister who isn't. It would be good for central Canada, the most welcoming, open-minded and tolerant of all societies on Earth, as it keeps telling us, to prove it by allowing someone from the long condescended-to West have a go at the top job.

Mr. Harper is also conservative, or at least has a history of being conservative, even if his recent policy pronouncements give cause for worry. Ear-marked taxes have got to be among the silliest policies around and yet, following Paul Martin off the cliff, Mr. Harper wants to give cities three to five cents off the gas tax. (Why? Does gasoline cause homelessness?) The only good thing to be said for this new-found moderation is that it shows determination to win.

To what lengths will that determination go? The other day Don Martin suggested here that Mr. Harper cook Kraft Dinner on TV in order to counter Belinda Stronach's humanizing session in a karaoke bar. Mr. Harper, who is personable and funny in private, disdains the baby-kissing, glad-handing side of politics. Good for him. What are we electing here? A prime minister? Or a best friend? Humanizing photo ops -- the leader flipping pancakes, the leader water-skiing, the leader chowing down with ordinary folk -- are designed to show the leader is just a regular guy (or gal). But people who aspire to be prime minister are not regular guys. They are socially useful neurotics. They are driven. They have to be. And they lead very, very strange lives. In a month-long election campaign Mr. Harper's character will out. If in the meantime he wants to keep the official focus on what he'd actually try to do as prime minister, more power to him.

If he loses on Saturday, I hope it's by more than one Quebec vote.
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The greatest motivation for radical change is a pervasive sense of ceaseless and grinding futility.

...springer

Posted: 03/ 18/ 04 10:10 am Post subject:

The sad part was that Tony Clement was more deserving of the support of the old tory heavyweights than Belinda.

He was much more better than Belinda.
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"The tired, old, corrupt Liberal party is cornered like an angry rat, they are going to attack us like never before." -Stephen Harper, Canada's prime minister in waiting.

[img:cd609bea13]http://www.georgewbush.com/images/bc04/BC04index_olympics.gif[/img:cd609bea13][img:cd609bea13]http://www.georgewbush.com/images/bc04/BC04_index_nwsadKGTC.gif[/img:cd609bea13]

Posted: 03/ 18/ 04 12:21 pm Post subject:

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