TOO MUCH ANGER TO SUCCEED (op-ed on Harper, excellent!)

[Spazito]

3//The Toronto Star, Canada Jun. 5, 2005. 08:28 AM http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename...



TOO MUCH ANGER TO SUCCEED

After 23 years in politics, Stephen Harper still has a penchant for marginalizing moderates within his Conservative caucus, ridiculing the patriotism of Liberal voters and working out his anger issues in public



David Olive

Look at that face, that hateful face.

-Sam Rayburn, Democratic speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, watching a televised address by Richard Nixon



Richard Nixon somehow made it to the top of the greasy pole. It's helpful to take that view of history in trying to imagine Stephen Harper as the man who can lead a united right to the New Jerusalem.



As dysfunctional in his own way as the dethroned Stockwell Day, Harper has twice squandered the chance effortlessly gained by the sponsorship scandal to form a government. He is, Tory insiders began saying last week, girding for a third try this fall, hoping the potency of the Grewal tapes matches that of the Gomery revelations.



It, too, will likely fail.



In a nation that favours public figures who project a sunny optimism, Harper traffics more heavily in bile than any major political party leader since John Diefenbaker.



Harper regards Liberals of every description as "corrupt," and their precarious government, in all its grand and sundry aspects, "morally reprehensible." Those who fail to align with Harper's worldview he labels monsters, harlots and underworld figures.

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(with thanks to poster Gloria for first posting this!)

[applegrove]

1. Harper can only win if the election is based on something other

than governance. Just like neocons everywhere. Must be so frustrating that Canada does not go to war. That would be a diversion. Gomery may be a diversion they can still use.

But I think if you put Gomery up against governance - the Harperites will loose every time. We have had good governance in Canada. Look at the Canada Health Act and how hard it tries and how competitive it makes us. It is a win - win all around. Harper's problem in Ontario is that we have already dealt with neocons in Harris. What joy that was!!

We don't have so many of the problems the US has because we always took the course of action that put people before elites. It worked then. It works now.

So I welcome any attempt Harper makes to make 'the election issue' something other than the way we share wealth in this country. And the way we pay as we go. Bring it on. Go ahead. Try and make it all about 'fear of the US taking over Canada' as was tried by David Fromm a month ago. Make it whatever fear you want. Make it emotional. We are lucky, lucky, lucky. And we will continue to be so - so long as we share our wealth and have adequate income tax.

Why I would imagine that in 20 years - Albertans who will then live on the biggest Oil Stove on the planet - may become the biggest environmentalist.. and like always in Alberta - if times get tough because the northern half of your province burns boils oil in an attempt to get it out of the tar sands... Albertans will en mass move to other places in Canada. To get out of the heat.

That is what a big great country does. It gives people choices.

[V. Kid]

4. I wouldn't be so sure....

...the Conservatives were actually doing quite well last election, until the issue of governance was taken off the table. I mean that in the sense that they downplayed what they'd do in government, and they emphasized Liberal corruption. If they can concentrate on that then they could get into government. They need to keep the crazies under lock and key and basically say they won't do anything different from the Liberals, except they won't steal our money like the Liberals do. If they could do that then they could win...the thing is that they can't do that because if they can't even keep their party in line in opposition, it's unlikely they'll be able to run an effective campaign (with Harper as leader) let a lone minority or majority government.

At a certain point the Liberals were running scared. At this point the Liberals were sending people like John MacCallum and Judy Sgro to harass Harper -- and make the Liberals look ridiculous in the process. And really the Liberals don't put people first, they simply run a relatively competent ship, that's not so full of wing-nuts like the Conservative Party -- they're just as economically pro-elite anti-regular folk as the Conservative Party...it's just that their rhetoric is better. And if you take a look at their record you'd see that. The thing is that people were angry at the Liberals, and still don't trust them. And they can be beaten, as it's unlikely they'll recover in Quebec for YEARS...so we're entering a period of minority government. But while the Conservatives act nutty, which seems to be a Tory trait, they won't win...and the Liberals will most likely win by default.

[iverglas]

2. got a chance to listen first hand

I was sitting around being bored last week in a locale that happened to offer me some clear audio from the lawyers behind me discussing the current state of Conservative affairs.

I was amused by the reasons being offered by the one talking, for why he didn't think he'd take a shot at the federal nomination, preferring to go provincial: he didn't know anything about international law or immigration law, he was all about business law. Yeah, that's what politics is all about.

Lawyers, of course, were always a backbone of local Tory politics. They ran for office, they ran the campaigns, they raised the money, etc. Obviously, nothing to do with what some of us regard as "politics", and everything to do with protecting class interests through controlling the political process.

Anyhow, he had another big reason for not taking a shot at the federal nomination. Apparently "Tom", also a lawyer and a good buddy of the one talking, had approached the local riding association to see what he could do to help on the last federal campaign. Thank you but no thank you, was their reply. As the one I was listening to put it (although I forget his exact words), the riding association had been taken over by the "social conservatives". Even though I myself wouldn't call this guy and his frend "red Tories", it was made quite plain that they were not wanted in the present Conservative riding association. He said he was tending toward the Liberals now.

Interesting. Not being in the Conservative loop, I hadn't run into the minutiae of how this exclusion was being effected. Sheesh -- evict the old-PC lawyers, be it in small-town Ontario or Toronto, and you've eliminated the bedrock of your political organization.

[Spazito]

3. Wow, thanks for posting this, it is VERY interesting and

certainly gives even more credence to what the op-ed was saying as well as the purging of moderate conservatives from the phony new Con party.

I would not be surprised if a movement begins soon, if it has not already behind the scenes, to form a moderate Conservative party, ala Joe Clark, again. There HAS to be a great deal of discomfort, not to mention outright anger, by genuine moderates at the takeover and betrayal of the PC party.

[Joel]

5. A wild stab

You'd be talking Halifax West correct?

It's true a lot of So-cons won this time around because many of our former PC's are gearing up for the provincial election and are just not interested.

Thankfully in my riding we got Paul Francis who isn't a one issue guy. He ran a food bank and I believe he and his wife ran a womens shelter. He's a quality man even if we do disagree on some things.

[iverglas]

6. noooo

Just good old Ontario. No provincial election anywhere on the horizon, here. Just a plain old go-away issued to the non-loons in the party. I mean, it's not like the guy I was listening to was some closet godless pinko homo or something! A business-law lawyer, straight and white on the outside, and blue through and through.

The city in question is definitely not one where the loons could expect to make any breakthrough, so they're just shooting themselves in the foot anyhow. And, damn, ruining any chance for a good three-way split where we NDPers need it. ;)