A rchive Date
[ 24-03-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/byfield.html
Stockwell Day's disappearing vote
By TED BYFIELD -- Edmonton Sun
March 24, 2002
Check the returns for the Alliance leadership mail-in vote and you find a very interesting fact. Total number of registered memberships: 124,000. Total number of votes cast: 81,500. Total number of registered members who didn't vote: 42,000 - about one in three registered members.
What's interesting is this: Stockwell Day's people said they were confident of a first-ballot victory because they had sold more than 30,000 new memberships. I'm sure they were telling the truth. But I'm also sure that most of those 30,000 new members didn't vote at all, and the result was Day suffered a first-ballot defeat. The question is why didn't they vote?
The answer is important because I think it holds the key to how the new leader, Stephen Harper, can reunite the party and gain the support of many in the faction that bought memberships for Day and then didn't vote for him.
Those people are politely known as "social conservatives." This has become the less offensive way of saying "Christian," though the term includes religious Jews and an increasing number of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus.
I suspect this is what happened: Stockwell's friends saw him as a victim of anti-Christian bigotry. He was a good, earnest man who gave his all for the Christian things we stand for, they said, and he was assassinated by the power brokers of Canada - the Liberals, the media, the intellectuals and the CBC. "He took the hit for us," the Day supporters declared, "and now we should stand behind him."
That was the pitch and it was delivered in churches so fervidly that some clergy objected to it publicly. The response was exactly half of what was asked for. They bought the memberships, but they didn't vote, and no doubt Stockwell now sees them as disloyal.
Go back a couple of years and you hear the same grumble being muttered by the supporters of another leader, notably Preston Manning. He, too, counted on the "social conservatives" supporting him and he, too, sensed betrayal. They voted for Day instead, in spite of everything Manning had done. What's with these people?
What's with them is nothing as indecisive as it may seem. They know what they want government to do; they think their suggestions as to how the government should do it are fair and just, and they are looking for the politician who can deliver it for them.
They rejected Manning for two reasons. First, they had concluded that he didn't really believe in the things they believed in, and his subsequent conduct has vindicated this suspicion - his attempt, that is, to force an alliance with Joe Clark's Red Tories by working a shotgun deal with them in his own constituency before the party as a whole could decide the question. It was a case of anything to get elected.
Second, Manning had already twice demonstrated he could not win Ontario, and the people had concluded that had he remained as leader this would not change. The media's current sympathy for him did not begin until after he had lost the leadership. Until then he was always, as columnist Allan Fotheringham called him, "Parson Manning," and it would have been as Parson Manning that he was portrayed in the last election. He was relieved of this clerical odium only after he quit.
Now this same conclusion has been reached with regard to Day. He can't win either. Many of those 30,000 new members had already concluded that he couldn't do the job, however motivated. Rather than say this to his ardent supporters, however, they bought the membership and threw it away.
So what about Harper? Will they support him? No, they will wait and see what he does. They will watch in particular for one determinate clue. Will he endorse or compromise the Alliance policy that the laws on "social issues" should be subject to popular referendum? If Harper stands fast on that one, he will gradually draw the whole party behind him. If he begins to weave and dodge, he will shatter the party and his leadership will fail. It's up to him. One thing already stands in his favour: He has never been a notable weaver and dodger. He has principles and he sticks to them. That's encouraging.
Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@edm.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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