Major Acid's E-Rag
It Strikes Me...
Thanks, Joe
Ah, the interviews, the post-election interviews laced with platitudes covering a basic problem � what the heck happened? Pollsters were stunned. So were politicians. The latter, more used to dealing with the unexpected, trotted out the platitudes. Canadians delivered a message; the government will govern better; we will do what the people have asked us to do; the party did better than before and remember, we�re new; we�ll do even better when people realize we aren�t right wing zealots; we have the balance of power and will hold those scoundrels to account; we will defend the interests of Quebec as long as we�re stuck in Canada. Okay, so that last one is a constant.
Nowhere, however, will you hear this: the Liberals succeeded because of, at least in part, the Joe Clark effect. He was barely mentioned in the national press, but he was out there � campaigning for a Liberal or two. Joe Clark, once a Tory Prime Minister, twice head of the Progressive Conservative party, campaigned for the Liberals.
You might say he was just exorcising sour grapes picked at the demise of his once proud Progressive Conservatives (PCs). The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), the party that scavenged the bones of the PCs and grafted them to the Reform/Alliance mouldering corpus, is not a newly revitalized Progressive Conservative party. It is a terminal reflex trying a desperate hanging on to a dream of religiously driven, conservative dictatorship of your private life, a dream disintegrating in the face the citizenry�s widespread acceptance of Canada�s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The CPC failed to heed the obvious, something said so often that people no longer hear the meaning: they�re all the same. When asked about federal politics that�s what you hear: they�re all the same, meaning especially the Liberals and the (old) Conservatives: Paul Martin is a Conservative in a red tie, or the Liberals and the Conservatives were happy with Free Trade and the GST, promises notwithstanding.
Aside from personalities, there hasn�t been much to choose between the Grits and the Tories for many years. They were busy fighting over the middle ground, the generally tolerant, �small l� liberal individualist majority.
Both the CPC and the NDP fail to understand this. The unsolved mystery the NDP have pondered for many years is why so many of their blue-collar, dues-paying, unionized members ignore the solidarity propaganda sent out from union head offices and vote Liberal behind the voter�s frail, cardboard privacy screen. The screen may be frail; the privacy is real; the middle ground is where they want to be.
Joe Clark was a nice guy firmly centered in that middle ground. He was rather hapless, but likable. He was believable. People liked that he put up with being outsmarted by Trudeau, lost his minority government, but hung in there. People liked that he worked with Mulroney, even though Mulroney had deposed him. People liked him because he seemed firm in his beliefs, constant, someone to be trusted. So when Joe Clark refused to sign on to the CPC, many people understood that something was not quite right with the CPC.
The political bean counters who spent time calculating the combined strength of the former Alliance and PC parties failed to recognize that something was not quite right. If Joe Clark wasn�t going to be a CPC supporter, then a lot of the rank and file former PCs weren�t going to be either. Granted, the polls seemed to show something different, but in that tiny zone of political freedom, behind that frail cardboard screen, gut instinct took over.
Yes, voters were annoyed with the Liberals, annoyed at a lot of things. Billions were wasted on a gun registry that only law abiding people would put their names to. If you want to control gun violence, control the criminals, not the duck hunters. Guns are worrisome, but stupid is stupid and voters can smell stupid a mile away.
Millions were sunk into secret and therefore blatantly stupid plans allegedly designed to fight separatism. As with any secret transfer of money, greedy hands siphoned off what they could. If you want to fight separatism, get out there in the open and fight it. Confront the separatists, make your arguments; secret deals in backrooms carry the stink of corruption, and voters can smell corruption a mile away.
Even in an election where voters were rightly angry with a long-term, arrogant governing machine, the CPC couldn�t overcome a fact of Canadian life � that tolerant middle ground far to the left of the CPC is where most Canadians choose to live, even in an election where voters wanted to send a message.
Between the Liberals and the NDP the popular vote amounted to nearly 55%. The BQ got 12%. The BQ logo over the numbers obscures the calculation, but there is a middle ground vote in those numbers, too. Quebecers have a history of and disdain for religiously driven political domination. It took Quebecers well into the 20th century before they broke away from Catholic Church domination. I estimate that the Quebec middle to left ground is probably closer to a 75-25 split. Add even half, however, and the 55% number climbs to over 60%. There are the Greens, too.
This is where comedian Rick Mercer comes in. In one of his walking tirades, he urged citizens to vote. He took on the standard excuse � people didn�t feel they should have to choose the best of a bad lot. Mercer pointed out that in a democracy it is important that the best of the bad lot gets voted in. Consider the alternative!
Joe Clark apparently understands this, too, and he put himself out there in support of the best of a bad lot. He did this despite being snubbed by Paul Martin. On the day that Clark retired from parliament, a day when even enemies say nice things to enemies, Paul Martin didn�t show up. Still, Joe Clark did what he had done all his career. He soldiered on.
I don�t know if it is possible to measure the effect, but I can guess at it, and I guess that many, many voters stood behind that frail cardboard screen and followed Joe�s example. Leadership by example. Thanks, Joe.
