Entries from August 2008 ↓

The room was too small to hold everybody on Thursday night, so a few had to stand in the hall and listen hard. A lot of new faces, too. And pizza.

Something else. As one man said after the meeting, “This looked like Canada tonight. Did you see the mix of people, and the ages?” I did. Not a crowd of angry old white guys, like the local Conservative-Reform meetings attract, where black hair, high heels or brown skin is wildly out of place.

Something else. In the room were lifelong Libs, people attending their first-ever political meeting, and some who’d never voted anything but Conservative. Hard-core, too. Old Reformers, disgusted at how the Harper crowd has stomped out the flickering flame of democracy in Halton, and is now about to appoint a candidate. Throwing out their MP was bad enough (that would be me), but gelding the local party boys was simply too much.

So, we’re off. Esther has them all brutally organized. She waved the key of the brand new campaign office triumphantly as she barked out instructions. Canvassing. Sign crews. Stuffers. Phoners. Data slaves.

I passed around my nomination papers, starting the process of having a hundred or so voters honour me with their signatures. We talked about the 36 days to come, once the trigger is pulled next week. We fretted over money, but were bolstered by the length of the volunteer sheets. We talked about campaign themes, what the voters want, the changing demographics of our riding, the tasks of the first 72 hours, and what dirty tricks to expect from the headless opposition.

This is my fourth federal election campaign, and along the way I’ve also done a national referendum and a country-wide leadership contest. I’ve stumped with a bulging warchest behind me, and I’ve campaigned broke. I’ve seen people get inspired and involved by politics, and despaired as they grew bitter, cynical or bored. I have won. I have lost. I’ve worked with leaders who soared and one who crashed. I’ve been invited into Rideau Hall, and thrown out through the caucus room doors.

I have seen enough to know, what I know. This is the one I’ve waited for.

Between photo ops in the NWT, Stephen Harper mused that the next government would likely be another minority. This is more evidence he seems poised to dissolve Parliament next week and plunge us into an election.

When it is over on the night of October 14th, if the polls foretell the future, then the guy may well be right. So, if the best he can do is achieve what he’s got now, then why have an election?

Good question. Two answers.

The first answer comes from Harper mentor, professor, Tory warrior, Reform veteran and author Tom Flanagan. I read his book, “Harper’s Team” when it came out months ago, and was struck in it by the creed the two of them share not to just defeat opponents, but to crush them. Flanagan cites ancient wars in Carthage in which the only victory considered fitting was annihilation – right down to plowing salt into the fields, so crops would never again grow to feed the city.

This, Tommy says, is what Steve wants to do to the Libs. So, gaining a majority government is less important than just pulverizing Stephane Dion and setting the Liberals up for even worse pummeling some time after that. Eventually, as Mr. Harper dreams when he is in his happy place, the world will have no more Liberals, progressives or moderates. Just guys like him. Joy.

The second answer for why he wants an election he can’t dominate, is because the prime minister knows if he doesn’t get us voting now, he’s not going to get a minority. Not even close.

We’ve detailed many of his problems here before, and when it comes to the economy, the walls are closing in on this government. The real estate market is deteriorating, jobs are being exported, inflation and interest rates are on the rise, corporate profits are falling, government spending’s out of control, energy costs are painful, family financial stress is rising and the middle class is being squeezed as never before in two decades. This is all getting worse, fast. When the 0/40 mortgage mess alone hits the fan October 15th, he wants the voting over.

But there’s more, like Julie’s tell-all book about Max, due for publication on October 14th. There’s the in-and-out electoral cheating scandal which has the potential to seriously tarnish the Conservative brand. And, as I wrote in the last post, the ascendancy of Stephane Dion, as evidenced by my Town Hall last week and the new-found respect he’s clearly getting from the media.

Flanagan’s wrong. This isn’t about history. It’s about the future.

Harper fears it. Dion gives it hope.

I hate to be modest. But let me try. I know why Stephen Harper is going to call a federal election next week and it’s because, well, of me.

More precisely, it’s because of last Wednesday, in Oakville. It’s because Stephane Dion came to visit me for a few hours, and as a result we had to beat people back with sticks. In the end, 1,400 of them got through and overran the banquet hall. They filled the chairs. They threw a coup and usurped the reserved guest seating. They parked on the pavement, the roadbed, the grass, the driveway and the gravel of the nearby construction site.

They clapped and roared when he walked out. They mobbed him afterwards. Hell, they even mobbed me. They signed up to volunteer for the campaign. They wrote cheques. They listened to this skinny guy dwarfed by a giant flag, and they believed.

When I told people Stephane Dion was coming for a Town Hall, hundreds of them reserved seats on the first day. The local newspaper asked if it could sponsor the event, and gave me two pages to write about it. Every day for three weeks we watched the RSVP list grow, as word spread. Reporters asked for one-on-ones with the leader. On the day he came, I ran him around between TV studios, as he did radio interviews on the cellphone, before we headed into scrums at the venue. Dion’s press secretary begged us to stop accepting more requests. “The guy,” I was told, “has got to have some downtime before he goes on.”

But the guy did not. No food. No washroom breaks. No privacy. Not for lack of trying, since he had staff desperately trying to win him some peace. But every time Stephane Dion turned around, there was another supporter to greet, another microphone to speak into, another question to answer, another hand to shake, another picture to smile for. He turned none away.

When I pushed into the hall, I could not make out the faces of the people in the back. They were so far away, and so numerous, they blended into dots. Around three walls, others were standing, shoulder-to-shoulder. Outside a long line of cars circled, unable to find an empty eight feet of grass or dirt to park on.

When Stephane Dion appeared, the crowd clapped in rhythm. I’d not expected that. In fact, this was not thought to be a partisan room, since it had been opened to anyone, of all political stripes. I made a point of saying every view was welcome, that this was no Liberal rally – a comment welcomed by a heavy rumble of applause. Nonetheless, the Dion presence was so evocative, his instant easy manner and genuine nature so recognizable, that cynical suburbanites thawed.

When Stephane Dion came to Oakville, into a church hall in a sea of houses on the western flank of the GTA on a Wednesday night in August – preaching promise and change, and doing it without a teleprompter, notes or hesitation – and the four-lane highway outside was paralyzed, it was a moment I will not forget. It was a picture so powerful it could stun other leaders, dispirit Conservative strategists, and prove there’s a public soul awakening.

Stephen Harper tried to kill off the MP from Halton, shunning him, chucking him, calling him disloyal. Stephen Harper tried to destroy the Liberal leader, mocking him, bullying him, calling him weak.

But there we were. Risen again, with Dion stronger by the moment. Fourteen hundred faces, turned to him, looking for a better way, or at least a leader with empathy, humanity and hope.

And this is why we’re having an election.