Attention all you deep thinkers in the Conservative Party (Yes I know you read this blog)
You need to know that some of your antics --- Emerson, canceling a privatization in BC, wimping out on Islamic violence – are alienating your base.
Remember your base?
They are the people who stuck by you all those years when you were wandering around the political wilderness. They are the people who voted for you and helped you win the election.
And right now they are angry.
In fact, here at the National Citizens Coalition our phones are ringing off the hook. Our supporters are upset, confused and disillusioned. They want to know what the Conservatives think they are doing.
Here’s an email I got from an NCC supporter in response to a blog I wrote where I wondered if I was too hard on Stephen Harper for all this:
But one thing the Tories need to understand is this: they can’t take the conservative vote for granted.
Canadian conservatives want change not more of the same and they won’t tolerate a betrayal of their principles.
If you Deep Conservative Party thinkers don’t learn this quickly, your party will end up less popular than the Danish ambassador at a Jihadist convention.
You need to know that some of your antics --- Emerson, canceling a privatization in BC, wimping out on Islamic violence – are alienating your base.
Remember your base?
They are the people who stuck by you all those years when you were wandering around the political wilderness. They are the people who voted for you and helped you win the election.
And right now they are angry.
In fact, here at the National Citizens Coalition our phones are ringing off the hook. Our supporters are upset, confused and disillusioned. They want to know what the Conservatives think they are doing.
Here’s an email I got from an NCC supporter in response to a blog I wrote where I wondered if I was too hard on Stephen Harper for all this:
“No I don't think you were too hard on Stephen Harper. His debut was inauspicious at best. Then we read that he abandoned the notion of privatizing some northern Crown corporation at the advice of David Emerson. Then we get Peter MacKay's silly imitation of Pettigrew with his lame and coy defence of free speech while urging tolerance for the intolerant amongst us. Whatever happened to our Stephen of NCC days?”Ok Harper has been PM for less than a week. So maybe we are all over-reacting a bit. Maybe we should cut him some slack and see where he goes in the next few weeks and months.
But one thing the Tories need to understand is this: they can’t take the conservative vote for granted.
Canadian conservatives want change not more of the same and they won’t tolerate a betrayal of their principles.
If you Deep Conservative Party thinkers don’t learn this quickly, your party will end up less popular than the Danish ambassador at a Jihadist convention.
13 comments:
I am more concerned about the so called Conservative voices who are doing more damage to our new PM than the left wing media and the Liberal/NDP groups .
I ,too , am a long time member of the NCC [ Gerry , check , have I paid for this year ?] Am I worried about the new Conservative Government ? No !
Do I agree with or understand everything we claim they are doing wrong , already ? No !
Am I phoning you to express my disgust with Stephen Harper's so called lack of integrity ? No !
Because I am willing to wait patiently for the outcomes .
I waited through 12 years of Liberal lies and political boondoggles .Therefore I can give Stephen Harper 12 months of grace .
Undermine him now and we are back in the mess we voted against .
CONTINUE TO STAND UP FOR CANADA ...or roll over and die .
blessings from Virgil
I believe I'm typical of conservatives who really believed that once in power instead of behaving like the Liberals we said we disliked for being so arrogant and entitled, Harper would set a new standard from the get-go.
Has he?
No, he hasn't. All he's done is painted a nice target on his back and given the Liberals and Liberal media way too much to work with.
I don't think you were too hard on Stephen Gerry.
I'm beginning to feel insulted even though I want to support the government and party I belong to. I also have to admit that I'm seriously considered not renewing my membership. It's the same insulting feeling I had after the last Ont. provincial election when Ernie Eves trashed all common-sense and tried to wear policy and initiatives that didn't fit.
This is what the Liberals have that we don't and I wish it would have crossed the floor with Emerson, a degree of party loyalty that is willing to look beyond some of the things that we disagree with rather and support those things we do agree about.
We might not always agree with everything that Prime Minister Harper does but he is out there on the front lines everyday trying to make a minority government work and trying to make sure it does not meet the same fate as Joe Clark's short lived 1979 government. Rather then writing about the tough talk that Vic Toews is giving on the Gun Registry or raising the age of consent you are harping on Emerson,the nullification of a port privatization that was being undersold (do I have to remind you of Bill Vander Zalm and the scandals regarding his privatization at below market prices) and MacKay's comments on Danish Cartoons. I'm sorry, but these are the most important and pressing concerns of the day?
I was a Reformer/Canadian Alliance Member who joined the PC Party of Canada to support a candidate I believed would unite the right, I have been a member of the party in one for or another since I was 15, one who was on the right side of it at that from Alberta. I hardly think there is anyone that can be considered to be more of a member of the base then I would be and the Prime Minister has my unwavering support and will continue to have it unless he does something so grave that I can't support him. Even then I would support the party rather then trying to scuttle it with criticisms on matters that really do not find their bearing on the grander scheme of a better, more responsible government.
If you don't like what Prime Minister Harper is doing you can support a non confidence motion like Pearson presented in 1958 saying it's time to restore the country back to the time honoured, common sense agenda of the Liberal Party.
Everyone should take a pill and relax...
Get ready for quite a few more Emerson's comming our way.
The liberal party is imploding from within, no one wants to lead it, there are plenty more scandals the auditor general is about to discover, the party has a massive debt, and the blatently socialist message comming from the party leaders has opened the eyes of many liberal voters.
If the liberal party continues going more to the left, we may see some kind of merging or maybe a coalition between the liberals and the NDP.
Centre-rights within the liberals now, will be looking for a new home with the conservatives.
By the time we have our next election, I suspect we will see a better defined left/right split in our electoral choices.
It's been a long time comming..!
I disagree with the Emerson decision and cancelling the privatization of the Ridley Terminal, however I think you are mistaken to suggest they should take a conservative approach. Lets remember this is a minority government so if they take the approach the NCC advocates, the government will fall pretty fast. Had Harper won a majority government (shudder the thought) then it might make sense, but he didn't and lets not pretend he did.
So which one of the 2, count 'em, 2 demonstrators in front of Emerson's constituency office was an angry NCC member? The ONE holding the sign? This 'event' was attended by 14 media persons...ooooh, big demonstration, really big constituency backlash!
Please don't confuse or scold individuals for somehow being unfaithful to party loyalties. Party loyalty is one thing, developing an axis of excuses for dumb moves is simply learning the bad habits of the Liberals.
Oh and by the way. Since the aim of any good campaign is to coax those not already converted to trust their votes to a candidate, I have to wonder how many of those folks we lost because of the optics the defection displayed.
Optics of course is everything in politics.
I have to disagree with one point. I think it was a good idea to cancel the privatization deal in in BC. It seemed to be a Liberal helping a Liberal (at a great price) kind of deal.
But definitely agree, they blew it big time with appointments, and now wimping out on freedom of the press. Is anyone not considering that this crisis may have begun in Denmark, but is being perpetuated by the radicals, and their intent is to destroy our way of life? By giving in and saying that we believe in Freedom of the Press, but..what kind of freedom is that? Yes, we may be exposed to items that are offensive, but that's the price we pay (and gladly pay). If anyone cannot accept that, then they need to reconsider whether they want to live here or not.
I am not a member of a political party, but I voted Conservative because I was fed up with the way the Liberals did business. I am one of those people who voted for change, and am now extremely disappointed with the Harper government. If I had wanted things to continue as they were I would have voted Liberal. The Conservatives have lost my vote in the next election.
Political decisions aren't made in a vacuum. Voters are only ONE of the many voices a PM hears constantly. Lobbyists, party supporters, executives, trade representatives, NGO's...all these groups have an agenda and a desire. All voters can do is vote once every three or four years. The internet has made it so that at least us little folk can be heard, so we have to make sure they hear us up on the hill, because we are only ONE group he hears.
If you vote conservative NO MATTER WHAT, and no matter who the leader is and no matter how they behave that's your business. If it talks like a liberal, walks like on, and does patronage like one, I've got news, you are no longer voting conservative!
That doesn't mean we all jump ship, but it also means that we make sure Harper hears us, because one vote at the next election is ALL we have to work with. There is no point in voting conservative if you end up with a liberal. If he keeps going this way we're better off splitting the parties again. We made deficit cutting the number one priority as opposition, we've got more clout than people suspect.
"Party loyalty" doesn't mean taking the kicks in the head and thanking the boss for them. Harper could have single-handedly won the next election by announcing that his first choice of senator would be from whichever province needs representation AND elects him. Even most liberals and NDP'ers support elected senators, and he would have accomplished what hasn't been done for over a hundred years (no, it didn't save Mulroney but those were MUCH different times).
He'd be the opposite of Dithers, he'd be a grassroots hero. In a minority government there are damn few things he CAN do, this was one and he blew it. We have to make sure whatever voices are up on the hill (or in his head) that are making him make such bonehead moves don't happen AGAIN.
And don't count the Power Corporation Political Party out just yet, they are not in nearly the tatters we were in 1993. Somehow even with a liberal government fiscal conservatism became the order of the day, we have to make sure that fiscal liberalism doesn't become the order of the day under a conservative government, and that doesn't happen by rolling over.
Maybe they could all sit as independents and let the Liberals get back to governing and stealing.
May I ask, how long has this Conservative government been in power? You are right, a mere WEEK and yet you all are already up in arms over the OPTICS of what recently transpired !!! You mean all those belly-aching for the last 12 years of Liberal Rule did not harden your soul and your spine to focus on what is GOOD for ordinary CANADIANs ... and I thought the NCC apparitchick has more moxie than that .... Unless PMSH and the CPC has been caught using the national treasury as its own personal bank account, I am willing to bend for now with the blow of the wind on political manueverings that transpired this week... AS the other blogger wrote here, what if there are a few more Libs who cross the floor in the next months, what do you do then ? Think of the alternatives if the CPC falters, a left wing socialist NDP or a confused bunch of convicted crooks in the Liberal Party ...
This post has clearly generated lots of debate.
And that’s good.
But I need to make a few points clear.
First for those of you who think I am giving up on the Tories, read my blog again, that’s not what I am saying.
Yes the Conservatives have gotten off to (I believe) a shaky start. But the real test will come when they introduce their policies in the days and weeks ahead.
If their policies bring about better more honest government than this week will be forgotten.
However, if they don’t bring about change, if they stick to the status quo, they can’t expect the people who elected them to cheer them on.
That’s the lesson they need to take from the Emerson fiasco.
Also, I need to point out that I am not a Conservative.
My job is to keep an eye on all political parties to make sure they are protecting and promoting our economic and political freedoms.
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