The thing about the fight that Stephen Harper has managed to pick with Brian Mulroney, the paradox that elevates it beyond a few days’ bad headlines into the sort of event that makes party members wonder about the boss’s judgment, is that Harper was only doing what he has always done to win.
For as long as he has been in politics, Harper has returned, at important moments, to a few favourite techniques to manage the public agenda. Selective leaks to reporters. Titillating stories custom-designed to distract the press and public from weightier events. Wedge issues chosen with care to turn ally against ally.
It’s what he does. Except he used to do it to his opponents.
This time he did it to Mulroney—the patriarch of one of Harper Conservatism’s constituent groups and a still-formidable political street fighter who, even now, probably has more real, call-him-up-on-his-birthday friends in the party Harper leads than Harper does.
It was Harper’s staff, acting on his behalf for days on end, who leaked word to reporters recently that Mulroney had cut his links to the party. With the Oliphant commission into Mulroney’s ties with Karlheinz Schreiber looming, it was a transparent bid to put space between this Prime Minister and his predecessor. Mulroney and his loyalists took the hint and the insult and pushed back—hard. Pretty soon, two decades’ worth of bad blood was on public display. And Harper, who could use some good luck these days, had some of the other kind on his hands.
Brian Mulroney was making people hurt for crossing him when Stephen Harper was still in short pants. So one question Ottawa Conservatives were asking, when the bizarre two-week debate over Mulroney’s membership status finally calmed down, was: what on earth got into Harper?
Robin Sears is no Conservative. He’s a long-time New Democrat who served as Bob Rae’s chief of staff when Rae was Ontario’s premier. But Sears does act as Mulroney’s paid spokesman, a position that has kept him busy while the Oliphant commission prepared to investigate Mulroney’s dealings with Schreiber. Here’s what Sears makes of the Mulroney membership kerfuffle. First, “what should have been a very positive week for the government,” because Harper was attending a bunch of blue-chip summits overseas, “hasn’t been.”
“Secondly, Mr. Mulroney’s mandate, legacy and record of achievement has been revived in a mostly positive manner, at a time when one couldn’t have anticipated that.
“From the perspective of the world beyond, it provides a rather unhelpful glimpse into how fragile the bonds of partisan loyalty remain within the Conservative party.”
When Canadian conservatives set aside their differences to build broad coalitions, they prosper and govern. One measure of the difficulty of that task is that they have so rarely governed. In the past half-century, only Harper, Mulroney and John Diefenbaker have won more than one national election. For much of that time Mulroney and Harper have incarnated, sometimes in the breach, the importance of conservative loyalty. When they were on the same side, Conservatives were in power. When they weren’t, they weren’t.
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Perhaps the edict from Harper was because he wanted to protect his Mr. Clean image. (just think of him as bald, and having biceps.) Alternately, since the PMO office has access to lots of files relevant to this case, Mr. Harper may know some stuff (or at least strongly suspect). If this happened after he agreed to an inquiry it seems fine… however if Harper knew during the time he was resisting an inquiry…
Ow. My eyes.
[...] The feud The thing about the fight that Stephen Harper has managed to pick with Brian Mulroney, the paradox that elevates it [...] [...]
I love love it!
And I heard little Ben Mulroney has been approached by the Liberals to run in the next election.
That would be just perfect – A Mulroney as a Liberal, as the Libs kick out the CPC of power.
Election anyone?
What? Where did you hear this?
http://communities.canada.com/calgaryherald/blogs/donmartin/archive/2009/04/22/mad-mulroney-going-liberal.aspx
I want that scene where Mila throws Harper’s pic in the trash to make the cut in the mini-series they’ll make about Mulroney some day.
Ben Mulroney needs to ditch the fake tan and plastic hair if he wants to be taken seriously as a politician.
To be fair to Harper, if his stance was to stand by the former PM and declare him a member, everyone would be accusing him of valuing loyalty more than rooting out corruption.
I can’t stand ben mulroney…
He might make a good politician, you never know. I don’t like him as an entertainer, or whatever it is that he does.
Harper needs to star rereading some of his old speeches, articles and public musings. His best out for the Mulroney affair is announce that ties were officially on hold until the inquiry’s findings were made public, with a further discussion at that time. Allow party members to speak with Mulroney but it has to be unofficial thus off the record.
The membership issue is Muldoon’s fault of his own making but he’s juicing it for all it’s worth to gain sympathy. All he has to do is pay the fee. Once he’s cleared of wrong doing of course.
Trouble with politics; Good ideas coming from bad vehicles.
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We need Don Cherry as the new Conservative leader .
hahahaha . . . lol. He’d be perfect.
I am intrigued by the many Liberal articles pointing out how Mr.Harper “kicks over a chair”. It might help their propaganda machine if they could get one of their numerous friends, journalists,media anchors, etc. to have a photograph of one of these alleged events. Every time I’ve seen our PM on TV he seems cool, detached and reasonable. Perhaps you were using the Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scenario.to bolster your quest to destroy Mr.Harper.
There are numerous reports of Harper having a pretty bad temper behind closed doors. The same went for Paul Martin, and apparently John McCain. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide is bang-on. This is all secondary to policy discussion of course– but we don’t need to see him kicking over the chair on YouTube to believe it’s damn true.
did someone mention ben mulroney? with all respect to success finding people… the guy is there doing whatever he does with plummeting ratings wherever he shows up… what did he do to earn this forced celebrity status? possibly taxpayer money?
[...] in the whole brouhaha about whether or not Brian Mulrooney has left the conservative party, but this article is a fascinating look into the backroom politics of the Conservative [...]
Mr. Harper is only doing what one would do in order not to have any of the fluff stick to him. Any politician would do that. I do feel great hope that Mr. Mulroney is found free of any guilt for I do not want that he has done wrong. I liked him as our Prime Minister.