Inside Politics

The Tom Flanagan Reading Club is now in session!

by Kady O'Malley Posted: June 2, 2010 8:48 AM Last Updated: June 2, 2010 9:34 AM
As teasered in today's Toronto Star, here's the full text of the latest insider-y account of internal Conservative Party politics from the PM's erstwhile senior advisor, the consistently quotable Professor Tom Flanagan, which will be presented at the 2010 Congress of The Humanities and Social Sciences in Montreal later this week: 

At the moment, I'm still in mull mode, but what I find particularly intriguing -- other than the usual revelations of previously unknown backroom wranglings over internal party management, of course -- is his suggestion that, at least from his perspective, policy -- which was the lifeblood of the Reform Party -- has been pushed to the background in favour of relentless pre-electioneering. 

 Although it can't be denied that so far, that shift is working in the Conservatives' favour -- they're in government, and likely to stay there for a while -- but Flanagan points out that the strategy may hurt the party in the long run, by alienating those same grassroots supporters on which it is ultimately dependent -- not only for donations, but as a source of volunteers willing to do the often deeply unglamourous grunt work that is so essential for a winning campaign. 

What is particularly ironic, of course, is that one of the most frequently heard -- and largely accurate -- critiques of the current Liberal Party is that it has no overarching policies or principles other than a fuzzy but deeply held desire to get back into power; if Flanagan is correct, his party may be at risk of falling into exactly the same meta-existential loop. 


(There's also the question of how the party would handle a transition of power from the current leader to his successor, but even raising the possibility that someday, many, many years from now, Stephen Harper may want to move on tends to give Conservative supporters the vapours, so I'll leave that aside for the moment, although commenters are, as always, free to wade in.)

Then again, it's possible that Flanagan is wrong about everything. I'm sure it's happened before. What's your take, readers? 

Tags: blackberry jungle, permanent campaign-iness, tom flanagan reading club