Harper example for Republicans
U.S. should sit up and take notice on economics, immigration
In 1997, when Bill Clinton was in the White House and Jean Chrétien was in 24 Sussex, Stephen Harper gave a funny speech in Montreal, explaining Canadian politics to the Council for National Policy, a powerful American Conservative group.
Harper started by buttering up the Americans, telling them, “your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration in this country and across the world.”
After the drubbing Republicans took on Tuesday, it is Harper who should be a light an inspiration to U.S. conservatives.
As our prime minister moves placidly through his third mandate, master of all he surveys, his American friends are in a shambles, having discovered all of a sudden Tuesday night that they had lost a battle for the White House to an incumbent they despise.
The Republicans would be smart to take careful note of things Harper has done right. It wasn’t that long ago — 2003 — that most people thought Paul Martin was going to win the biggest majority in Canadian history, and Harper would turn out to be a historical footnote.
There were two main complaints against Harper back then: that he was too ideological, and that he was a cold fish, ill-suited to hand-shaking and baby-kissing.
Mitt Romney was also criticized for emotional coldness on the trail, and his campaign is being criticized for being too ideological.
Challengers always seem awkward, though, and Romney can’t be blamed for his party’s extreme ideology, the result of the party’s being taken hostage by rent-seeking plutocrats, tea partiers and the dim- wits on Fox News and talk radio.
In comparison to the Republicans of 2012, Canada’s Conservatives are fairly progressive, the result of a gradual process of edging toward the middle, beginning with the policy convention of 2005, when grassroots Conservatives endorsed bilingualism and agreed not to challenge the status quo on abortion.
In contrast, grassroots Republicans have everywhere pushed their party to the extreme, on abortion, on immigration and economic issues, with an undercurrent of racial antagonism.
Canada is a more racially harmonious society, and the Conservatives here learned long ago that they would not benefit from exploiting the kind of divisions that Republicans have encouraged with “dog-whistle” attacks on welfare, for example.
The chickens have come home to roost, though, because there are now not enough white people to make the “southern strategy” work.
Only white people are voting Republican. African-Americans are bound to be tough to reach as long as Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate, and Latinos can be a challenge to Republicans because of immigration politics, but the party failed to even reach Asian-Americans.
In Canada, the Conservatives have patiently courted immigrants — particularly South Asian and Chinese voters — sending Jason Kenney to temples and community halls to eat curry and dim sum and drive home a message about compatible values.
Republicans have not made a similar effort, perhaps because they are culturally hostile to minorities.
After the bitter election loss of 2004, when free-speaking backbenchers bedevilled him at every turn, scaring voters, Harper cracked the whip. The result? No weird talk about rape.
Romney’s economic message went over well at country clubs, but it didn’t fly on the shop floors in Ohio, where he needed to win.
Harper stays closer to the centre on economic matters, but he is also in control of his party in a way that no U.S. leader is.
Moderate Republicans have been overwhelmed by a tide of unregulated money and by a rightwing media industry that pushes extreme views.
As David Frum put it this week, Republicans “have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex.”
If they want to emulate Harper, and win, they have to do something about that.