Don’t mistake a lame horse for a unicorn

Gad. Another sighting of the unicorn. You know, the one with the blue hide and red horn. The socially liberal, fiscally conservative dream Tory candidate. This time with polls for hooves and a green mane.

It’s funny how people constantly deplore politicians’ tendency to pander to the popular mood. But then the minute some Conservative stands on principle they shriek haven’t you seen the polls?

The latest such cri de sondage comes from Ken Boessenkool, a cosignatory of the 2001 “Firewall Letter” that helped convince people Stephen Harper would stand on libertarian principle if elected. Ken just advised in Maclean’s that the Tories can win far more votes in swing 905 ridings by endorsing climate change than they’ll lose among core voters.

I doubt it. There is an unappreciated partisan cost to opportunistic incoherence. But even if true, it requires the Tories to find a candidate who sincerely believes in man- made climate change but is ( a) too dumb to favour a carbon tax big enough to matter or ( b) too dishonest to care. Or one willing to lie to win in order to implement bad policy. Perhaps I don’t belong in politics. But neither sounds good to me.

Even tactically. My colleague John Ivison also just peddled the conventional wisdom, saying “Harper took the health- care issue off the electoral table by simply pledging to do whatever the Liberals committed to. Scheer could do the same on climate change.” Now there’s leadership for you. Plant a red “Me too” lawn sign. And wonder why people vote for the person with the red “Me first” sign. Again. ( Harper lost to Trudeau, remember?)

Ivison’s plan is to “propose a truce in the damaging domestic feuds over climate policy.” But a truce is where both sides stop fighting. When only one does, it’s called “a surrender.” And what if you can’t? What if you really can’t be a conservative and accept liberal arguments?

Not just on climate. The Tories are also urged to rally round the white flag on social issues. What we need, evidently, is a true blue candidate who’s also red as well as green. As in socially liberal but fiscally conservative.

Here people talk as though the big challenge was finding a socially liberal Tory. Actually most have been, or faked it, for decades.

Remember Harper’s basilisk stare at pro- lifers. And the party just banned Richard Décarie from the leadership race for reasons that, in the interest of open government, they won’t disclose. Could be anything, really. Nudge wink.

What’s missing in action is fiscally conservative Conservatives. Unless by “fiscally conservative” you mean favouring big deficits, huge spending increases, Soviet- style health care, supply management etc. Harper even bombarded me with daily press releases about handouts to companies. ( And lost.) And Peter Mackay was right there, or left, pushing for more more more and more. If he’s a fiscal conservative, I’m Batman. ( Also, polls say people want fiscally conservative big spenders. Tricky.)

Behind all the tactical pitfalls is a philosophical one. What if it’s not possible to be fiscally conservative but socially liberal? Sure, you can pretend, slick up your platform with balanced budgets and spending increases and march in a pride parade with a sign saying cut taxes. You can even be confused. But what if the core of conservatism is the recognition that you need rules?

Conservatives are the party of reality. And reality has rules. You can acknowledge or ignore them. But the laws of economics are like the law of gravity. Which you don’t have to believe in to fall off a cliff.

What if other laws are laws too? What if abortion is just plain wrong? What if CO2 isn’t destroying the planet? What if drifting with the polls loses elections? And what if you can’t have rules in some areas and do what thou wilt in others, in your life or in your head? What if you can’t have vast dependency- breeding social programs and frugal government?

Some people urge Conservatives to have their gay wedding cake and eat it too by being pro- family without being pro-traditional family. But to adapt a phrase from Chesterton, governing like art consists of drawing the line somewhere. You can’t favour spending cuts generally without cutting some actual spending, or favour families in the abstract without favouring some actual kind of family in some actual way. So are “throuples” in or out?

One Post columnist recently asked government to stop defining marriage. But since marriage conveys an array of legal rights and duties, the state has to say who’s married. Unless we get rid of all those privileges and obligations.

So is the idea here to save the family by abolishing it? And ditto the balanced budget? Nothing would surprise me any more.

Especially Conservatives mistaking a lame horse for a unicorn.

Jim Wells / Postmedia news files Some pundits are suggesting the Tories will need to choose a new federal leader who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative.