IT'S NOT LIKE CANADA IS GOING TO LEAVE THE ANGLOSPHERE:

Harper’s Conservatives here to stay? (Susan Delacourt, 5/20/11, Toronto Star)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is building a Conservative coalition in Canada that will probably be more enduring than Brian Mulroney’s conservatism of the 1980s, according to Ipsos pollster Darrell Bricker.

Bricker, delivering his election analysis to a Canadian political scientists’ convention last week, said he believes Harper’s brand of conservatism is built on a stronger base than Mulroney’s.

The big difference, says Bricker, is that Mulroney built his Conservative party out of regional grievances, while Harper is forming a Conservative party around individual voters’ values.

“The interesting thing about what happened in this (May 2) election . . . is that they actually put together a values-based national coalition of Tories — the first time we’ve had it in this country,” Bricker said at a luncheon session of the Canadian Political Science Association, which held its annual meeting at Wilfrid Laurier University last week.

Grievance conservative -- like Reagan's -- was destined to fade once it won, whereas Third Way conservatism -- like that of Thatcher -- completely dominates the entire English-speaking world and most of Protestant Northern Europe.

Posted by oj at May 22, 2011 7:55 AM
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