TAPC

Seize the agenda and succeed
National Post. April 6, 2009.

The following is an edited excerpt of Tom Long’s recent presentation to the Manning Networking Conference and Exhibition in Ottawa.

The dominant Tory assumption has been that the way to victory is to force the Liberals left by moving to the centre. Continue Reading »

Gerry Nicholls

National Post Tuesday, October 21, 2008

With Stephane Dion shuffling off the political stage, the Conservative government must now come to grips with a new enemy. And I am not talking about Bob Rae or Margaret Atwood or a hostile left-wing media. The new enemy for the Conservatives is time; simply put they are running out of it.

Realistically speaking the Conservatives will be able to effectively govern this country for perhaps one more year. After that a revitalized Liberal party led by a shiny new leader, whose name isn’t Stephane Dion, will start to gum up the government’s Parliamentary agenda and perhaps even force an election. And because the Conservatives are running out of time, they have no choice but to abandon the grand political strategy they have been employing for the past two and half years.

This strategy is usually referred to as “incrementalism.” The chief proponent of incrementalism is former Conservative campaign manager Tom Flanagan and it’s essentially based on the idea that the Canadian public doesn’t really like conservative ideas or conservative polices. Continue Reading »