Stockwell Day is not going to be our next prime-minister. There. Done. You can now relax.
Stockwell Day is a social conservative. His grass-roots support consists of conservative Christians who believe he can turn the clock back on the issues of abortion, premarital sex, and homosexuality. That's why they supported him. That's why they wrote checks for him.
During the leadership campaign for the Alliance Party, Day was forced to admit that he's not going to do anything about abortion or homosexuals or premarital sex. Sort of. Both Preston Manning and Tom Long said that they sure as hell aint going to do anything about it. Day realized that he would not be elected if he said that, if he did get to be prime-minister, he would ban abortions. So he backed off.
This leaves his grass-roots supporters with a conundrum. If he isn't going to do something about the issues they care most about, why vote for him? He'll just be another Preston Manning with a nicer voice.
Well, they'll probably vote for him anyway. What will they be thinking? That his retraction is ruse? That once he gets elected, he'll sneak some legislation in? That he'll ban abortions?
Day has no chance of winning in the foreseeable future.
1. He has no support in Quebec and he aint going to get any. To win seats in Quebec, he is going to have to get the support of either Bouchard or Charest. Do you think that will ever happen? Day is to Bouchard what Britney Spears is to Margot Timmins.
2. Harris' popularity in Ontario is going to decline for the next two years. Harris would have preferred Tom Long anyway, not for any real policy reasons, but because Tom Long owes him, big time. That would be useful, politically, to Harris. Day will be no use at all.
3. Joe Clark will continue to siphon off significant numbers of voters from key ridings. Clark will not do particularly well either, but the PC party is still strong in the Maritimes and has some potential in Quebec.
4. The current budget surpluses make the Reform Alliance Party seem out of step with current realities. The haranguing about fiscal conservatism sounds tinny and quaint, in an era of multi-billion dollar surpluses. The issue in the next election will be what to do with all that money: not how to get less of it.
Day might be able to make a case against Chretien, on the basis of the corruption within the Liberal Party-- which isn't really very remarkable at all, compared to Mulroney's Conservatives, or any American party. But that might only serve to strengthen the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec, and the Conservatives in the Maritimes, and the NDP in British Columbia.
It just doesn't add up. Where is Day going to win all those seats, other than the seats they already have in Alberta and Saskatchewan?
One last thing: don't underestimate Jean Chretien. He's old and a bit foggy, but he's crafty and he has Paul Martin, and he can rightly claim to have done what Preston Manning has only wished to do for twenty years: balance the budget.
