Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Wells v. Coyne: How conservative are the Conservatives?

Well worth reading:

Paul Wells on just how conservative the Conservatives are. And Andrew Coyne on how they’re not.

I think this exchange really illustrates Harper’s strategy. In short, own the centre and govern like Liberals, but toss a few symbolic conservative/reform gestures to the base to keep them and their chequebooks happy.

3 Comments:

  • Coyne totally burned Wells - and burned the Harper version of Toryism as pure cynicism and self-promotion in the process. I prefer his line on both counts.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:32 a.m.  

  • Agreed. Wells made some good points, but Coyne's got a much better grip on what's happening.

    By Blogger Robert Vollman, at 10:31 a.m.  

  • I too enjoyed Coyne's rebuttal, but the truth is more with Well's. Fact is, the Conservatives have won solidly on daycare and abortion and are poised to win on pay equity. The provinces own these issues now as files they must manage alone. Thus they are truly confident they can have their cake and eat it too as Well's implies. On abortion, the provinces 'pay' the lion's share of costs (which is cheap compared to birth) and the feds aren't funding the groups that sell abortion to the masses, and Iggy blew his abortion challenge so Coyne was really off there IMHO.

    By Anonymous Karen Krisfalusi, at 11:46 p.m.  

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