Monday, June 17, 2013

Roman spring turned discontented summer of Stephen Harper

Facing the end of another parliamentary session on the Hill, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper now limps back home to Calgary to lick his wounds, readying himself for a policy backlash from his party convention and a cabinet shuffle from his national government. Continuing his incremental conservative plan of embracing Tory pragmatism and leaving Reform principles, Harper moves forward with his sole political ideology of governing power, keeping his narrow power base as happy as he can while maintaining his broad governing base as long as he can. On the other side of the same equation, he must also continue forcing down his continued opposition base so to keep it shut up, out and off as much as possible, using as little political capital as possible which can not be easy with a Mulcair New Democratic opposition and Trudeau Grit third party lying in wait.

What can one expect from any delegate advised changes to Harper and the gameplan he and his federal Tory government have been running from Ottawa, after the convention in Calgary late next week, the educated guess is likely nothing as the dynamics go against such a fresh start and play to the same old status quo.

Conservatives know better, they know they can not call for his leadership, as there is no one else to take the helm of the good ship Tory, as it sinks further into the partisan seas with every political scandal torpedo hit it takes. They also know now that one can not change the direction of this political vehicle, as it already has predetermined its fate by the speed decided via its momentum from the past half a decade of decisions made, where it went figures to where it will be going. Where a Roman spring could have evolved from admitting past wrongs, instead now create a discontented summer of arrogance, in dictating a top down Tory script on governing from Ottawa in the exact manner which he and his blue crew had campaigned against to all those Reformers out from the bottom up.