Jay Currie

Kevin Grace, with whom I hope to hoist several euros in the near future, is kind enough to suggest that I am,

somewhat less tendentious, but remains economical with the actualité
kmg

A less self confident man than I might take that as saying I am a lukewarm liar, but I take it as simple homage to my sweet reason. Grace does a rather brilliant job of looking at the effect of religious fundamentalism on the election chances of eleven Tory candidates identified as loosely affiliated with the religious right in the Globe and Mail last summer. Grace’s nuanced approach deserves to be read in its entirety if only for the deftness with which he palms the Queen of Spades: but here she is – of the 11, 8 lost, 3 won.

There are reasons as to why this might be so – the ridings themselves may not have been winable, the Liberal machine was unstoppable, God was asleep – Kevin suggests it may have had something to do with the percentage of non-white voters in some ridings. But Grade A nutter Rondo Thomas was running in Ajax which is hardly an immigration hotspot. And, hey, I thought the big brains in the CPC were anti-SSM because they thought it would appeal to the urban, ethnic, voters.

In fact, the main effect of the half hearted (and here I entirely agree with Grace, it was not a serious position and remains entirely unthoughtout) anti-SSM position was to throw a bone to the socons while convincing urban voters that the CPC was not yet fit to govern.

This is all about symbolism: denying the rights of a minority in order to what? Preserve the 50% divorce rate of the majority? To obey a particular subset of Biblical injuctions? It simply left the CPC looking silly without actually doing anything of substance.

Silly is a mistake in politics. What saved Harper is that Martin had the benefit of major league comedians such as Scott Reid and John Duffy to make him look sillier than even Harper. And no one could have anticipated his willingness to give his all for the cause by promising to gut the Constitution and both approve and disapprove an ad about Harper putting guys with guns in the streets in the same week.

But Harper can’t count on the Liberals being as silly next time so it is time to get SSM behind them. Bring the question of SSM to a free vote in the House and make damn sure it loses. Immediately.

Oops: I was just moderating the comments and managed to delete a rather bright comment which pointed out that Ajax was, in fact, something of an immigration hotspot. My bad and I appologize to the commentor who took the time to correct my 15 year old impression of Ajax.