Aw jeez.
Posted on 01/23/2006 2:56:00 AM PST by goldstategop
He is an enigma still, even as Canadians seem poised to choose Stephen Harper as our next prime minister.
He has a strange, almost buck-toothed smile and icy blue eyes that never seem to warm. Even with advisers who have done their best to make him appear less aloof, Harper still seems uncomfortable outside the realm of policies and ideas.
But while he may not be warm and fuzzy, no wolf lurks behind that mock turtleneck, insist Harper's admirers. Fearmongering to the contrary, no bogeyman appears when the Conservative Party leader lets down that helmet head of hair.
After all, they say, how nefarious can a man be who is writing a book on hockey and likes going to the movies on Sunday nights and whose favourite food is Chinese buffet?
And who knew? He has a wicked sense of humour.
COMIC IMPRESSIONS
"I think most Canadians would be surprised to learn how funny he is," says friend Jim Rajotte, Conservative MP for Edmonton. "He does an awful lot of impressions -- he does Mulroney, he does Preston Manning, he does John McCallum, that's probably his best one, and apparently he does Desmond Tutu although I've never heard it."
Which isn't to say that Harper is the life of the party.
"He's a radical introvert," notes biographer William Johnson, author of Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada. "He's not my idea of fun; he's a very serious man."
There has been a concerted effort by his handlers to show a more relaxed side to Harper -- not always with convincing results as the New York Times noted last week.
Harper "has long been known more for his enthusiasm for policy than for an ability to kiss babies and slap backs," the Times wrote. "Just last summer ... he was mocked in news articles and columns after he appeared at the Calgary Stampede rodeo festival in a tight-fitting cowboy vest that made him look as if he had borrowed his little brother's Halloween costume."
Johnson adds, "I think he was probably told to smile. If there's a change in his personality it's that he's smiling more, but it doesn't change anything at any depth."
At his cool core, then, who is he really?
Harper is a baby boomer father of two who turns 47 on April 30, the oldest of three sons born to a chartered accountant father and homemaker mother. His happy family, right out of Leave it to Beaver, spent the first 12 years of his life in the WASP enclave of Leaside before moving to Etobicoke.
He was your typical geeky brain: Serious, intelligent and quiet. Asthma kept him out of competitive sports but competitive academics were another matter.
Harper represented Richview Collegiate in Reach for the Top and won his school's gold medal for highest grade point average.
Harper has called his beloved late father, an Imperial Oil executive, of "scrupulous integrity," the most important influence on the man he is today.
His politics, though, were largely shaped out west at the University of Calgary. While doing his masters in economics, the one-time Trudeau fan incensed by the National Energy Program became a disciple of the Calgary School, a group of neo-conservative, pro-west, pro-American scholars.
Roger Gibbins was chairman of political science when he first met Harper.
"He was not radically different from now -- a smart, somewhat impatient policy wonk who was, to some degree, an angry young man," recalls Gibbins, now president of the Canada West Foundation, a Calgary think-tank.
'ENGAGING PERSON'
"He was an engaging person but never a back-slapping, how-ya-doing kind of guy. I never had the thought that I had a glimpse behind the mask of Stephen Harper, that I could see the real person. I think the real person, the person we see, is pretty much what the guy is like -- he's pretty transparent."
It was at the University of Calgary in 1987 that Harper was first introduced to Preston Manning, setting the one-time aspiring diplomat on a political course that now seems destined to take him to 24 Sussex Dr.
Yet it was always policy, not politics, that attracted Harper.
At 28, he was the new Reform Party's chief policy adviser. A year later he was enlisted to run but chose a riding he knew he couldn't win.
He finally went to Parliament in 1993 but resigned four years later after falling out with Manning.
It was only after several years as head of the right-wing National Citizens Coalition that Harper agreed in 2002 to return to politics and save the struggling Canadian Alliance.
"He never wanted to be an MP," argues Johnson.
"He's like Trudeau. He came with a vision. He didn't come out of ambition like Martin or Mulroney."
That vision has mellowed over the years as the once reluctant politician has become the wily political strategist. "He knows he has to make compromises to win power and he has," his biographer says. "He's also a democrat and he knows he can't swerve the state 180 degrees."
Still Harper can't shake the impression that he is a right-wing extremist in disguise. To be fair, though, it may be guilt by association.
Unlike many of his old Reform colleagues, he's no Bible thumper -- he married the gregarious Laureen Teskey in a civil ceremony and neither are regular church-goers. He is an economic conservative at heart rather than a social conservative.
Hot button issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion, Harper has said, should be moral, personal stands and not those of political parties.
LUKEWARM ASSURANCE
But he hasn't ruled out holding free votes on those matters, though "not in the near future" -- a lukewarm assurance that leaves many nervous in the waning hours of the campaign.
If Canadians do decide Harper is less scary this time around, it may be because he is less mysterious than he was in 2004, says Gibbins of the Canada West Foundation.
"He was a bit of a blank slate and we could paint all of our own fears and ambitions and aspirations on to him. Over the last 18 months I think he's firmed up as an individual in our own minds. That whole thought that there's a secret or darker side to Harper has lost a lot of credibility."
What you see, he says, is what you get.
"I can't see Harper Monday night ripping off the smile and displaying the wolf underneath," chuckles Gibbins.
"I don't think Canadians will be surprised by a Harper government -- they may not like it in different ways and for different reasons -- but I don't think they'll be surprised."
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
"Guilt by association"? You're "guilty" if your beliefs tilt to the right?
And why is the buffoon-in-chief Clinton now the measure of all politicians? What's wrong with a person not being some jovial back-slapping baby kissing social type,if that's not who they are? Does that make them any less effective for the job? I'd say probably not,they may even be more effective,if they're not always worrying about maintaining an image.It's sad that politicians have to "sell themselves"(not their visions,their characters,their goals,but themselves,like soap or something),in today's world. I get so sick of the media making it into a popularity contest,especially when PC has made "feelings" instead of thought paramount in deciding upon your elected representatives at the highest levels.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Harper sounds like a no-nonsense leader and I'm glad the Canucks are likely to vote him in. Of course, polls predict..yada yada. Who knows? But it brightens my day to know that some of the libnuts up in Canada are peeved that he's going to buddy up to the GOOD OLD US OF A!
About time! We should have a GLOATfest when Harper wins!
The LibRat Candian press doesnt like Harper? What a shocker. I wish I could vote for him.
Aw jeez.
Ok. So who won?
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