Stronach right fit for the right

I confess to not following the career of Belinda Stronach very closely. All I knew was that she was a rich kid who had inherited the business empire of her billionaire father, that she's photogenic, moves in celebrity circles and has no experience in politics.

So it seemed logical that she should run for the leadership of the new Conservative party.

It was therefore with some surprise that I read David Olive's column on the front page of The Star on Friday, suggesting that being a rich kid who had never had to make it on her own and who has no discernible political vision somehow makes her unsuitable for the leadership of the new right-wing party.

Huh? Isn't this the era of George W. Bush, whose credentials closely match those of Stronach — rich, connected, a businessperson with no demonstrated business acumen, and no apparent grasp of the daily struggles faced by ordinary people.

Admittedly, these deficits might make Bush/Stronach seem unsuitable for something requiring real leadership and the ability to serve the public interest. But we're talking here about the leadership of a right-wing political party.

In many ways, Stronach may be just what the new Conservative party is looking for. The right in Canada has largely failed to sell itself to Canadians, not because it hasn't articulated its political positions.

Preston Manning and Stephen Harper have both been highly articulate spokesmen for their viewpoints. That's been their problem. Most Canadians don't take to their vision of Canada as a meaner, more survival-of-the-fittest, Republican-style sort of place.

They prefer the kind of Canada that Harper, a few years ago, denounced in an article in the National Post as a “second-tier socialistic country.”

So if the right-wing message is unsaleable in most of Canada, why try to sell it?

Enter Belinda Stronach — so attractive, such a blank slate, such nice hair.

Certainly the bait-and-switch formula has worked wonderfully south of the border, where Bush and bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger have managed, relying on nothing more than limitless resources, to overcome what might have seemed like handicaps in politics — a minimal grasp of the issues and serious behavioural flaws; (drunk driving in Bush's case and serial groping in Schwarzenegger's).

Of course, a fawning media have been crucial to the success of right-wing leaders in the U.S.

No matter how many times Bush dons a uniform to appear as the battle-worn commander-in-chief, the mainstream media studiously avoid mentioning his failure to show up for his National Guard duty during the Vietnam war.

In the U.S., right-wing leaders have become largely figureheads, attractive front men to be wheeled around to put a pleasing face on positions that are harmful to most voters.

The script has already been worked out (tax cuts for the rich, more tax cuts for the rich, and then, if there's anything left over, how about tax cuts for the rich?). The leadership selection seems to be largely a problem of casting.

This was the case with all-time right-wing hero Ronald Reagan who, it now seems, was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's disease while serving in the White House.

It's apparently also true in the Bush White House, as former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill has revealed, portraying Bush as essentially out of the loop and largely manipulated and controlled by others.

O'Neill has described Bush as puzzled by his administration's proposals for a second round of tax cuts aimed at the rich, asking, “Haven't we already given money to rich people?”

His political adviser, Karl Rove, quickly gets things back on script, advising the president: “Stick to principles.”

The only danger to this system would be a leader who dared to ask a follow-up question: “Excuse me, Mr. Rove, if I could just interrupt ... as leader of the free world, I mean, I was wondering what exactly is the principle involved here?”

Of course, a key question is whether the Canadian public is this easy to deceive.

My guess is it isn't, and that if the Conservative party had rejected a merger with the Canadian Alliance it could have eventually rebuilt itself as a major national party, in the tradition of Robert Stanfield, David Crombie, Flora MacDonald.

This political tradition hasn't disappeared; it simply needed rebuilding from the ground up, after being all but destroyed under former leader Brian Mulroney.

But, given the merger with the Republican-style political right, the best option for conservatives in Canada whenever political issues come up may be to change the subject.

Belinda Stronach may be just the ticket. And, let's face it, she's going to look damn good in a uniform.

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