The Written Word
for May 14, 2000

When I was a young lad I read a book called What Makes Sammy Run by Bud Schulberg … it was all the rage because it had some dirty bits in it which you would probably find in a comic book these days, But I thought of the title as I watched a bit of the Tory Policy Convention and watched Joe Clark. What makes Joe run?

He has been nothing if not consistent. He has been a consistent failure. Yet he keeps coming back for more. Jim McNulty of the Vancouver Province calls him the George Chuvalo of politics – he keeps getting blows that would knock anyone else to the canvass but he just won’t go down.

Joe’s high water mark was in February of 1976 when, against all the odds, he came up the middle and won the Tory leadership. It’s been all downhill since then. He did become Prime Minister, it’s true, but in doing so he managed to turn what should have been a strong Conservative win into a minority which he blew nine months later. He was so inept as opposition leader that he was subjected to a leadership review which was so lukewarm in its support that he felt he had to resign and have a leadership convention which he lost to the lurking Brutus, dagger in hand, Brian Mulroney. Thereafter he was the Eternal Affairs Minister who caused the big flap by declaring that Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv was the capital of Israel and capped off his performance by leading the Charlottetown Accord to a resounding defeat. Last year he made a "comeback" by winning the Tory leadership back by beating a Tory backroom boy and a socialist prairie farmer.

What is it that gets into politician’s eyes that makes them ignore reality. This all reminds me of a chap named Bill Ritchie who had been a minor cabinet minister in the Bill Bennett government and decided in 1986 to take a run for the leadership at the Whistler Convention. He was a no hoper. He had no organization and there wasn’t a soul that gave him a chance. Yet on the day of the vote he came up to me just as I was going on air and whispered confidentially in my ear that he was going to come up the middle and win! If memory serves me correctly he finished 9^th out of 11 and was out after the first ballot.

Yet every convention, up pops several who have no hope yet somehow think they will also come up the middle – and every once in awhile a Bob Skelly or a Joe Clark up as sort of a patron saint for losers.

Joe Clark is done. He isn’t seeking a safe seat in the house because there isn’t one. My spies tell me that he will finish third in the Calgary Center seat he has chosen for the next election.

And the Tories are toast. Their fate is to be the third party splitter which may keep the Alliance from making headway in Ontario.

Could a bright young man like Peter Mackay do it someday?

I doubt that there will be much of a party to lead by the time he has his chance.

It’s pitiful to behold the end of a great party but you know that they’re dead when they promise huge spending and lower taxes in the same breath.

And when they’re led by the day before yesterday’s man who couldn’t even win back then.