A tale of two leaders
Published Monday October 6th, 2008
MONCTON - Like rival troupes of travelling actors, Stephen Harper and Stéphane Dion brought their high-stakes political theatre to intimate stages just a short drive and a few hours from one another Saturday.
If being in almost the same place at the nearly the same time had been the only consideration, they could have easily arranged a formal debate just for New Brunswick. Instead, the province got not just competing ideas but distinctly different presentations.
Even how the Conservatives and Liberals explained their presence, with 10 days remaining in the campaign, was a matter of contention.
It's no coincidence the Conservative leader came to New Brunswick right after the debates and to visit only Liberal ridings, while Liberal Leader Dion also visited only Liberal ridings, the former premier Bernard Lord told Prime Minister Harper's supporters in his introduction speech.
"We're in the moment of gaining seats and they're in the moment of saving seats," Lord said, sounding triumphant.
Not at all, a matter-of-fact Dion countered to a reporter.
"If I am in Moncton today it is because it is easier to go to P.E.I. right away, and it is because it is the economic engine of New Brunswick," he said.
"I wanted him to come to underline those important Liberal principles of bilingualism, regional development and minority language rights, and he hit those pretty good," Moncton Liberal MP Brian Murphy said.
Dion was in Dieppe at 8 o'clock in the morning to meet briefly with voters at the farmers' market before staging a rally in a hotel ballroom that attracted roughly 225 supporters.
Harper staged a mid-afternoon rally with closer to 475 supporters, who were sitting in neat rows and easily counted, despite several Tories trying to persuade reporters there were 700 people - in a gymnasium at Harrison Trimble High School.
Each arranged their courtiers - senators, provincial politicians and candidates - up front. And each had their scribes - veteran reporters with national media outlets, some of them live-blogging every quip, quote and gaffe - in back.
Seating at Dion's event was like any meeting in a hotel room - a podium at the front, local MPs Brian Murphy, Dominic LeBlanc and Charlie Hubbard and Acadie-Bathurst candidate Odette Robichaud behind Dion.
The Tories, who had all 10 New Brunswick candidates in attendance, did better. They blocked off half the gym and used sets of bleachers on two sides of Harper so any camera lens would compress his backdrop into a sea of signs and cheering supporters.
Still, each had their audiences applauding with the well-timed, partisan enthusiasm of backbenchers in the House of Commons.
"The opposition offers nothing but criticism and risk," Harper said. "Conservatives offer stability and a clear direction for this country."
"We need a government that will care about people especially with the tough times that are coming," Dion said. "We don't need a laissez-faire, I-don't-care government."
With his references to the gross domestic product and some indigestible statistics, Dion at times talked over people's heads.
With a staccato rhythm of tax-break reminders, Harper spoke mostly to their wallets, with a tough-on-crime reference addressing their other fears.
Neither one, compared to the hand-over-heart patriots Barak Obama and John McCain running for top office in the U.S., spoke much to people's emotions. For these two leaders, inspiration and baring the soul are afterthoughts.
Harper ignored his teleprompter to speak unrehearsed about his grandparents, who lived in Moncton.
"I'm told I don't show my emotions much," he said with self-deprecation. "Now they're gone but I smile when I think about them and I still do miss them every day."
It was a heartfelt transition to a passage in which he praised Moncton's vibrant, entrepreneurial economy for "coming so far since when I was a boy."
For his part, Dion projected his idealistic vision about marrying the economy and the environment, pitching a vote for him on Oct. 14 as not just a vote for "you, but for your children and your grandchildren and the next generation."
His voice signalled that for the Liberal leader, that's more belief than rhetorical flourish.
As a speaker, Dion suffered by comparison to his local MPs, Brian Murphy and Dominic LeBlanc simply by virtue of their stronger voices. But he had his moments, including a good quip at Harper's expense.
"Now he says he has a (platform) that will come Tuesday," Dion said. "Well, the mail is very slow to come from Australia."
A campaign worker of Harper's was exposed last week as having plagiarized a speech Harper gave five years ago in the Commons from former Australian prime minister John Howard, whom Harper admires.
Dion held a scrum with reporters after his rally. Harper did not, having done his daily question-and-answer session earlier in Nova Scotia.
Harper's rally attracted a protest, perhaps 50 or 60 people, some of them from public service unions, waving placards decrying cuts to culture. Dion's did not.
Asked if that indicated Harper was a polarizing figure, Bernard Lord said nobody would bother protesting Dion because he doesn't hold power.
At Dion's event, one well-regarded veteran political watcher quietly compared the scholarly, mild-mannered leader to the man who never beat Pierre Trudeau in an election, the late Robert Stanfield.
Like Stanfield, he said, there would never be a prime minister with a better combination of intellect and integrity than Dion.
As for political instincts, he said with resignation, Dion doesn't have a fraction of Jean Chrétien's or even Paul Martin's.
And as for the story people would likely tell about the day the Liberal and Conservative leaders came to New Brunswick in the campaign's waning days, the best line came from neither Dion or Harper.
Bernard Lord misread a signal from a Conservative event staffer and wrapped up his introduction of Harper several minutes too early.
A long standing ovation petered out when Harper didn't appear, and Lord had to apologize and ask people to be ready to do it all again in a few minutes.
A quick-witted television cameraman's pun quickly spread through the room. With a grin, he said, "We've just seen an example of premature adulation."
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