More trouble for Harper?

There are continuing signs of disenchantment with Stephen Harper amongst conservatives. Last Saturday in the Calgary Herald, a paper well known for it's unquestioning support for all things Tory, published a report card on various party leaders and ministers. Now one can debate the usefulness of such report cards, but in this instance it is very interesting. Amongst the trio of Harper, Ignatieff and Layton, Harper garners a C behind both Ignatieff (B) and Layton (C+). Note that Harper's grade is missing from the on-line version of the story.

Now if staunchly conservative papers are grading Der Leader behind even the leader of the NDP, there trouble a brewing for Harper. The rest of the article shows that the disdain falls primarily on Harper, as many of his ministers get quite high "grades". Harper is losing the support of his base. This does not mean that Albertans are going to suddenly vote for another party, they just don't know how to do that, but it does mean that some of them may start pushing for change at the top, especially if after a fall election the Tories take a seat hit or lose power altogether.

That being said, it will be hard for the Tories to be rid of Harper. Through his hand picked party executive, he has managed to play and change the rules of the party to prevent his more lackluster MP's from facing the ire of the base. It is also through that same executive of yes-men that he will be able to protect himself from the same ire. This really means that the Tories will be stuck with the dictatorial Harper well past his best-before date and there will be little they can do to be rid of him.

Of course, not all Tories will want to be rid of Harper. Harper has spent a lot of time and effort to equate support for him to support for the party and to oppose him means non-support for the Conservative party. This cult of personality will serve Harper well in his quest to hold onto power, or failing that, hold onto the leadership of his party, though I suspect that it can also backfire on him and the party. By his all or nothing approach to support, as people become disenchanted with Harper, they will withhold their support for the party. Again this doesn't mean that a bunch of Tories will start voting for other parties, polls show that Tories are hyper loyal and generally don't have a second party preference. It does mean that disenchanted Tories will not show up at the polls and outside of Alberta, that would be trouble for the Conservatives, especially in Ontario. If all this negative talk about Harper from the conservative media translates to more and more disillusioned Tories, a fall election could be very interesting indeed.