"We have to stress our conservative credentials and emphasize that we are the natural, national alternative to the Liberals. Clearly the Alliance has shown it can't break out of its Western box. The Alliance is at single-digit support in three quarters of the country"
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The line reads like a merger pitch delivered with a knife behind the back: reassure the base, delegitimize the rival, and frame consolidation as destiny rather than calculation. MacKay isn’t selling ideology so much as electability. “Conservative credentials” is code for proof of purity after years of vote-splitting on the right. It’s a signal to skeptical activists that the project won’t drift into mushy centrism just to look presentable on TV.
Calling his side “the natural, national alternative” does two things at once. It borrows the language of inheritance (natural) to imply the Liberals are a temporary squatter in government, while “national” quietly accuses opponents of being regional, parochial, unserious. The jab at the Canadian Alliance’s “Western box” is not subtle: you can’t govern Canada if your coalition feels like a grievance tour with Alberta license plates. In a country where elections are won in Ontario and, often, Quebec, geography is ideology.
The clincher is the cold math: “single-digit support in three quarters of the country.” That statistic isn’t just evidence; it’s a threat. Stay separate and you’ll be irrelevant everywhere that matters. The subtext is that unity isn’t a romantic coming-together, it’s triage. MacKay is speaking in the early-2000s context of the right’s fragmentation, translating voter fatigue into a mandate to build one brand, one tent, one ballot line - and to make anyone resisting it look like they’re choosing pride over power.
Calling his side “the natural, national alternative” does two things at once. It borrows the language of inheritance (natural) to imply the Liberals are a temporary squatter in government, while “national” quietly accuses opponents of being regional, parochial, unserious. The jab at the Canadian Alliance’s “Western box” is not subtle: you can’t govern Canada if your coalition feels like a grievance tour with Alberta license plates. In a country where elections are won in Ontario and, often, Quebec, geography is ideology.
The clincher is the cold math: “single-digit support in three quarters of the country.” That statistic isn’t just evidence; it’s a threat. Stay separate and you’ll be irrelevant everywhere that matters. The subtext is that unity isn’t a romantic coming-together, it’s triage. MacKay is speaking in the early-2000s context of the right’s fragmentation, translating voter fatigue into a mandate to build one brand, one tent, one ballot line - and to make anyone resisting it look like they’re choosing pride over power.
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| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
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