PrintApril 29, 2012
Conservative Third-Party Dreams and Realities
Tea Partiers and other constitutionally minded Americans for whom "Anyone but Obama" rings hollow, and who still harbor hopes of a third-party challenge to the GOP establishment, may find food for thought in a living example of such a conservative challenge -- namely, that which arose in Canada a quarter-century ago. Americans would benefit from a careful evaluation of their neighbors' success.
For decades, Canadian conservatives fought the same uphill battle as their U.S. counterparts, though lacking the constitutional armor with which to defend themselves. The nation moved continually to the left, and at the federal level, electoral politics was dominated by the increasingly socialistic Liberal Party. The cultural and ideological domination was so complete that the supposedly right-leaning party, the apologetically named Progressive Conservative Party (PC), fell largely under the sway of its "moderate" wing, epitomized by its long-serving leader, Joe Clark, who,...(Read Full Article)
