Deep down in the darkest recesses of the Federal Conservative think tank (kind of an oxymoron, but I'll go for it) there must be a DEW Line group.
For you youngsters, DEW stands for distant early warning and the line was a series of Arctic radar bases designed to detect a Soviet missile attack. This goes back to the days of a six-team NHL, Lassie on black and white TV as well as Wayne and Schuster on radio.
In today's political context DEW still stands for distant early warning and the missile launch is set for 2015 when the NDP and the Liberals start pushing launch buttons as they take on Stephen Harper's Conservatives in our next
general federal election.
The Tory DEW group - presuming there is one - has to consider a number of defensive strategies if the party is to maintain a majority. First, in three years where will the NDP be in the polls and in the hearts and minds of Canadians?
Currently, the shine is coming off the huge NDP win in Quebec and as I write this, Quebec MP Lise St-Denise has just left the NDP to join the Liberals.
NDP leadership candidates Brian Topp and Thomas Mulcair are Quebecers and homespun sons, but they don't have the late Jack Layton's appeal. The other NDP candidates are literally les autres - the others - and will gain little traction in La Belle Province.
Topp is seen as leading in Quebec, but he's a tax-and-spend socialist who may find himself out of the mainstream in the rest of Canada. New Democrats won't admit it, but Jack Layton had the party moving towards the centre.
Next time out, the NDP will fare poorly in Quebec but may pick up a seat or two in Ontario depending on the provincial mood in three years.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is a hard-nose right winger, and could be creating a counter-productive too-conservative backlash environment. There are more federal seats in the Greater Toronto Area than there are in B.C. and Toronto political mood swings are critical in the Canadian scheme of things.
There is though the potential of a second more serious threat to the Harper regime and if I was a DEW Line Tory strategist I'd be watching the
Liberals.
The party is up four points in recent polling and can't be counted out. Many have paid their last respects to the Grits, including Peter C. Newman, the dean of Canadian pundits. But Newman and the others are only looking in the rearview mirror, squinting at past mistakes and old ideological definitions.
If anything, political allegiances in Canada are fluid. In three years the Liberal ghosts of adscam, Stephane Dion's carbon tax and Michael Ignatieff's academic attempt at politics could be forgotten, especially if the country begins to tire of Stephen Harper.
Politicians have a best-before date and Harper may be pushing his.
Currently the Liberals are of little consequence. Interim leader Bob Rae is at his huff-and-puff best finding fault with all and sundry. In the last two days Rae has hinted at resigning the interim slot and running for the whole enchilada.
Good news for the Conservatives - Rae represents everything that's wrong with the Liberals: out of touch; too far to the left; too short on policy; and too long on spending someone else's money.
Rae is also vulnerable in vote-rich Ontario where he performed dismally as NDP premier in the 1990s.
Perhaps the best advice for the Liberals and Bob Rae comes from Bob Rae - who when he was still a New Democrat said, "The Liberals are a beanbag kind of party that looks like the last person that sat in it." If Rae is referring to his own out-of-touch butt, he's right.
It also underscores the problem of old guys switching parties; the baggage and the quotes live on, even if your
allegiances don't.
What the Liberals should consider - and what the Conservatives should fear - is a Liberal leader who takes and develops middle-ground policies designed to serve Canada in 2015. By then the electorate will be older, increasingly small-c conservative, and more worried about RRSPs and RRIFs than social
experiments.
Stephen Harper has his sound-manager reputation secure, but he's vulnerable on the goofy side, with policies like dropping the long-form census.
It's a small issue but it was dumb, and in politics, dumb sticks.
Closer to home, MP Dick Harris and his my-dog-ate-my-homework excuse about his Okanagan residence reflects poorly on the Harper government.
If - and it's a big if - the Liberals can attract a new core of bright new people to run for the leadership, candidates who recognize the needs of mainstream Canada as it makes its way in an uncertain world economy, the party could strike a responsive and successful note with voters.
If Stephen Harper has a DEW Line, and his radar is on, it's time to start looking ahead to 2015.
Canadian political history should tell him that at any time he could be out-gunned, out-worked and decidedly
out-smarted by a fresh new face.
He was there once, he ought to know.
