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There are more votes on Main Street than Bay Street. – John G. Diefenbaker
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In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy. – Brian Mulroney
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In some ways, a vote is a little bit like falling in love. People do not fall in love with the best-qualified candidate. – David Frum
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I’m just the anonymous guy standing by the washed-out railway track with the red flag, waving as fast as I can. – David Frum
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Federal politicians are like child soldiers in a war-torn African country: all they know how to do is to fire their AK-47s. – Tom Flanagan
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Just as chronic warfare produces a garrison state, permanent campaigning has caused the Conservative Party to merge with the campaign team, producing a garrison party. The party is today, for all intents and purposes, a campaign organization focused on being ready for and winning the next election, whenever it may come. – Tom Flanagan
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If the era of permanent campaign and its arms race logic continues, the Conservative organizational model may well persist and even be imitated by other parties trying to survive in the Darwinian world of electoral competition. – Tom Flanagan
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The past six years of parliamentary proceedings have been more entertaining than anything since the fall of Joe Clark’s government in 1979. But citizens are turned off, and rightly so, by the endless tactical manoeuvres, threats, bluffs and broken deals. – Tom Flanagan
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Parliament is thus stuck with a mismatch between its majoritarian political culture and the reality of minority government. – Tom Flanagan
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The essentials of Canadian politics are few: the system needs enough good men to make it work and enough fools to make it interesting. – Dalton Camp
