A couple of second-generation political warriors have some lengthy advice for Stephen Harper in the magazine Policy Options: Don't let purity trump power.

One is Robin Sears, a Toronto-based corporate strategy consultant and former NDP national secretary with good genes; the other, Graham Fox, former chief of staff to Joe Clark and son of Bill Fox, long time political journalist and policy adviser. Although one perspective tilts to the left and the other to the right, both come close to agreeing that Harper is simply too rigid and must find a way to compromise or quit.

Certainly, the Conservative boss is in trouble with 13 percentage points between the Tories and the Liberals in the latest poll and the NDP only 10 points behind them. And yet there never was a time in the last decade or two when Canadians were more likely to think the messed-up Liberals ought to move into the wings for a while and try to find a new set of policy convictions.

The only thing that's keeping the Liberals in power is the miserable opposition which few Canadians see as a likely improvement over what we have.

I find it hard to believe that Harper likes his job, particularly the public part of it. He has become less articulate as the months pass and shows no indication of the necessary fire in the belly that would stir the voters. He appears to feel that Canadian politics requires a fundamental realignment based on social conservatism, Graham Fox says. And yet such a move of the cultural tectonic plates is impossible so Harper climbs his fundamental mountain only to slide down again.

Robin Sears writes that fundamentalism has had a long and exciting history in Canada, from William Aberhart to Stockwell Day; from Tommy Douglas to Harper. But what distinguished the successful fundamentalists as leaders was their readiness to compromise when necessary. Tommy Douglas gave in to local Social Creditors in the 1935 election.

"Even tough old J.S. Woodsworth was not opposed to a little racist spice in the fundamentalist socialist stew if that helped keep the flock united."

"In more contemporary times Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein, Mike Harris and Lucien Bouchard, Brian Mulroney and Gilles Duceppe have all understood that they had to soothe the wilder members of their political tribes, without endorsing their wackiness ..."

"Stephen Harper seems to have reversed this strategy: Endorsing his wingnuts' enthusiasms publicly and failing to soothe his sulking moderates in public or in private."

The Conservative leader has to compromise on his same-sex marriage crusade, reconsider his endorsement of missile defence, design a way to allow the Atlantic provinces to benefit from Alberta's obscenely rich oil revenues.

If Harper continues with his "purity over power" it will place Canadian conservatism further from governing than at any time since John Diefenbaker's declining years.

Fox argues that Harper must give up reigning entirely from the top and give his volunteers a run at the checks and balances that limit the boss's power.

Like Sears, Fox says Harper should "recognize the need for the party to broaden its base and make the kind of policy compromises inherent in that shift."

On a shallower level -- mine -- I think the party needs some good bumper-sticker slogans ("Compassionate Conservatism" -- Bush; "The Common Sense Revolution" --Harris) to print the brand on people's minds.

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