CALGARY — In the last desperate days, one of the things the just-retired loose cannon Paul Martin said -- and with it he meant to invoke the malevolent spectre of a once-good party turned good old boys -- was that under Stephen Harper, "these are not your grandfather's Conservatives."
He was, if for the first and last time in the election, right. As rally after rally in this longest campaign revealed, particularly in suburban Ontario and Vancouver, the new Tories are younger and more racially diverse than their predecessors ever were. Neither Tory public or backrooms are any longer filled exclusively with the white and the white-haired.
But Mr. Martin was right about something much more significant, too: There's something not yet mainstream and centrist enough about Mr. Harper and friends for many Canadians to like or trust.
Consider the circumstances that led to the Conservatives finally getting to government -- only a minority government -- after 12 long years wandering the political desert.
To borrow from Rick Mercer's bitter, funny parody of the notorious attack ads, "The Liberal Party: Let's see how badly we can lose this thing."
Damned if they didn't try, too.
From the worst of those ads, which implied that under Mr. Harper, martial law was just around the corner in Canadian cities, to the party sleep-walking its way through the pre-Christmas part of the campaign, to the smarmy condescension toward the nation's parents in the "beer and popcorn" remark by Mr. Martin's communications boss, Scott Reid, it was clear the Liberals were in the game to make a mess of things.
Yet the remarkable thing is that even so, even despite Mr. Harper and his young organization running what was generally regarded as a nearly perfect campaign and despite the profound desire for change that was evident in the country, the Liberals were not decimated.
That hunger for change was reflected even among the nation's newspapers -- institutions that tend to follow trends, not lead them -- with the vast majority endorsing Mr. Harper, however carefully, reluctantly or filled with self-loathing.
As former old-school Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney said on CTV News last night, the results "remind me how hard it is for a Conservative leader to bring his party to victory." He pointed out how Mr. Harper had made extraordinary efforts to move to the political centre, to tuck into the fold new Canadians and to welcome Quebeckers, and yet, Mr. Mulroney's body language all but said, "This is what all that effort and that inclusiveness could swing."
Cut to what Peter MacKay, whose work with Mr. Harper not long ago saw the birth of this new Conservative Party, said rather soberly last night: "It means we have a lot of work to do."
Given the Liberals' disastrous and quite disgraceful campaign and the fact that in many parts of the land their vaunted organization appeared to be in shambles -- from the Martin tour in the final days came reports of the Liberal Leader arriving to small crowds not much interested in talking to him and moments when no one on the ground appeared to know where the next event was -- their party should be in ruins this morning.
As evidence of how those organizations functioned, three days ago, on the same day in Surrey, B.C., traditional fertile turf for Liberals, and within a time frame so narrow that Mr. Martin's plane was actually taking off at the airport as Mr. Harper's was arriving, the Liberal Leader attracted a smallish crowd of about 200, while Mr. Harper drew a boisterous audience of about 1,000.
That the Liberals weren't ruined is the lesson: The Liberals really are the natural governing party they believe they are. Canadians are reluctant to quit on them even when they disappointed them most grievously, squandered their goodwill as cheerfully as they did their money, patronized them most egregiously.
Yesterday, one of the many Internet jokes that was making the rounds had the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a fake warning for a new and virulent sexually transmitted disease called "Gonorrhea Lectim" which the advisory said was "pronounced 'gonna re-elect him' " and whose symptoms included "impaired judgment, delusions of grandeur, misplaced bravado and [my favourite] smugness with uncontrolled facial smirking."
It was closer to the truth than anyone at Mr. Harper's jammed-to-the-rafters headquarters here at the Telus Convention Centre would have liked, or liked to admit. They came hoping -- or as their eastern urban detractors might say with a sneer, praying -- for a resounding Tory victory and the opportunity to celebrate the raising of the brave new West and the day the rest of the country finally recognized the worth of this part of Canada.
It was not to be, and that's because whether Albertans or rural Ontarians or the handful of us Torontonians who like the cut of Mr. Harper's jib care to face it or not, those softer, gentler values -- goopy values, in my book, but still -- which Mr. Martin flailed about trying to define throughout the campaign really are the values of most Canadians. Whatever they are.
The punch line to that Internet joke ended with this: "The original carrier of the malady, a little guy from Shawinigan, Quebec, has reportedly overcome all ill effects and is doing well."
Shockingly, in the circumstances, the same can be said of his party: It, too, is alive.