In the recent federal and Ontario election battles, I had much more empathy for Stockwell Day than I had for Jim Flaherty, whose political position I felt was slightly to the right of Attila the Hun. Jim, unfortunately, gave the impression that if his aged mother was a bag lady he wouldn’t have hesitated to hustle downtown and truck her off to the local jail. However, I was assured by political pundits that Jim’s position was only a vote-getting aberration and he was going to shift into the middle ground when he was elected. (That’s politics for you. The late U.S. president Nixon did this all the time.)

But my heart and sentiment lie with the Family Coalition Party (Ontario Coalition) now – and the Christian Heritage Party federally, but the prognosis of their health is not good. It’s the makeup of the country and the decline in moral values that make our position a difficult sell. The media pounds away at our pro-life values. We were shocked when all the secular media began asking potential candidates in all parties recently what their stand was on abortion. Normally, the media has as much interest in abortion as a rat invasion in the Himalayas.

Realizing that Stock had won against Manning previously with massive pro-life support, the media focused on destroying him. They made Stock appear to be a wild-eyed pro-lifer, incompetent and a goof-bound guy. They discouraged many pro-lifers from voting for Day and got out the pro-abort vote. Stephen Harper was able to fudge his position on abortion – not pro-abortion, not pro-life. That takes some stick handling.

Harper was able to convince the media that the Alliance party had no position on abortion – that it was a religious issue and not a political issue. He should remember that it was a Trudeau/Turner omnibus bill that brought about the killing of a million-and-a-half unborn babies.

One widely read National Post columnist denied that the media had anything to do with the defeat of Day, claiming that as a columnist he could only vote once. Doesn’t he think anyone reads his column?

The media pounced on every little goof of Day’s and made it appear that he wore his shoes on the wrong feet. Before the media found out he was a genuine pro-lifer they liked to recount that as treasurer of Alberta in Klein’s cabinet, he read a 40-minute budget speech – figures and everything – without consulting any notes.

Day handled the embryonic stem cell situation when questioned by the media very well. He looked prime ministerial doing it, saying Alliance was against killing embryos and Manning was only giving his contrary opinion. (Now, Preston is on Stock’s side.) Stock looked very good on the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorism attack in the States, urging strong, unwavering support for our U.S. friends. The Liberals eventually adopted this position.

Criticisms about Harper’s previously held positions were never brought to the attention of the public during the leadership campaign. Things like he’s a homebody and doesn’t like flying. Harper once said that he was quitting politics because the MPs are just a bunch of sales representatives. Guess who’s the sales manager now? That ranks right up there with Trudeau’s comments that MPs were nobodies once they left the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.

Now we come to Joe (I love a gay parade) Clark. It looks like the wedding party has gone home and left Joe at the altar. Voters have a dilemma. We have two “conservative” parties that won’t touch the abortion issue or any other family life issue, even child pornography. At least with Day we had a pro-life leader in a St. John the Baptist situation in a largely pro-choice party.

Alliance has kept Day – minus the Middle East portfolio – as their foreign affairs critic because of the 37.5 per cent vote that he got for leader of the party. There’s the old political axiom: “Better to have your opponent inside the tent shooting out instead of outside the tent shooting in.”

Good luck, Stock! Are you sure you still don’t want that flak jacket I wanted to send to you?