He kept his head

I want to elaborate on a point I made earlier about how well Harper handled himself in this election, especially in the abortion hysteria of the last two weeks, because I think it was one of the keys to victory. The Liberal Shock and Awe campaign, it occurs to me, was aimed not only at voters, whether at scaring NDP supporters into the Liberals' tent or soft conservatives out of the Tories'. It was also aimed at driving a wedge into the Tory coalition. More particularly, it was aimed at Harper. The compromise at the heart of the Tory platform, the formula that kept the social conservatives and the downtown progressives in the same room together, was the pledge of a free vote: the party would take no view on abortion, in particular, but leave it to individual MPs to vote as they saw fit. The bargain was sealed and personified in the leader. As long as he did not move off that position, the coalition would hold. The Liberal strategy, accordingly -- I'm theorizing here, but bear with me -- was to ratchet up the pressure on Harper. If they could hit the social issues hard enough, they might unnerve him, make him tack towards the centre in an attempt to reassure moderate voters -- and thus alienate the so-cons. With luck, some of them might speak out, grumble, stray off message. Then Harper would have to mollify them in some way. And the rout would be on. He bent, but he didn't break. He did say he'd try to discourage a free vote on abortion, that he'd prefer it didn't come up, that it wasn't a priority. He made a lot of people nervous, including me. But he never abandoned the pledge, even when directly challenged to do so. (Asked on Global TV to promise that there would never be a free vote on abortion, he replied, "never is a long time.") And the so-cons didn't abandon him. The bombardment was intense, and unyielding. It is very easy to imagine another leader, anxious that everyone should know how "moderate" and "mainstream" he was, being rattled by it. Harper kept his head, and kept the party with him. That's why he's Prime Minister today*. *Tomorrow, technically.