All they knew for sure was that it was called the United Alternative, Manning's vision of a broad coalition of political forces opposed to the governing Liberals. Beyond that all was in shadows. It might mean a change of policies, it might mean a change of name, it might even mean the end of the party. Or it might mean no change to any of the above. The vote was 91 per cent in favour.

That this many people could be persuaded to support such a watery plan is not entirely surprising. The trick in politics is to get people to see, in a candidate, a program or a party, whatever they wish to see. Manning's masterful speech to the convention the night before the vote combined an appeal for a larger vision of the party than mere opposition status, with the reassurance that Reform's principles would not be abandoned in the process.

What seems to have cinched it was a typically ambiguous pledge that Manning's own leadership might be up for grabs - though not without a fight. Delegates were plainly impressed: if Manning was willing to take such a personal risk in pursuit of his lifelong dream of "political realignment," perhaps they should be as well.

But if Manning is to realize his dream, he will have to persuade a much more skeptical audience than his own party. It is one thing to reassure Reformers that whatever emerges from next spring's United Alternative assembly will look much like the present Reform party. But how is that likely to appeal to those not already within the Reform tent? And what exactly does he mean, anyway?

Manning was clear enough on what the United Alternative would not be. It would not mean abandoning Reform's core principles. But neither would it be focused solely on the supposed need to "unite the right." It would be more than a disguised membership drive for Reform, but it would not extend to a formal merger with the Conservatives.

Indeed, Manning's aim seemed not merely to be to persuade his party to change its view of itself, from a "right-wing NDP" to a government in waiting, but to recast the entire political spectrum. Politics today, he argued, cannot be described in two dimensions, along a simple left-right continuum.

Rather, the broad issues that divide Canadians - or on which he would like to divide Canadians - can be defined along three or even four axes.

To be sure, of the four core principles on which Manning's vision of the United Alternative is based, the first two, what Manning identified as "fiscal responsibility" and "social responsibility" fit the conventional right-wing stereotype. But Reform's ideas on "democratic accountability" cross ideological lines, as do its more controversial plans for "rebalancing" federal and provincial powers.

More than an accurate reading of the Canadian political landscape, this is shrewd politics. The coalition of economic liberals and social conservatives, unlikely as it seems on the surface - one wants less government interference in people's lives, after all, while the other wants more - has proved a potent combination in other democracies, if only because the social conservatives regularly take a back seat once in government.

But ideology alone has never been enough to form a winning coalition in Canadian politics. The glue that holds a successful party together is power - if not the possession of it, than at least the prospect. The Liberals have become the most successful party in the democratic world by holding out to their supporters the promise of power: power at the centre, power at the top.

Manning knows that he can't hope to rival the Liberals on that score - not yet, at any rate. So instead he offers his supporters a different kind of power: power spread to the periphery, power exercised from below. I may be wrong, but I think he's on to something. The Liberals may have slain the deficit, and they are probably flexible enough to steal Reform's thunder on the tax issue, too. As for the social issues, they will be content to leave those to Reform, reckoning that these are marginal voters. But power: that goes to the heart of whatever it is Liberals believe.

So the battleground on the next election may well be the question of power.

The parties will no doubt divide sharply on the federal versus provincial axis. The deciding issue, I think, will be the question of democratic accountability. If the Liberals can, against all expectations, seize hold of the issue, they can neutralize Reform/United Alternative's last remaining weapon, at the same time enhancing the legitimacy of federal power. If not, Manning's dream stands a chance of becoming a reality.