Persist
By Eric Dowd
Toronto – Politicians are different from most people because they
are more persistent -- or maybe they just have thicker skins.
They do not take rejections easily, often hang in when told they
are not wanted and can be harder to get rid of than a stray piece of
sticky tape.
There
are prime examples in two former Ontario cabinet ministers who won seats
for the Conservatives in the federal election.
Jim
Flaherty, also once deputy premier, tried first to get elected in the
1980s and could not even win a federal nomination, so he switched to run
provincially in 1990 and ran a dismal third.
This
should have been enough to discourage him, but Flaherty ran again in 1995
and won and rose rapidly to finance minister and deputy to premier Mike
Harris, whose far right views he shared.
But
Harris retired and Flaherty ran to succeed him as leader and lost to the
more moderate Ernie Eves, who stripped him of both his prestigious posts.
Then
Eves’s government was defeated and Flaherty lost trying to succeed him
as leader, to John Tory, another moderate, and was reduced to merely an
out-of-step opposition MPP and his days in power seemed over.
But
the resilient Flaherty jumped at the chance to run for his federal party
when its prospects seemed slim and his talent, including being best orator
in the two leadership contests, and experience have put him firmly in
Stephen Harper’s inner circle.
Former
Ontario health minister Tony Clement also began with a loss, in a run for
Toronto city council, but he won two elections provincially, became a
senior minister, then had more losses in provincial and federal ridings
and for leader of the federal party.
Now
Clement has broken a longer losing streak than the Toronto Raptors and his
background makes him similarly valuable to Harper.
New
Democrat Tony Martin, who won federally for the second time after losing
his seat in the legislature, was the only MPP ever to resign a well-paid
sinecure, deputy speaker, explaining this was a protest against Harris’s
failing to help the poor.
Another
New Democrat, David Christopherson, quit the legislature to run for mayor
of Hamilton, where he said he could be more constructive, and lost, but
now has won two elections federally.
Conservative
leader Tory failed in his first attempt to get elected, as mayor of
Toronto, but has established himself in a much wider role as a credible
rival to Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Transportation
Minister Harinder Takhar could not win a provincial Liberal nomination in
1999, but won an election four years later.
Conservative
Elizabeth Witmer, among the steadiest Conservatives, could not come close
to dislodging a sitting Liberal in 1987, but since has won four elections
and been deputy premier.
Roy
McMurtry failed in his first attempt to get in the legislature in a
by-election, but won at the next opportunity and became Ontario’s
highest-profile attorney general in memory and now an admired chief
justice.
Larry
Grossman was among those who failed to win election to Toronto city
council, which must have lofty standards because he went on to head senior
ministries where top bureaucrats called him the brainiest minister they
ever worked for, and become Conservative opposition leader. .
Even
premiers have not been immune from early rejections. Conservative Leslie
Frost lost to a Liberal in his first try for the legislature in 1934, but
won next time and became premier from 1949-61 and the unbeatable `Old Man
Ontario.’
George
Drew failed in his attempt to win a legislature seat in 1937, when he was
a loner at odds with the Conservative establishment, but went on to be
premier from 1943-1948.
Why
do they keep on running after rejections? They have in varying degrees a
combination of believing they have something to offer the community,
wanting to be important, refusing to take defeat personally -- and a lot
of pride.
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