Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 16, 1980, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free february 1980 f focus Campaign 80 Joe Clark by Carol Goar Toronto Joe Clark would like to believe theres such a thing As election night he is counting on this innate spirit of fair play to grip canadians in the final hours before they Mark their convincing them that whatever his mistakes a Man deserves a second especially a nine month prime since the election was called in mid december Clark has been consistently urging at times pleading the electorate to give him a fair louder crowds in the final week of his As he hurtled across the country facing Ever louder this note become More strident and insistent in his the Fairplay pitch came in several sometimes Clark appealed for a Sec Ond Chance on the grounds that he has the most realistic set of policies for the at other he relied on a straight Mantovan face off against Liberal Leader Pierre Trudeau d Trudeau had 11 years to he deserves More than half a d Trudeau refuses to face canadians on National television and defend his he at least deserves their respect for his indeed a to speak up for his u Trudeau will not give voters Clear Dollar estimates of what his programs will on the other merits their Trust because of his efforts to put a Price tag on the kind of government he would plans to stick around d Trudeau is reluctant to say How Long he will remain in if he is asking for the Job As a prime minister who can be depended on to stay around Long enough to answer for his carefully built into All these arguments is an irresistible it is a sense not so much of a politician trying to make debating Points As of one reaching deeper into the voters psyche for that instinctive empathy which goes out to any human being who has been swindled or outta Noel Clarks backroom boys make nose Cret of the fact that the fair play Factor is their and at this late stage of the Best there Are no rabbits left for the Clark to pull out of the his policies had already been spelled out As clearly and convincingly As they could Given the complexity of explaining a govern Clark had used up All the mileage he was Likely to get out of his three main election planks his commit ment to make the country Sel Suffi client in Energy in 10 his determination to launch a new Era of civilized Federal provincial relations and his self labelled obsession with putting a lid on government image liability his image Clark has re signed himself to accepting As a major political liability is out by most voters have a pretty Clear picture of him in their minds any Las minute attempt to sell a new improved Joe Clark would Only be laughed and the Best strategies his organizers could devise have All teen used it was a week that ended in a blast of policy extravagant rallies flushes of brava despair and Bone crushing it was the last week of Campaign the last Chance to convince that elusive undecided voter to make up his it was the week when the three major parties finally pulled out All the stops in one last reach for Victory in mondays Federal up news service reporters Carol Dan Turner and Mary Janigan were with the Here Are their reports Joe Clark is hoping the Fairplay Factor will influence their Campaign lurched through three distinct first the conservatives tried to take advantage of Public annoyance that politicians were Messing up the Christ season with their second Federal election in six Clark spared no venom blaming the liberals and new democrats for plunging the country into a election it didst but Public interest soon next they tried to attack Pierre tru Deaus which proved difficult because they had in Clarks smoke him out Trudeau cleverly refused to provide his opponents with any the tories now admit that they never really succeeded in getting a firm enough handle on Liberal policy to criticize it with any they had to Content themselves with snippets after waiting till mid january for Trudeau to come out with anything approaching an Energy Clarks people finally found themselves work ing with a statement from the Liberal Leader that has Oil pricing policy would be based on a blended Oil Price a figure calculated in some mysterious algebraic Way to reflect both Canadian production costs and International Oil frustrated tory economists did their Best to plug numbers into Trudeau vague making a few Handy but highly questionable As they came up with with an estimate that Liberal policy meant the Price of a barrel of Oil would go up this year by compared with Clarks and the liberals would increase the gasoline excise tax to 27 cents a gallon compared with Clarks 18 but it was hard to go on the offensive with shaky the Only option that remained was to sell conservative policy As the medi Cine the country desperately but that had its draw a current account deficit int the easiest thing in the world to explain to a gymnasium full of voters looking for a Good explaining done and except for one last Flat out burst of campaigning in Rural metropolitan Rural Calgary and Edmonton this the promoting and calculating Are forced Back into the hands of Clark can Only Hope that voters will see him As the Nice Guy who never had a sporting there Are two glaring warning Sig nals in the Fairplay the polls have showed Little evidence of it working so and theres the Wisdom of the Street Nice Guys finish by Mary Janigan de Broadbent has warned that his opponents will hike interest rates immediately following the Federal he delivered the warning just before heading Here wearily to wind up a week that dramatizes the Virtues and the plight of the nip automatically follow he told an audience of chinese canadians in Toronto yesterday that this weeks decision to shove interest rates from 12 to 13 per cent Means that the tories or the liberals will automatically follow by increasing the Canad an rate from the present 14 per either one of them they Are elected to office do Only one thing in the tradition of their and that is to increase the interest rate once the nip would do just the oppo site we would have a Madei Cana a interest rate policy that will drop the interest rate by two per cent Forth the emphasis on monetary policy marked a change in the final week of campaigning during which Broadbent has been leaning heavily on his party Energy he explained that he concentrated on Energy because i by Dan Turner Toronto railing against the Liberal party of As it hums its Way across Canada in route to almost certain Victory in mondays Federal is an easy thing to its also at this particular Point in Canadas political history about As useful As railing against general Indira computer technology or the Pittsburgh there have been times during this election Campaign when it has appeared that Jim Keith and the rest of the Liberal cleverness had out levered themselves by in bringing Down the Clark government so Early and then running a faded spectre As a Shadow judging by the last week of the these appearances have been momentary As Joe Clark spits out the butt end of his Days begging for another Chance calling on canadians for the last drop of United Empire loyalist decency left in them Trudeau emerges like a Mummy from the Cairo unwraps his and begins his a burst of passion for Quebe cers in Levis an Exchange of wits with to Houline Jack Webster in Vancouver a Canad first Industrial strategy for the brisk and fickle urbanite of Toronto and renewed Hope for the foundering Auto Industry in let Joe Clark win Jimmy Carters affection by Spir iting six american diplomats out of Pierre Elliott Trudeau will use that affection As a base to Challenge Carter demanding changes in the Auto pact that the liberals themselves set up so imperfectly in bolstering the weak de Broadbent Broadbent issues warning dont think theres anything in Canada that so clearly distinguishes us from the other he argued that the multinational corporations should not receive another Penny from Oil Price he Pierre Trudeau Trudeau tap dancing to a win kneed foreign investment review act they pasted together eight years All this after having pounded monotonously away at the Clark budget for the first six weeks of the to the Point that there Are no canadians left who dont have the tories 18cent Gas tax marked like an indelible Date stamp on their the liberals have and when you have anything is you Start your week in que reminding the electorate of All those broken tory promises by denouncing the very politics of saying there will be no list of pretty words forthcoming from the liberals because promises Are called for a Madei Canada but never specified what it is to and he proposed that Petrovan become the sole importer of Canadian open a Chain of coast coast Gas and take charge of tar Sands Oil develop ment passion and conviction he argued his Case during the final with passion and conviction with the exception of a bizarre episode Early in the which left aides floundering to explain Why part prom uses would add Only about billion to the billion Federal he outlined his platforms on every major Issue at every but he really came alive this week Only when the liberals appeared to swipe several longstanding nip such As the vow to put Teeth in the regulations of the foreign investment review almost Broadbent realized that he had to try to Block a Liberal landslide in Ontario by attacking tru and tory strength in the West by lambasting so he promptly denounced new conservative schemes for Bee augured Petrovan and began a pro longed attack on the liberals As the most cynical party in Canadian his no one knows if this will most voters have probably already at which time you move dispensing promises of toughened institutions to Shore up the Canadian econ the kind of toughening you resisted ferociously throughout 11 years in youve never shown anything but contempt for the new democrats obsession with economic but surveys show the nip is stealing votes on the Issue and history shows tentative nip voters Start looking nervously for alternatives during the last week of election enter a strengthened foreign invest ment review enter a reworked Auto you dance and your choreographers Tom your press aides do the the says Industrial strategy week had actually been scheduled for last but an extra week of hammering on the Gas tax had been needed because Clark had so rudely interrupted the game plan with world affairs week after the iranian the Wing of your air plane smashes through a press bus in Winnipeg till Cost a Little Money to but the big Man sends a Telegram to the saying these things you miss one Campaign Stop in in a Riding you we rent going to win and Margaret the Martha Mitchell of the last Campaign a problem last to be but then you were going to lose you Are this and she has been sent into remission at her Ottawa where she sits listening to the hum of the Liberal party working its Way across the Pride is Spur for Liberal Jim Coutts Ottawa this game vow have to be a bit of a Joe Clark Doest quite have it Jim in a Campaign that has been based entirely on not on not enough attention has been paid to the people who manufacture the Jim principal Secretary to the once and future prime Pierre is one of the most powerful men in Canada by dint of his so he has managed to escape Public scrutiny because of his allegedly Anonymous but the action of Coutts losing last May and now winning this time such that he May have impaired his credibility too the Slick backroom boy has become so and so few people press and party Trust him that there is Strong speculation he will have to be replaced when the liberals resume their tiresome role As the natural governing Michael the drab ghost of Trudeau will i Allan Fotheringham Likely have to be brought Back to Laun Der the role into its previous inv Sibili More than any other principal Secretary to a Canadian prime minis has become personally involved in this election because of his personal links with Joe he does not respect Clark the quote above from University Days 20 years ago indicates and privately feels offended that he and his party could have been Defeated by Pride is the vindication is the with his baby face and cheerful looks far younger than his 42 he could almost pass As a teenager save for the ostentatious shocking red suspenders and the flashing silk he is from which boasts that it has the purest water in Nanton is just 18 Miles South of High River the personal Coutts once unsuccessful As a Liberal in the Alberta Riding of and Clarks Mother helped him in the he and Clark clashed at the University of Coutts As Liberal Leader and prime minister in the student mock Clark As opposition it was that experience that led to the quote and the belief held by Coutts and Trudeau to this a charming much cherished at dinner parties for his imitations of Jack Paul Martin and John pie Coutts is now regarded generally by the press As an artful sit Down and let me mislead for a is a favorite the prob Lem for Coutts is now that his game has become so so tiresome that he is simply not believed on the boy has faked wolf5 nine times too in last Springs one dying night in when a Desper confused Trudeau had obviously lost the reporters noted the fact that lurking stage left As had tears dripping Down his the truth is that Coutts cries often but Only Over during an embarrassing episode in Thunder retiring Cabinet minister Robert Andras and Trudeau traded overblown tributes to one another in such pathos that one wanted to leave the such party smart touches Coutts crouched at the rear with tears Welling from his the press and insiders know Coutts knows that Andras refused to run again in As he saw the 1980 Campaign tack shifting left again and realized that he would never be the new Liberal finance yester in the usual Liberal Industrial Leo Lotical Andras picked up the first of his with Teck but Coutts those who know him Well Coutts has never married say that to him the Liberal party has become his Surro Gate he extends to the party the emotional ties that others connect to loved he has become famous for his Spuri Ous election papering the Liberal Campaign Jet each election with hundreds of dollars and scattering bottles of scotch in bets on his the press has Little doubt that the always outrageously on his party chances so As to hype the Are written off in legitimate expense accounts on behalf of the even Coutts losses at the monday night poker games with the Campaign press Are under such is his reputation its an old advertising Row but the most common line on Trudeau chief aide is that you can Tell when Hes lying his lips Are its this irredeemable track record that has put in question the usefulness of Coutts in a new Liberal govern he boasts in reply to the charge that Trudeau has done a disappearing act that the Liberal Leader has Given 12 whole interviews this As opposed to 10 in what is More indicative is that Only three of the interviews have been with the Pencil like former principal Secre tary Jack Austin and exse Nate Leader Ray believes that interviews with the Leader should be used As Carrota Nestick weapons those who Are critical of the master Are to be punished and shut in the most debasing Campaign in he has orchestrated the debase the Man at the right hand of the future prime minister is that most strange a sentimental ;