The Big Blue Machine by J. Patrick Boyer

Author:J. Patrick Boyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2015-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

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On Labour Day, Bob and Mary Stanfield arrived at the weekend farm of Don and Ann Guthrie, near Moonstone north of Toronto, where they were to stay for the next three nights, before heading down to the convention on September 4. The Stanfield’s whereabouts was kept strictly secret, making the news media more interested and the other candidates more apprehensive.

The candidate was being refreshed, after travelling twenty-seven thousand miles to meet PC delegates all August, and getting focused on the intense week ahead. For two days he and Mary relaxed. Then they were joined by Camp and Atkins, who had come to prepare them for the crucial days to come, one discussing the content of the speeches, the other the nature of the organized events. Sunday evening and Monday morning were consumed with discussion. Then Dalton and Norman headed south to Toronto, into the rising tempo of the Tory convention and Atkins’s third-floor suite at the Westbury, the party’s president camouflaged by sunglasses and hat.

That evening, still secluded in the suite, Camp drafted the speech, with the help, as prearranged, of Quebec’s Bernard Flynn and Queen’s University political scientist George Perlin. Bernard guided the writing of the section dealing with French Canadians, and also translated the passages Stanfield would speak in French. Next morning, Tuesday, Camp was taken by one of the Spades unnoticed up a service elevator to Stanfield’s sixth-floor suite at the Royal York, where the two men revised the text. After those changes were made, Stanfield again tweaked a few words, marking the pages on his hotel room’s small desk with his fountain pen.

That evening, having rehearsed repeatedly, Stanfield went downstairs relaxed and fully prepared. He entered, with a small entourage, the Royal York’s concert hall where a long table had been set up for the candidates to face the many rows of seated policy delegates and some three hundred pro-Stanfield supporters whom Camp and Atkins had urged to arrive early and occupy all available space. For Stanfield himself, this was the moment to make a strong first impression.

Bob edged his way along the riser behind the other candidate’s chairs to his seat. He paused to greet ebullient and well-tanned George Hees, quietly commenting, “You look a little pale, George. Are you feeling alright?” As he continued down the line, Hees visibly deflated.

When he passed Duff, the first time they had seen each other in months, he first just nodded a greeting, but then added, “This is a pretty important night for all of us, I guess.” Roblin was shaken. He’d been wrongly informed by his campaign team that he was only to make a brief opening statement, friendly and easy, then field specific questions from the policy delegates — no sweat because he knew his stuff. Roblin looked with alarm across the crowded rows of delegates waiting to narrow their choices for leader, the first time they’d see and hear the candidates in a common setting, each delivering his major policy statement to the national PC convention.

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