Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power by Tom Flanagan

by Thomas Flanagan

In five years, Stephen Harper went from private citizen to prime minister of Canada. Tom Flanagan was his chief campaign organizer for most of that period. In Harper's Team, Flanagan tells the story of Harper's rise to power - how a small group of colleagues, with little experience in national politics, transformed themselves into the disciplined, professional campaign team that brought down Paul Martin and the Liberals. Harper's team fought four campaigns in five two leadership races and two national elections. Through trial and error - and determination - they learned to combine the Reform Party's strength in grassroots politics with the Progressive Conservative expertise in advertising and media relations, while simultaneously adopting the latest advances in information and communications technology. Harper's Team is a rare insider's view of how political campaigns are planned, organized, managed, and paid for. Combining forty years of experience as an academic political scientist with five years of organizational work for Stephen Harper, Tom Flanagan offers a unique perspective on how to win power in Canada.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published August 24, 2007

About the author

Thomas Flanagan (November 5, 1923 – March 21, 2002) was an American professor of English literature who specialized in Irish literature. He was also a successful novelist. Flanagan, who was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, graduated from Amherst College in 1945. He was a tenured full - Professor in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley until his retirement. Flanagan died in 2002, at the age of 78, in Berkeley.

He won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1979. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds his papers.

Reviews

[Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for anyone involved in Canadian politics. Very instructive.

[Cliff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Harper is one of the most powerful and influential conservative leaders in the world, in center-left Canada, he managed to become Prime Minister. This book is the story of how it happened.

Flanagan, an academic who became a key campaign aid to Harper, wrote this insightful book that apparently strained his relationship with the Prime Minister, since it gave away too many secrets. It is not that it gives away something unexpected per-se, but it does give detailed accounts of the inside strategy and thinking of Harper's campaign team and how it matured and built its self into a winning organization.

As a technical look at the problems and pitfalls of campaigning, and ways to avoid them, the book is a masterpiece. However, my main problem with it is that it is not very much more than this. Flanagan gives little attention to policy and philosophy, other than to mention when it causes electoral problems. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but I'd have liked discussion on what they hoped to accomplish and what price they were willing to pay to accomplish it.

Harper, now into his third term as Prime Minister, is fond of saying “The longer I’m prime minister...the longer I’m prime minister.” The implied assumption is that as a center-left country, the more people are use to having a conservative Government, the more willing they will be to have one in the future. So perhaps, given this view of politics, the policy goals and philosophy is a bit more flexible. The main goal is to break people away from left-leaning assumptions and allow for a more open paradigm. At the very least, Flanagan explains the nuts and bolts of how the start of this process became possible.

[Jane Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a useful book. I used it to research Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada`s Nasty Little Secret. Contains lots of information, but is somewhat self-aggrandizing and just a little to biased for a political biography. If you are a fan of Flanagan and the Alberta Agenda you will love it. If you are not-- and most of us aren`t -- you won`t. That said, it is a valuable reference for researchers and political junkies.

[Julian Haigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A first person account of Tom Flanagan's experience working with and for Stephen Harper. He's an interesting fellow being a professor who got involved. His choice of subject material and framing of issues is very subjective. There aren't many more personal accounts of Stephen out there sadly and, it seems, as Harper said at Flaherty's funeral, "I can't even get my friends to like me." This book gives the reader a sense why.

[Kailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great read for political junkies. It gave me a better understanding and a better appreciation of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada. Even if you are not a supporter, there is very useful information regarding how to run campaigns for any party.

[Daniel Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting book about the campaigns Flanagan ran for Harper. Not much politics per se, but a lot of information of what went behind the scenes during Harper'rs campaigns and through the merger.

[Marisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. Too much. It was like pulling teeth to finish.