POLITICS: Clinton's Leading Conservative Lady
Fund, John H.
POLITICS JOHN H. FUND Clinton's Leading Conservative Lady ELINDA STRONACH COULD BECOME Canada's version of Arnold Schwarzenegger if she wins enough votes of paid-up party members to become head...
...They are good friends," a close friend of Stronach's told the CanWest News Service last year, "but there is not a romantic linkage...
...Clinton adviser James Carville was a key speaker at last year's Liberal convention and has consulted with them...
...He noted that Northstar is partly owned by John Laschinger, a Progressive Conservative campaign manager who nonetheless moonlighted last year in a successful effort to elect union-backed left-winger David Miller mayor of Toronto...
...In his book, Leaders and Lesser Mortals, Laschinger wrote that in a campaign "one recourse is to leak to the press internal polls, if they are more favorable than the public polls...
...Indeed, her campaign office routinely deflects requests for interviews, including one from me...
...MARCH 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 37...
...A Magna spokesman says the two met when Mr...
...Stronach wants to lower taxes but avoids talk of any budget cuts...
...Last November, Ms...
...Supporters of both men are quietly trying to undermine the Wonderwoman image the Stronach campaign is projecting...
...Others are even harsher...
...She is thus the most eligible woman in Canada whether or not she ever becomes prime minister...
...Next question please, she fumed...
...In Calgary, a record 1,350 people bought tickets last month to her speech at the Chamber of Commerce...
...The poll generated a lot of buzz until Charles Adler, a columnist for the Winnipeg Sun, poured ice water all over it...
...Clinton spokesman Jim Kennedy said last year that the former president "has met with Ms...
...That mixture is likely to appeal to many in the new party, which is a merger of the Canadian Alliance, a populist party based in the western provinces, and the Progressive Conservatives, a party that is strong in eastern Canada and governed the country under former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1984 to 1993...
...Stronach was asked about her friendship with Clinton at her campaign launch in January...
...But it's the Clinton connection that really worries Canadian conservatives...
...Stronach's two most high-profile supporters on the right, Mr...
...If they are not, another recourse is to fib (or quote selectively) from the findings of internal polls...
...The last thing we need is Clinton influence in both of our major political parties...
...Another critic hands over a Canadian newspaper that characterizes her campaign as "Paris Hilton starring in The Simple Political Life...
...She is running on a vague quasi-Clintonian platform of fiscal conservatism and social moderation, which includes support for gay marriage...
...Stronach, according to that friend, said of Clinton: "'The guy is really smart and he really knows a lot of stuff...
...It's just not that way...
...She's the only woman CEO of a Fortune Global 500 company based outside the U.S...
...The American people 36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 2004 have a lot of respect for that...
...He tried very much to deal with women's issues, with minority issues...
...If she becomes party leader, she will be its candidate for prime minister in elections later this year...
...Stronach and her father several times over the past year to discuss the Clinton Library and Foundation...
...r-ONE OF THIS IS REASSURING to Canadian conser,.._ vatives...
...But there is no denying that she generates excitement on the campaign trail...
...POLITICS JOHN H. FUND Clinton's Leading Conservative Lady ELINDA STRONACH COULD BECOME Canada's version of Arnold Schwarzenegger if she wins enough votes of paid-up party members to become head of the country's new Conservative Party in a March election...
...Joe Clark, a former Progressive Conservative prime minister and no right-winger, has attacked her inexperience and refusal to participate in more than two debates...
...Another friend told the wire service that Stronach is "intrigued" by Clinton's "charisma and brainpower, particularly his knowledge of world events...
...Her two major opponents for the party leadership are Stephen Harper, the head of the Canadian Alliance, and Tony Clement, a former health minister in Ontario...
...One points to a profile in the National Post that hints that Magna is still effectively being run by her father and that her "exposure to the financial community has been limited to conference calls in which she often relies on others to field queries...
...Other political figures are more skeptical...
...You shouldn't jump to conclusions that they are having a serious fling," though the friend added Stronach is attracted to Clinton...
...The caller was instantly connected to a speaker phone...
...She could become Canada's Arnold or a morph of Bill and Hillary Clinton," says a Conservative Party activist...
...Laschinger is now Stronach's campaign manager...
...John H. Fund is a columnist for OpinionJournal.com, the website of the Wall Street Journal editorial page...
...Only 37, she's rich, glamorous, photogenic, designer clad, and the daughter of an Austrian immigrant who is worth $600 million...
...Clinton spoke at a company event at its private golf course three years ago and characterized their friendship as a "business relationship...
...Last year, the two were also spotted dining together at a Toronto restaurant and sharing the Stronach family's box at the Preakness horse race...
...She has told friends that Clinton inspired her to enter politics...
...Frank Stronach, Belinda's father, owns Pimlico JOHN H FUND Race Course, where the Preakness is run...
...Mulroney and former Ontario premier Mike Harris, sit respectively on Magna's corporate board and its international advisory committee...
...Her friends have gone out of their way to downplay salacious thinking about her friendship with Clinton...
...The National Post reported the exchange: "Had she consulted with pal Bill Clinton on her campaign...
...Her father sought to lead the Liberal Party in 1988," says one Canadian Alliance member of parliament...
...Completely untested in politics, she shares with Arnold both celebrity status and a famous Democratic political connection in the U.S.: the Washington Post reports that she has a close personal and business relationship with Bill Clinton, with whom she has been constantly linked in gossip columns...
...Four days later she did appear on the record, "I think he is a great communicator," she told the Toronto Star about Clinton...
...Both are serious policy wonks and are frustrated at Stronach's ability to avoid most debates and pour vast amounts of money into her campaign for the votes of the party members who will decide the leadership contest in March...
...For the last two years Stronach has served as CEO of Magna International, the $13 billion auto parts manufacturer her father founded...
...It was Bill Clinton calling from 12 time zones away in China to congratulate Stronach and express regret for not being able to be there in person...
...Stronach was being honored with a humanitarian award at a Toronto dinner when a cellphone rang...
...A poll of a sample of all Canadians in late January by Northstar Research Partners found that 41 percent would prefer Stronach to lead the Conservative Party, 28 percent would back Harper, and only 9 percent plumped for Clement...
...They call him the first, you know, black president of America, so you know I respect that...
...Conservative skeptics point out that Ms...
...I don't believe most of the salacious stories about Belinda and Bill, but it's clear her spin-driven campaign is Clintonian to the core...
...Stronach's touchiness is understandable...
...Sounds like Belinda has been taken in by the Clinton blarney...
...She recently divorced her second husband, a Norwegian four-time Olympic gold medal-winning speedskater...
Vol. 37 • March 2004 • No. 2
