As Jan Brown strides down Millrise Drive in southwest Calgary, she talks about the importance of meeting voters face to face.
By knocking on every door and speaking to as many potential voters as possible, the Progressive Conservative candidate hopes to gain an edge over her foe and former boss, Reform leader Preston Manning.
Personal contact with voters in the riding of Calgary Southwest may be her only advantage over Manning, whose constituency includes a school bearing his father’s name, Ernest Manning High School.
As Manning crisscrosses the country selling the Reform message to a national audience, Brown, Liberal candidate Paul Drager and New Democrat Mara Vogel hope to steal some votes while he’s away.
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Even if Manning is absent for most of the campaign, his presence and popularity are formidable. He handily defeated former Conservative cabinet member Bobbie Sparrow by 28,000 votes in the 1993 election and most observers say he’ll win again.
Most agree it’s a two-way grudge match between Brown and Manning. Once political colleagues, the two have barely spoken since Brown’s departure from the Reform caucus on May 10, 1996.
Manning said Brown’s public criticism of party policy led to her departure.
During an afternoon of door knocking, Brown said she is disillusioned with Reform and claims she joined without adequate information about the party’s roots.
After jumping off the Reform ship, sitting as an Independent and then joining the Progressive Conservatives in a new riding, she said she is comfortable now, in spite of the public criticism she’s received in the last year.
“There isn’t anything written or said about anyone, living or dead, that hasn’t been said about me,” Brown said.
Her former riding of Calgary Southeast included some of the poorest and the wealthiest families in the city. By contrast Calgary Southwest is an affluent, middle class constituency with a population of 99,000.
It is a typical Calgary suburb of polished homes, tidy yards and in many cases, double income families. Few people are at home as Brown power walks from one house to the next.
When she does catch someone at home, it is often a senior citizen or a young mother with children. They smile, call her Jan and wish her good luck.
“These people are really quite uncomfortable with that in-your-face, bully attitude of the Reform party that’s been evident throughout parts of this campaign,” she said.
Brown claims Manning is afraid to face her and the other candidates in a debate.
However, during a brief stop in Calgary at the end of the first week of the campaign, Manning looked exuberant and confident. Speaking to about 100 cheering supporters at the Calgary airport, he gave a down home speech about campaign activities that took him from Ontario to British Columbia.
Manning also sports a new image. The owlish glasses are gone and there’s an updated hair style. Support among his constituents borders on adulation and reporters following his campaign call him sir.
The split between Brown and Manning might have been avoided with a different leader, said political scientist Tom Flanagan. A professor at the University of Calgary, he was involved in the formation of the Reform party in the late 1980s.
“Jan needs a lot of recognition and massaging,” he said. “Another leader might have been able to make the little gestures that Jan needs.”
Flanagan doesn’t think Brown can win because she made too many jumps that have disillusioned voters.
While many say the election is between Brown and Manning, Flanagan said the Liberals have a strong candidate in Drager,who may steal votes from Brown giving Manning more of an edge.
