us to be quiet about election

THE ELECTION: CONSERVATIVE MESSAGE
U.S. groups urged to keep quiet on Conservative victory
Showing cross-border ties could scare off voters, right-wing leader says in e-mail
ALAN FREEMAN AND CAMPBELL CLARK AND GLORIA GALLOWAY
Saturday, January 21
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WASHINGTON, ST. JOHN'S, MISSISSAUGA -- Right-wing groups in the United States have been urged to avoid crowing about the likelihood of a Conservative victory in Monday's election for fear of scaring off potential voters, according to a leaked e-mail written by the leader of a prominent American conservative group.

"Canadian voters have been led to believe that American conservatives are scary and if the Conservative Party can be linked with us, they can perhaps diminish a Conservative victory," Paul Weyrich, president of the Washington-based Free Congress Foundation, wrote Thursday in an e-mail forwarded to other conservative leaders.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was also accused yesterday of trying to muzzle his socially conservative candidates in the final days of a campaign in which he has worked hard to make Canadians feel comfortable with him and his policies.

"Candidates who [made] Canadians so uncomfortable with the Conservatives in the last election . . . they haven't gone; they're still there. They're just in hiding," Liberal Leader Paul Martin said at a rally in St. John's. "I don't know where they are. Maybe they're all in some kind of a safe house, biding their time, watching Jeopardy!"

Mr. Weyrich said in his e-mail that he had been called by Gerald Chipeur, a Calgary lawyer and outspoken backer of socially conservative causes, who said that Liberal-leaning news media in Canada were likely to phone U.S. right-wingers "in the hopes that someone will inadvertently say something that can be hung around the Conservatives."

Mr. Weyrich suggested to recipients of his message that "if the Canadian media calls, please do not be interviewed until Monday evening, at which point hopefully there will be reason to celebrate."

Mr. Weyrich, a veteran spokesman for the U.S. right, said in an interview he could not "verify" the e-mail. When it was suggested this was a non-denial denial, Mr. Weyrich snapped, "You can make of it whatever you wish."

Contacted in Calgary, Mr. Chipeur refused to comment on his contacts with Mr. Weyrich and hung up the phone.

Mr. Martin pointed to Cheryl Gallant, Rob Anders, Rob Merrifield and Harold Albrecht as Tory candidates whose views have been absent during the campaign. He noted that Mr. Albrecht, an outspoken critic of same-sex marriage, was removed from the sight of journalists at a Conservative event in Kitchener, Ont., on Thursday and ushered into a banquet-hall kitchen where organizers insisted he was in a meeting.

Gay-rights groups have complained for several weeks that new Conservative candidates who have previously opposed same-sex marriage have been prevented from saying so in public and from revealing their views on their websites.

Mr. Harper ducked the issue yesterday. "Our candidates are campaigning in their ridings, they are going door to door, they are working very hard talking to local media and I am very pleased with their efforts."

Mr. Harper's argument was not helped by reports that he met secretly last Saturday with Ms. Gallant and a small group of her supporters in the Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke riding. Ms. Gallant's candid statements on social issues include her 2004 comparison of abortion with beheadings by Islamic terrorists.

The meeting, which was reported by The Eganville Leader newspaper, took place in Cobden, Ont., after the Conservative Leader decided to take a bus rather than fly between North Bay, Ont., and Ottawa.

Media were put on a separate bus, which did not stop for the get-together with Ms. Gallant and was never told about it.

Mr. Weyrich's e-mail was sent to an assistant who was asked to forward it to other right-wing groups. It made its way through two e-mail groups of right-wing sympathizers before landing at the New York Observer, which published it on its website.

Mr. Chipeur, a leader in the fight against same-sex marriage, backed Mr. Harper's 2004 leadership campaign and is Alberta chair of Republicans Abroad, a group that promotes the party among U.S. expatriates. Mr. Chipeur is a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen and attended the 2004 Republican national convention in New York.

Mr. Weyrich, 61, is a long-time conservative activist and commentator. In a column written in 2004, he argued that free speech was dead north of the border because it was "no longer permissible in Canada to preach that homosexuality is a deviant lifestyle. That is now hate speech. A minister or priest risks jail by preaching what is in the Scriptures."

"The culture has really collapsed there as it is about to collapse here," he warned, saying that if a liberal did not win the 2004 presidential election, as was the case, it could come in 2008.