Tom Flanagan talks to Joseph Planta about his new book Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power (McGill-Queen’s, 2007), and the central role he played in Stephen Harper’s political campaigns.

Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power by Tom Flanagan. (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007) Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Harper’s Team

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line. This is THECOMMENTARY.CA.

A new book, Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power is a fascinating read and quite remarkable for its behind-the-scenes insight into what happened in the four campaigns in five years it took to take Stephen Harper from private citizen to Prime Minister of Canada. The book’s author Tom Flanagan was a senior adviser and chief organiser for Harper in two leadership races and two national elections. It is a tremendously readable and hard-to-put-down book as to how the political campaigns were planned, organised, and managed. It provides a glimpse of Stephen Harper, as well as an overview of how the Conservative Party of Canada came to be in these recent years. In his career, Tom Flanagan has advised not only Stephen Harper, but also Preston Manning. He is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary. In 2001, he won the Donner prize for his previous book, First Nations? Second Thoughts. Harper’s Team retails for $34.95 and is published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. I am pleased to welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Tom Flanagan; Good morning, Professor Flanagan.

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