IT'S TIME CANADIANS UNDERSTOOD THE TRUTH ABOUT THEIR CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL HISTORY.
Although Tories have held power for only fifty-seven of the 142 years since Confederation, they have given Canada some of its most fascinating and colourful leaders and prime ministers. Nonetheless, their contributions to Canada while in and out of office, good and bad, are rarely recognized let alone understood. With Conservatives back in form?and in national favour?the time is right for their remarkable and
sometimes maddening story to be brought to life for the first time in a single volume.
Blue Thunder:The Truth about Conservatives from Macdonald to Harper is an epic, page-turning work of history. But Blue Thunder is no work of shallow hagiography. It is a warts-and-all portrait that examines in compelling and revealing detail the lows as well as the highs. In covering 142 years of shame and glory, Blue Thunder reveals the best quotes, funniest stories and biggest blunders; along with the bizarre episodes, clever strategies, shocking scandals, spectacular victories and dishonorable defeats.
Moving beyond the staid and conventional portraits, Blue Thunder gives the Tory record a fair-minded hearing. Indeed, while leading the country through some of its more tumultuous times, Conservatives have initiated many of the transformative changes that define the nation today. They did much of the tough slogging by implementing necessary and often unpopular measures, frequently to their short-term political detriment.
They would do more for Canada, however, if they learned from their political blunders. Plamondon reveals what Conservatives have done right and where they have missed the mark. Along the way myths are exposed, blame is assessed, and heroes are chosen. He concludes by boldly sifting from the record what today's Conservatives need to learn from the past to be successful in the future.

BOB PLAMONDON, FCA, is one of Canada's leading public policy specialists. A full and part time professor at three Canadian universities over twenty years, Bob was an insider to conservative politics over the past twenty years. This included: a run for Parliament in 1988; a stint in the Tory war room in 1993; and, a leading backroom figure in the Tory 2003 leadership contest.

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