Bashevkin's plaintive cri de coeur confirmed my belief that conservatives are winning the war of ideas in Canada. The Calgary School of political science – Barry Cooper, Ted Morton, Rainer Knopff and I, along with our historian outrider David Bercuson – did not cause this transformation, but we and our students have played an honourable part in making it happen." Reform Party of Canada Tom Flanagan joined the right-wing populist Reform Party of Canada in 1990 and began working there in 1991 as director of policy research (Rovinsky 1998:11). Flanagan, who was among the most conservative of Preston Manning's advisers, was fired before the 1993 federal election. Tom Flanagan and Stephen Harper Tom Flanagan and Stephen Harper began publishing together in 1996-7 with "Canadian conservatism is at its strongest level in many years". Their controversial opinion piece entitled "Our Benign Dictatorship: Canada's system of one-party-plus rule has stunted democracy. Two prominent conservatives present the case for more representative government" which argued that the Liberal Party only retained power through a dysfunctional political system and a divided opposition. Harper and Flanagan argued that national conservative governments between 1917 and 1993 were founded on temporary alliances between Western populists and Quebec nationalists, and were unable to govern because of their fundamental contradictions. The authors called for an alliance of Canada's conservative parties, and suggested that meaningful political change might require electoral reforms such as proportional representation. "Our Benign Dictatorship" also commended Conrad Black's purchase of the Southam newspaper chain, arguing that his stewardship would provide for a "pluralistic" editorial view to counter the "monolithically liberal and feminist" approach of the previous management. Flanagan and Harper co-authored their last article in 2001. Flanagan was a key player in Stephen Harper's political rise to Prime Minister of Canada. In 2001, Flanagan helped Harper seek the leadership of the Canadian Alliance. Flanagan managed Harper's leadership campaign, and Harper went on to win the Alliance leadership in March 2002. Flanagan then served for one year as chief of staff to Harper, who was then the Leader of the Opposition. Flanagan managed his leadership campaigns for the Canadian Alliance (2002) and the Conservative Party of Canada (2004). He also managed the Conservative Party's national election campaign in 2004. He was the Senior Communications Adviser for the Conservatives successful 2005–2006 election campaign. In 2007 Flanagan published his book entitled Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise