Want a friend in politics? Get a dog.

Well, that’s not exactly the quote. President Harry S. Truman said that, except he substituted the word “Washington” for “politics.”

And, with the greatest of respect to the 33rd U.S. president, he’s not entirely right, either. Because it is indeed possible to have friends in politics – and in a way that helps constituents, too.

Partisans – younger ones and TruAnon, in particular – don’t get that. They see the universe in black and white, and regard any political opponent as a mortal enemy. They believe disagreement is treason and a capital offence.

The successful political folks aren’t like that. Jean Chretien, Doug Ford, for example. Olivia Chow, too.

Chretien, for whom I once worked as Special Assistant, was friends with folks across the political spectrum. Ralph Klein, Roy Romanow, Roy McMurtry, you name it: the most-successful Liberal Prime Minister of our generation had friends of many different stripes. Some Grit partisans may not have approved, but Chretien didn’t care.

In the case of NDP Premier Romanov and Conservative cabinet minister McMurtry, too, Chretien’s friendship paid big dividends. In November 1981, when a deal to repatriate the Constitution looked to be falling apart, Chretien met quietly with his NDP and Tory friends – in a kitchen pantry at the Ottawa conference centre, no less – to hammer together a deal.

The “Kitchen Accord,” as it became known, was what led to the creation of a truly Canadian Constitution, and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And it wouldn’t have happened if those three – a Liberal, a Conservative and a New Democrat – hadn’t been friends.

Doug Ford – for whose caucus, full disclosure, my firm does consulting work – comes from the same school. The Ontario Premier famously has friends in every political party, and it has clearly benefited the province he has led since 2018.

This writer saw the proof of that, close up. When I was helping to run Olivia Chow’s 2014 mayoral campaign, Ford and I met. He was also a candidate for mayor, and we started talking regularly.

Not only was Chow okay with that – she encouraged it. Doug’s brother, Rob, had been a Toronto city council seatmate with Chow’s husband, Jack Layton. They became good friends.

When Layton tragically died of cancer in 2011, Rob Ford was bereft. “Today’s definitely one of the saddest days in Toronto, but not only in Toronto, but Canada,” Ford said at the time, adding that, when he arrived at Toronto City Hall, Layton “taught me a lot…He taught me never to take things personal. He taught me, you’re going to be surprised on who votes with you sometimes and who votes against you.”

When Layton’s casket was brought into City Hall, Rob Ford was one of the few who escorted it. On that day, he put friendship before politics.

His brother, Doug, is cut from the same cloth. Much has been made of Doug’s support of his friend Mark Saunders in the just-concluded Toronto mayoral by-election. But much of the partisan speculation about his future relationship with Toronto’s mayor-elect is misguided.

“[Chow] is someone I have had a good relationship with” said Ford on Tuesday – and it’s the truth, going back to the years Rob and Jack were both alive. “We’ll work together and we’re going to find common ground when we sit down because she’s actually quite a nice person.”

And they will work well together – not just because they have to, but because they know how to. When the political stakes are high, as they too often are these days, letting rabid partisanship get in the way is just plain dumb.

So, yes, when in politics, get a dog. Sure.

But get some friends across the aisle, too. It helps – everyone.

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Yes, the government is still the government.

Yes, the Official Opposition is still the Official Opposition.

Yes, the turnout was low.

Yes, nothing really changed.

Yes, the punditocracy reads too much into by-elections.

But, but, but: four by-elections happening on one day is nothing to shrug about. And, if you poke through the entrails, there is a warning to be seen.

For the Conservatives.

We know, we know: the Tories crushed the People’s Party leader, Maxime “Max” Bernier in Portage-Lisgar. Pierre Poilievre’s candidate got three times as many votes as Bernier.

Big deal. Bernier and the PPC have never won a seat in the House of Commons, not once, in hundreds of individual attempts since the PPC was formed half a decade ago.

Besides: Poilievre’s problem was never Bernier, now fading into nothingness in his rear view mirror. His problem is the guy on the road up ahead of him – Justin Trudeau.

It’s dumb to read too much into by-election results. Sure. But, stretching back to December’s Mississauga-Lakeshore result – where the Liberal vote went up, the Tory vote went down, and the dastardly Grits won – a worrying trend is developing for Conservatives.

The trend, which continued in this week’s by-elections, is this: the Liberal vote share went up, and the Conservative vote dropped. On by-election voting day, when it really counts, Trudeau’s Grits have outpaced Poilievre”s Tories.

Yes, yes: media polls continue to show Poilievre’s team ahead. But media polls are generally worth what you pay for them – nothing. Dogs, as former Conservative leader John Diefenbaker famously noted, “are the one animal that knows the proper treatment to give” to poles and polls.

The Tory base, who typically swoon at the mention of Pierre Poilievre’s name, don’t want to hear any of this. They’ll swarm the comments section of this column, wherever it appears, bleating that by-elections don’t matter, their guy held their two seats, blah blah blah. The usual.

But the reality is this: against the worst Liberal leader in generations – against a Liberal Party that has been adrift in a sea of scandal and controversies for months – the Poilievre party (because that is what it is) is not winning on the ground.

Don’t take our word for it. Former Conservative Erin O’Toole quit politics this month, too, and passed along  some truths that every Tory should heed, but few will. Tories, said O’Toole last week, “have to win more votes in suburban and urban Canada.”

This week, following the four by-elections, O’Toole’s former chief was more direct. Longtime Tory stalwart Fred DeLorey was succinct: “What the heck is going on?”

As in, why has the Liberal vote increased, and the Conservative vote decreased, in multiple by-election results? There are a lot of “red flags” in the by-election numbers, said DeLorey to Postmedia, adding: “by-elections are strong indicators of where things are going…How are we going to win this election?”

O’Toole and DeLorey are good soldiers, and hasten to add that they support Pierre Poilievre and want him to beat Justin Trudeau and become Prime Minister. So do millions of Conservative voters.

But right now, based upon the available real-world evidence, Poilievre isn’t doing that. He isn’t winning when it matters.

His problem remains now what it has been since he became leader: Poilievre is beloved by the Tory base.

But the Tory base, increasingly, is out of touch with the country, with the cities and the ‘burbs.

And that’s why the real-world Liberal vote has been going up, and the Conservative vote has gone down.

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