Poilievre needs to reach outside his base to stir up support

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Pierre Poilievre took an economy class flight to Calgary for this weekend’s Conservative Party of Canada Convention, and his fans went wild, sharing photos taken by other passengers and praising the move online. His detractors have, of course, refered to Poilievre’s cabin choice as nothing more than a successful public relations stunt.

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The party leader was in a lose-lose situation. If he bought an expensive ticket, they’d call him a jerk. But sitting with the plebs in economy? Well, only a bona fide jerk would make such a sham demonstration of his normalness. What a jerk.

Fans loved it, and detractors hated it — but the airplane seat choice is ultimately irrelevant, insofar as being any indication of what Poilievre’s “man-of-the-people” score is. While the airplane seat was not a litmus test for his virtuousness, it was certainly a metaphor for the way Poilievre is polling.

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