Russ Kuykendall

Russ Kuykendall is a Peace River Country farm-raised, seminary-trained, ordained minister and principal with BlueCommittee.Org and Ditchley.ca who sometimes dabbles in political theory and more frequently in political practice. Russ served as Deputy Campaign Manager to the Brad Trost Campaign for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership (2016-2017), and as Campaign Manager of the Tanya Granic Allen Campaign for the Ontario PC leadership (2018). Russ Kuykendall is a former director of policy to a past Canadian Minister of Natural Resources and a former research fellow with Cardus. He lives in Ottawa with his Steinway ‘M’.

Bio last updated June 15th, 2021.

Russ Kuykendall

Articles by Russ Kuykendall

  • Looking Back at Maggie Thatcher

    British Prime Minister Boris Johnson might be building a house of cards with his no-deal approach to crashing out of the European Union. But Russell Kuykendall says a BBC series details with delicate balance how the late Margaret Thatcher taught UK Conservatives about playing a new deck.

    The final episode, predictably titled Downfall, traces failings of a prime minister at the height of her powers who had lost touch with her base of support among the British voting public, seemingly constitutionally unable to take political advice even from those who loved her best Secondly, I am st...

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  • The Disruptive Conservative

    Reviewer Russell Kuykendall delves into William Gairdner’s selected essays to take the author’s measure as the premier public intellectual within Canadian movement conservatism.

    Gairdner qualifies as a leading Canadian public intellectual of the past 30 years, and as arguably Canadian movement conservativism’s premier public intellectual – or at least its primus inter pares (“first among equals”) As a member of “the Calgary School,” retired Professor Tom Flanagan, points ou...

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  • Too Homely for Hollywood?

    Russ Kuykendall reviews A House of Cards.

    As Urquhart (played by Ian Richardson) is the Chief Government Whip in the British adaptation, in the American version, Francis (Frank) Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is the Majority Whip of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S First, the sly joke: the initials of the main character, Francis Underwood—get it?...

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