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"We Have Not Lost the Argument": Cecilia Tear on the CPB
26 October 5742
Cecilia Tear, Spokesperson of the CPB, received The Daily Standard at the Civic Party's Cirrane headquarters two days after the latest poll put the party at 73 seats, down 64 from its recent high, and put the United Religious Movement on 56. She was, by her own admission, still digesting the numbers.
"Let me start by saying plainly: this is a poll, not a verdict. Nobody has voted. No one has entered the Quaiyl. But I won't stand here and pretend this isn't a real drop. Sixty-four seats, from where we stood a few months ago, is not noise. It's a message, and we're going to listen to it rather than explain it away.
Let's be honest about where those seats went. A meaningful share moved toward the United Religious Movement, now polling at 56 seats. That tells us something specific: a part of the country is looking for certainty, for belonging, for someone to tell them who's in and who's out. That is a real feeling, and it is not one we answer with mockery.
But it is also not one we answer by chasing it. We are not going to become a paler version of the GCU to win back seats we lost precisely because we stand for something different. Unity was never meant to be easy; if it were easy, it wouldn't need a party built to defend it.
So here is where we are honest with ourselves. 14.3% and 73 seats are still a real base, larger than where we stood in December of last year, when we held just 40. We have grown before. We can grow again. But growth in a straight line was never guaranteed, and tonight's number is a reminder that the ground under a young party moves fast in every direction.
To our members and candidates across Bailon, Bamburgh, Harlingen, Negunia, and Westmoreland: this is the moment to go back to the doors, not away from them. We explain again what civic nationalism means when the answer on offer elsewhere is exclusion dressed up as faith. We make the case that this republic works better when it belongs to everyone in it.
Niart trooid seyrsnys — strength through freedom. That has never meant the easy road."
"Let me start by saying plainly: this is a poll, not a verdict. Nobody has voted. No one has entered the Quaiyl. But I won't stand here and pretend this isn't a real drop. Sixty-four seats, from where we stood a few months ago, is not noise. It's a message, and we're going to listen to it rather than explain it away.
Let's be honest about where those seats went. A meaningful share moved toward the United Religious Movement, now polling at 56 seats. That tells us something specific: a part of the country is looking for certainty, for belonging, for someone to tell them who's in and who's out. That is a real feeling, and it is not one we answer with mockery.
But it is also not one we answer by chasing it. We are not going to become a paler version of the GCU to win back seats we lost precisely because we stand for something different. Unity was never meant to be easy; if it were easy, it wouldn't need a party built to defend it.
So here is where we are honest with ourselves. 14.3% and 73 seats are still a real base, larger than where we stood in December of last year, when we held just 40. We have grown before. We can grow again. But growth in a straight line was never guaranteed, and tonight's number is a reminder that the ground under a young party moves fast in every direction.
To our members and candidates across Bailon, Bamburgh, Harlingen, Negunia, and Westmoreland: this is the moment to go back to the doors, not away from them. We explain again what civic nationalism means when the answer on offer elsewhere is exclusion dressed up as faith. We make the case that this republic works better when it belongs to everyone in it.
Niart trooid seyrsnys — strength through freedom. That has never meant the easy road."