The Tory Stakes

 

Stalking horse.

It seemed to me at the time that the last Conservative leadership race was fixed. Obvious candidates kept dropping off at the last minute. Candidate were arbitrarily refused the right to run. The timeline was made tight so that no outsider could build a new base. It was all set up to coronate Peter MacKay, who, no doubt, in the eyes of party grandees, had earned it for his long service. Erin O’Toole was just supposed to be a plausible opponent, so that it wasn’t too obvious. A good soldier ready to take a little humiliation for the party. He pretended to be a right-wing figure, to fake diversity. The equivalent of the Washington Generals.

Leslyn Lewis was allowed in, no doubt, because it looked good to have a black woman in the race. Derek Sloan might have looked to unformidable to worry about: let the Christian social conservatives have their candidate. Just enough to keep them in the party.

Despite all this, the party base was not having it. Unexpectedly, they elected O’Toole. 

No problem; O’Toole remained the good soldier. He simply shifted to the same platform that MacKay might have run on. 

This was a suboptimal outcome. If you were going to run to the centre, MacKay would have been the stronger candidate.

This time, perhaps they have learned their lesson. Or perhaps Pierre Poilievre starts out too far ahead to get away with such shenanigans again; the grandees do not want Poilievre. A wide-open race becomes their best chance to defeat him. Giving us a better choice and a better spectacle.

It’s nothing personal, and it’s nothing ideological, really. It is not even that they think a centrist has a better chance to win in an election. I think that contention is dubious, and I think they are savvy enough to know it is dubious. Firebrands like Reagan or Diefenbaker have in fact racked up historic majorities. Trudeau won running to the left of the NDP. The problem is that a man of principle, regardless of the principle, cannot be managed. He is not going to be a team player.

Same problem the Dems in America had with Bernie Sanders.

So the grandees and the talking heads are backing Charest, as their best chance to stop Poilievre. 

It also makes sense to get Patrick Brown in the race. He has a proven record for winning by selling memberships. They are going to have to sell a lot of memberships to have a chance at beating Poilievre with the party base. Brown is not a plausible victor himself, but he can move all those new votes over to Charest on a later ballot.

Maxime Bernier has already puckishly endorsed Charest. Charest is best for him. Poilievre could achieve party unity and put Bernier in the shade. If Charest wins, the Tories likely split and Bernier benefits.