Lawrence Martin writes that, if you look at the recent history of the Conservative Party, what happened yesterday shouldn't be a surprise:
Going by the Conservative Party’s current criteria for turfing its leaders, Stephen Harper would never have become prime minister. He would have been ditched after only holding the Liberals to a minority in 2004.
The same thing would have happened to Liberals Lester Pearson and Wilfrid Laurier, who lost their first campaigns. They would never have become prime ministers. Tory Robert Stanfield was allowed three election defeats before having to step aside.
Erin O’Toole has received no such tolerance for his one defeat. He is out, guillotined by his party, brutally repudiated by a caucus vote of 75-43 after only 17 months on the job and one lost election, in which he won the popular vote. He’s gone now, reduced to rubble because he did what no Conservative leader can do. He ran afoul of the party’s hard-right base.
The Conservatives will now hold a leadership convention to crown their sixth leader – yep, sixth, including interims – since Justin Trudeau took over the Liberals in 2013.
For Conservatives, ditching leaders is normal behaviour:
It dispatched Andrew Scheer in a flash, Stockwell Day in a New York minute and Joe Clark in a leadership review. When the Mulroney Conservatives won a second straight majority in 1988, it wasn’t enough. The party proceeded to detonate into three factions – Tories, the Reform Party and the Bloc Québécois.
Mr. O’Toole had the daunting task of trying to appeal to both the party’s Western populists and Eastern pragmatists. In doing so, he bounced around like a fish on a dock. The chameleon approach worked for him in winning the leadership when he transformed himself into a true-blue type. But at the helm, he tried to tack moderate and it backfired.
He was all over the map on the trucker convoy. He alienated the base of the party on guns, on climate change and on other issues. He treated dissidents with disdain and his popularity with the public plunged well below that of the party itself. Hence the gang-up.
Conservatives like to think of themselves as the party of John A. Macdonald. Obviously, they aren't.
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18 comments:
MAGA Bergen as interim leader? As they say, a picture's worth a thousand words.
It could have been worse, Anti-Vaxx Gladue was also in the running. I suppose the good news is that Bergen won't be vying for the leader's crown, and for that we should be thankful.
Cap
What could come from a nest of vipers, Cap? Nothing good.
The current CPC is definitely NOT my father's conservative party. No place for red Tories anymore. While I did not realise it at the time, this is ultimately Mulroney's fault.
UU
.. A couple or three observations, Owen
- Ms Bergen is perfect female counterpoint to her twin Pierre Poilievre
Obviously they are echoing word for word from the same script.. but somehow she seems the more venomous of those two political parasites. Her habit of wrapping misquotes, personal insults and hissing outrage into Question Period is bizarre performance. She does it such that Poilievre can reach her microphone sotto voce with snarling tidbits.
This demeans Canadians.. during our meagre opportunities to see ‘Parliament at Work’
Instead we get scripted, rehearsed ‘showtime’ at the Attention Economy Corral
- Lest we forget heroic patriot Mr O’Toole.. who’s currently being lauded on talk radio for his wondrous exit speech. That smarmy loutling used the Terry Fox statues as props for his ‘Running Man’ series of video & photo ops.. Somehow I can’t find a word from him re The Angry Truckers co-opting the Ottawa statue for their unique purposes
Further & Finally, a Theme I revisit often. ‘Partisan Political Posturing’ (see above) Especially in O’Toole’s case I watch his carefully choreographed ‘physical presentation’. Run a clip without any sound.. just watch him ! One can do the same with any of the ‘leaders’.. or interim ‘’leaders’. Is this how they ‘present’ or speak when with family or friends ? That I doubt! It leads to a conclusion regarding - duplicity - deception - deceit. Perhaps they think outright lying is just part of ‘showtime’.. I think not, nay I will say not ! They are who they are in their truly odd world. Living a masquerade ball life with deplorable situational ethics & arrogantly pretending otherwise.. ? Well amen, then eh !
PS.. in touch with Mound & Lorne via backchannel but no Blogger comment fix yet
We've had a leadership vacuum for years.
The A-list talent is no longer drawn to Ottawa. Even arm-twisting doesn't work. Mediocrity prevails and that comes through in our governance.
Justin's "get out of jail free" card is dwarf Tories of the stature of Scheer and O'Toole. Even winning the popular vote isn't enough to make the Conservatives a threat to the Libs. JT is pushing on an open door.
A hapless Conservative Party is a real problem for the nation and Canadians of all political persuasions. I sense they prefer to accommodate extremism rather than purge it from their ranks. Damn fools.
Mulroney worked hard to schmooze the dissidents, UU. But his fatal mistake was to invite his old law school chum into the tent.
They are who they are, sal. By this time, we all should have no doubt about these folks.
They are fools, Mound. They refuse to heal themselves.
"old law school chum"
Saint Lucien?
Sure, why not put a separatist into the Canadian cabinet at a senior level.
Roll the dice. Great Plan.
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As for the vapid Ms. Bergen, Salamander.
Will she rise the responsibility of the occasion?
Given that I constantly confuse her with the member from Oklahoma, Michelle Rempel, and the esteemed Cheryl Gallant, all of whom I try to ignore, ;-) I'm not sure I know what to expect, but Pierre Pottymouth's twin gives me an idea.
"Come into my tent, said the spider to the fly". The Alabambertans were hosting the leadership meeting on their turf and were absolutely convinced that they would have "one of their guys" sitting in the PM chair in Ottawa. Hah! foiled by Brian Mulroney bringing his Quebec and other of "them there" folks from back east and we all know what happened, right?
They've been spawning their "reform", "anti-east arrogance" and "western separatist" rhetoric ever since. The old "progressives" of the once grand old party has had their heart ripped out and have never been the same. Once Harper managed to prorogue his way into a majority, we all got to see what is real agenda was and it appears that the majority of voters don't agree with it. Its not Libs vs. Cons any more - we have choices and we choose to exercise them. I can see more minority governments in our future because none of the current politicos have a winning agenda. Thank heavens we aren't a 2-party country like the US, but we still could be heading into a similar quagmire, given this latest "truckers-R-us" fiasco.
The Conservatives have the same problem as the Greens. They mirror each other. They both let their respective loonies run the Party.
None of them generate much confidence, PoV -- or respect.
I see minority governments in the future, too, Lulymay -- which means Trucks R Us may have more influence than they deserve.
I agree wholeheartedly, Toby.
There are more than a few MLA's in Alberta's UCP who wish they had a similar provision to turf Jason Kenney. That poor schmuck thought he'd head to Alberta to wait out his triumphal return to Ottawa. The first part of his plan worked like clockwork. Then Kenney's dream crashed and burned.
Folks like Kenney are ill-equipped to deal with the world we face, Mound. That world will destroy their dreams.
One could guess they have just under 4 years to get their collective house in order. The sooner they purge the trucker insurrectionist crowd and push them over to Bernier, the easier it will be to court the middle they need if they ever hope to win an election again. To the Liberals benefit, that will never happen and like the ridiculous Q Anon takeover of the Republican Party, the Cons are heading in the same direction. It will be interesting to watch Murphy Brown over the next while as she moves the party even further to the right. BC Waterboy
If Canadians are smart, waterboy, they will reduce the Conservatives to a western rump of a party. They are irredeemable.
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