02.15.2017 10:11 AM

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27 Comments

  1. Cath says:

    The answer is “yes”. Totally electable in Canada.

  2. Darren H says:

    CPC can win the next election but only with Rona. She has been eating Trudeau’s lunch during Question Period, especially when they serve up softballs like considering taxing health and dental benefits. Let’s them build a narrative of financial mismanagement by pointing at huge deficits and seemingly panicky tax schemes.

  3. Tiger says:

    Re Max, I welcome expectations being set low. He’s great, he’ll surpass any, but it never hurts to be underestimated.

    Re O’Leary, well, if people want him, that’s their affair. They can work on selling him.

  4. Mark says:

    Bernier is at least consistent with his personal values despite some of his platform (supply management) going over like a lead balloon in Quebec. I know that Canadians could probably count on him to practice what he preaches, unlike most of them. As for O’Leary, he won’t go down well with the anti-CBC folks in the Conservative Party, and others for various reasons.

  5. Miles Lunn says:

    While you can never say never and we do live in unconventional times meaning someone who was previously seen as unelectable could be, nonetheless it seems the Conservatives have a quandary they are in. Those who are most popular amongst the base are the least electable (Bernier, O’Leary, Leitch, Trost, Scheer), while those who the base hates the most are the most electable (Chong first followed by Raitt and O’Toole). Michael Chong is probably the least liked amongst the base yet he is probably the most electable in a general election. Canada is a fairly centrist country meaning we tend to like leaders who are close to the middle. That being said maybe whomever wins will be like Patrick Brown, run to the right to win the leadership, but then pivot to the centre after winning. The only danger there is you can bet the Liberals will call them out on it and unlike Brown who is dealing with a premier who has sub 20% approval rating, Trudeau’s approval ratings are unlikely to fall below 30% and most likely will be over 40% come next election meaning the Tories cannot rely on Trudeau to defeat himself, at least not in 2019. In the subsequent election that is a whole different story.

  6. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    Well, if the voters wouldn’t stomach Dion because of his English, are they any more enlightened now as regards Bernier? Have got my doubts.

    As for O’Leary, he still hasn’t mastered political crawling. Need I say any more?…

  7. Deb Lindenas says:

    Why do Conservatives believe they are the fiscally successful party when actual spread sheets of REAL numbers and information always (for decades) shows the opposite? Asking for a friend. 🙂

    • Ted H says:

      Very true, Canadian economy is historically better with Liberals, American economy historically better with Democrats. Not sure how conservatives have appropriated a reputation for fiscal probity. I guess it’s as the bumper sticker says “There are two kinds of Republicans (and Conservatives) millionaires and suckers”.

      • pat says:

        shocks me too. How do conservatives who regularly tank economies, and leave behind a big honking mess maintain this reputation for fiscal prudence? – must be media bias –

  8. Charlie says:

    Remember Maxime Bernier? The guy who left sensitive government documents at his hooker-girlfriend’s place — who also happened to be sleeping around with guys in the Hells Angels. He was then subsequently removed from his Ministerial role by Stephen Harper because he couldn’t trust Bernier to keep confidential shit, well, confidential.

    Yeah, that Maxime Bernier. Now he wants to be the leader of the CPC and eventually the PM of Canada. He’s managed to raise a lot of money from a broad section of Conservatives and is considered a front runner.

    There’s also this bald guy from Boston who’s on American television, who can’t speak a lick of french, doesn’t want to waste his time running for a seat in Canadian Parliament and is promising a majority mandate in 2019. I hear this guy wants to be leader of the CPC as well and is broadly seen as being the dark horse in the race.

    If these are the guys that Conservatives think are “electable” in Canada, then I’d say the party is definitely living up to the standard set by their previous leader…

    • Ted H says:

      I have to agree with Charlie, no one can deny that there are definitely more clowns on the Right on both sides of the 49th parallel. Don’t know why, there have been some admirable conservatives in the past, but not now, all that are left are those cowardly pathetic little men and they aren’t progressives. Hypocrisy is owned by the Right, witness all the “Christians” who supported Trump and the Russian loving traitors who harped about the total non-issue of Hillary’s emails. Sorry, the normal people are Centrist or Centre Left these days.

  9. Greyapple says:

    A unilingual Anglo like O’Leary has no shot as a national leader, but as for Bernier…..well, Jean Chretien and Stephane Dion both struggled with their English and did reasonably well in federal politics, wouldn’t you agree? (And that’s not an endorsement)

    • Matt says:

      To be clear, I don’t want O’Leary as CPC leader, but what makes you thing he has no shot if he can’t speak French? The place it would matter most is Quebec.

      And Harper won his majority without Quebec which we had been told by pundits for decades was impossible.

  10. Sub-Boreal says:

    Trudeau needs the Cons to elect the scariest possible leader – so he can win back the gullible “strategic voters” who might be drifting back to the NDP. Unlike the pre-Harper PCs, the Cons are increasingly the home for the kinds of extremism that the Republicans have provided for a couple of decades. So the best hope for the federal Libs is to use this threat to suppress any NDP revival and establish a national party configuration more like the stable duopoly of the U.S. Which has worked really well at permanently keeping the crazies out of office.

    • Matt says:

      Home for extremism?

      Like what? Leitch’s values screening test?

      Sorry to burst your bubble but 66% of Canadians polled agreed with it, including majorities of both Liberal (57%) and NDP (59%) identified supporters.

  11. G. Bracebridge says:

    What if Kevin O’Leary wins the CPC leadership and then invites Maxime Bernier to be his Quebec lieutenant and share the party leadership to promote their like-minded economic vision for Canada?
    A ‘baldy’ and ‘sexy’ duo who are both ‘libertarians’ and CINOs (Conservative In Name Only)!

  12. Cath says:

    One very major missed point is that the MSM wants a O’Leary, Trudeau match-up. So far our MSM is doing to O’Leary exactly what they did to Trump to get a result they didn’t expect.

    So far it’s a media-whipped contest. Will they win out or will the CPC members?

  13. Jack says:

    Conservatives are currently putting up a fight against a non-binding, mostly symbolic motion that would basically condemn Islamophobia and religious discrimination altogether.

    They laughed down the Minister of Municipalities in the House today when he brought up his own past as a bus driver while the he was attempting to pay respects to the slain Winnipeg bus driver.

    Add that to the campaign of Kellie Leitch, the incoherent campaign of Steve Blaney and growing influence of fringe voices in the Conservative party, it is not the “electability” of Max or Kevin I’d be concerned with if I were a member of this party, but the electability of Conservatives in general.

  14. pat says:

    Chretien would wipe the floor with any of these people. His English was fine, and it was his second language. He’d make a fool of this crowd, and would have done the same to Harper had he not retired.

  15. SC says:

    Only Chong and O’Leary can win over some of the centrists, the millennials and the visible minorities back. Bernier has a few good ideas but in danger of by shrill right-wing voices. O’Leary is the best of the leading pack, but a very high-risk proposition.
    If I was a conservative (I am a centrist small-l lib who likes red tories too), I’d choose a safe placeholder like Raitt or O’Toole and basically “sit out” the 2019 election. Rona ambrose (or James Moore or John Baird) could come back for the big fight in 2023.

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