02.21.2022 08:53 PM

Unpublished Ottawa: whither thou goest, Tories, in your 1958 Edsel?

14 Comments

  1. PJH says:

    The 1958 Edsel….”the wrong car at the wrong time”….

    Your analogy is very fitting……

    I see no champion for the moderates in the party….we are indeed “hooped”……

  2. Ted says:

    There are intense Canadian things that some people will never get, like the first Teenage Head album, or Jacques Villeneuve racing at the back of the Daytona 500 for shits and giggles. Or cops leaving their cities and families to do a slow barrage to restore peaceorderandgoodgovernment without serious incident. But most of us do understand, the land is stronger than you think. And as much as we criticize JT he’s the one who cleaned up the mess.

    • western view says:

      Cleaned up the mess? Hmmm. I think a coordinated police effort cleared the streets, c/w the suspension of basic rights such as freezing assets without a court order.

      The Prime Minister lit, stoked and fanned the embers. It’s a disgraceful abdication of leadership and responsible government. Othering Canadians who don’t share his worldview exposes Trudeau as a dangerous demagog.

  3. The draft Charest letter is pretty small pickings IMHO. No offense to any of the signatories but I don’t see any Harper government cabinet ministers signing on. Interesting.

    Like I said before, Charest’s people are out in LaLaLand. They know from 2019 that the CPC is not the PCP and that at least 70% of the membership are former Alliance-Reform.

    In any event, the fix is already in to block Charest and that creates an opening for my candidate — Peter MacKay as a good centrist and moderate Blue Tory compromise between Charest and Poilièvre. Boy, do I hope Peter runs. Coming up the middle would be great.

  4. Sean says:

    1. Charest was obviously the best choice in 2017. Charest was again obviously the best choice in 2020. For the third time in a row, he is obviously the best choice.

    2. Harper had his time. He needs to STFU already and allow the party to grow naturally. His foolish interference smacks of a cranky bitter old man whose lost it… it is tarnishing his well earned legacy as a talented party builder. If the Conservative Party is going to ever establish itself as the true legacy Party of the P.C.s, it desperately needs a leader who is firmly from the P.C. side…. NOW. Otherwise, central Canadians / blue Liberals / Red Tories will never see CPC as being anything more than the Reform Party.

    3. I’d like to see MacKay run if only to support Charest after being knocked out.

    4. If the party is to grow and be taken seriously, it needs to be more than 90’s style peddling of myopic prairie grievances that central Canada will never take seriously. Middle aged, middle income, middle of the road Canadians already know exactly who Charest is. That is the sweet spot Tories need to win. The comfort level is well established.

    5. Tories are pretty thin on candidates who have already established solid political leadership skills. Charest has led. He’s won. He has served in – and has chosen cabinets. He’s done all the BIG BOY stuff in politics that only the most talented ever get to do. Tories need to embrace that credibility… or carry on as you were… doing nothing but fundraising for fake protests and lost causes.

    • Sean,

      Charest has three “problems” that he can’t control:

      1. The electoral legacy at the federal level of only Charest and the late Elsie Wayne;

      2. Bibeau’s “failure” in the SCOC;

      3. UPAC in Quebec and what they may or may not be up to. Anglade spoke out and Quebec yawned.

      • Sean says:

        Well, maybe so… But no politician can control all of their problems and those are *pretty pretty small problems*….. when Tories knock on doors in the next election, Joe and Jane Front Porch will say:

        a) I remember Jean Charest and I know who he is
        b) Nice to see that the Tories elected someone who isn’t crazy this time.

        That is 10-20% of the middle of the vote in Ontario swing ridings and that is exactly what Tories will need. Average voters rarely give any attention to politics beyond that.

  5. And then comes a fair question: is Mtre. Jean Charest now, or has he ever been a card-carrying CPC member?

  6. Well, Charest’s piece on Ukraine in The NP is one fine effort of telegraphing. Translation: he’s running for sure. I hope my candidate, MacKay gets in right after Charest. That will project an incredible level of personal confidence and a resolute determination to win. If Peter declares before Charest, it would project the exact opposite with an obvious air of panic and desperation.

  7. Now to Charest’s argument: it’s fine that we shouldn’t automatically be in lockstep with the Americans but is that it?

    It’s all good and well to talk about expanding economic sanctions and using our internal institutions to blunt the efforts of Russian oligarchs, politicians and even Putin himself. Ditto for using our natural resources to come to the aid of our allies.

    But sorry, it just doesn’t cut the mustard: Ukraine’s democracy and rule of law is in dire peril. And, the only way to prevent that is for all or at least part of NATO to get in militarily and to do it now.

    So, Charest is great at written soundbites and good feeling boilerplate but this piece is hardly thinking out of the box. Hope he can do much better than this next time. This ain’t the text of true leadership.

  8. Warren,

    The dynamic for the leadership race will be, at minimum, Anyone But Poilièvre vs. Anybody But Charest. Personally, I think Harper will take the high road and stay neutral.

  9. How precious. Charest will be holding court in Ottawa for the elected peasants. One wonders if any of them will ask to kiss his ring?

  10. Well, for a guy who isn’t yet running, Charest’s Quebec MPs are already busy polling the membership: who will you vote for they ask? Poilièvre, Charest, Kheiriddin, Brown or Lewis?

    Interesting.

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