Mr. Kenney goes to Calgary

Jason Kenney has decided to leave Federal politics to attempt to win the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party and to unite the right in that province.  What can I say but "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Much has been said about his chances of success and most of it has been of the nature that he has a very tough mountain to climb.  I could say more but that just about sums it up so I will not add anything.

What I will mention is that many media commentators have taken this to mean that really serious Conservatives believe that the Liberals cannot be beat in 2019.  My only comment about that assertion is it was true before Mr. Kenney decided to jump into Alberta provincial politics.

I have written in this space before that the next Conservative Prime Minister of Canada is not on anybody's radar right now.  All of the current crop of hopefuls for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada are trying for the job of placeholder and nothing more.  None of them or any others that might throw their hat into the ring have much of a chance of becoming PM in 2019.

It is a simple fact that after a long serving government loses power it is destined to wander the political wilderness for at least two election cycles.  There have been exceptions but they are very rare.  Liberals, including me, forgot about this fact in 2006 and their belief that the first minority Harper government was just going to be a short recess between Liberal governments was a great contributor to the profound downturn in their political fortunes in the next ten years.

Many people in Conservative circles seemed to believe the same thing about the current situation and it took the departure of Mr. Kenney to begin making them think otherwise.  I guess that should not surprise me but it does.  

Barring something really big derailing the Liberal machine they are probably a shoe in to winning the 2019 election.  Conservatives had better accept that.  Then again, if they want to do what the Liberals did after the 2006 election and miserably fail to do what was necessary to renew the party until after a crushing electoral defeat then I would have no problems with that.  It would only guarantee a Liberal win in 2019.