Since his election as Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada Erin O'Toole has been attempting to pass himself off as a moderate while hoping everybody will ignore the fact that social conservatives, the most militant anti-gun control groups and climate change deniers were crucial to his victory.
The simple fact is he does owe them and they will eventually come to collect their debts, or at least they will try.
I am reminded of Stephen Harper. He was in a very similar situation. He won the leadership of the Conservative Party by courting some of the more extreme elements of the conservative movement in this country and many believed that it would prevent him from ever winning an election.
Of course, he did win elections and part of the reason why was he lead the Conservative Party instead of letting the different elements lead him. He threw the thinnest of bones to the special interest groups that elected him as leader and did what needed to be done to appeal to more moderate voters in Central Canada in order to win.
The question is will Mr. O'Toole do the same thing?
Mr. O'Toole's challenge is much more daunting. Mr. Harper won the leadership of the Conservatives before social media really took off so he could control the message within the Party and clamp down on dissidents. As well, he came to power just as the last big energy boom in Alberta and Saskatchewan was just ramping up. They were happy so they had no problem looking the other way when Mr. Harper started courting voters in Central Canada. Finally, in the first decade of the millennium the social conservatives were not nearly as organized as they are now within the Conservative Party.
To overcome these challenges Mr. O'Toole is going to have to lead. That means he is going to have to take risks. The Conservatives cannot win without Central Canadian voters and that means they are going to have to move to the centre on a whole host of issues in order to attract those voters. They will have to temper their social conservative urges and they will have to develop a viable and credible plan to tackle climate change. Calling for the elimination of the Carbon Tax without expressing a credible alternative is a non-starter. The Carbon Tax is only a big deal in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Calling for its elimination is not a vote winner in other parts of the country.
Of course, that runs the grave risk of upsetting the Conservative base. If energy prices were high then the Conservatives could probably take the risk without too many problems but since the collapse of energy prices a Western Separatist sentiment has risen in Alberta and Saskatchewan and political parties with the goal of trying to make that happen are being formed. It is an open question of whether they will have any real impact but their presence does make Mr. O'Toole's job much harder, as many Albertans will not react well to any real action on climate change, and may decide to express that dissatisfaction by voting for Wexit candidates, while central Canadians would not react well to a non-credible plan on tackling it.
The same goes for the PPC, which could attract disillusioned social conservatives although I believe social conservatives will be keeping a close eye on Mr. O'Toole. If he goes too far off message they will flex their muscle on social media potentially putting Mr. O'Toole in a very tough spot. How Mr. O'Toole reacts to that will be telling.
The simple fact is Mr. O'Toole is actually going to have to lead. That means making tough choices and taking risks. If he is unable or unwilling to do that then no amount of image polishing will lead to electoral success.
2 comments:
About social media though, he has Ballingall the professional troll-farmer in his employ, plus there is a bizarre disconnect between the "face" reflected on social media and that in the MSM. Most people are not on Twitter and of the press types who are, none of them bother to sound the alarm bells for the harsh and extreme rhetoric that the likes of Post Millennial and Canada Proud are spewing out and riling people up. They're gaslighting because they want a particular outcome.
It should be frontpage news that the opposition leader seeking to be PM is every bit the same divisive sh!tposter behind the scenes and so are the people who put him there, but instead the MSM is fixated on manufactured Trudeau "scandals" (like Hillary's emails) and even polishing the image of the so-cons themselves. Hopefully when the actual campaign gets into full swing, the real face of this ugly party and its duplicitous bald figurehead gets exposed, because I seem to recall the MSM doing much the same thing last time around, running interference for Scheer until the actual writ drop. It's day 5 and Sloan can't keep his mouth shut on Twitter. So I would expect the Liberals to go hard on that front. They're one to talk about glass houses, more like people should judge O'Toole by the deplorable company he keeps.
I note the lack of reaction from the new leader after the two bozo eruptions from Mr. Sloan and Ms. Lynne Findlay this weekend and so far he has shown that he is going to be a follower instead of a leader. It is only his first week on the job so maybe he will grow into a leader but he better do it soon. The longer he waits the harder it will be to finally exert his authority as leader.
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