What's That Smell? Is It Fear?



Reliably rightwing newspaper columnists seem rattled by the ouster of former Conservative leader, Erin O'Toole. They're suddenly worried about the extremists in the Tory ranks, perhaps fearing some sort of Tea Party takeover akin to political ebola.

The latest is NatPo's Kelly McParland.

O’Toole’s margin of defeat — 73 of 118 caucus members voted against him — doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual number of Conservative MPs who would have been content to keep him on. What it does indicate is that the guerrilla war against him was so effective that even those who supported him realized he couldn’t survive. If there’s going to be a lynching, better to get it over with and move on.

His opponents succeeded by undermining him at every opportunity — questioning his decisions, defying his instructions, challenging his authority. A more domineering figure might have banished them all and dealt with the consequences, but that’s evidently not what O’Toole was about. If anything, he proved too open to accommodation for his own good. When challengers got away with it, they were emboldened. And they got away with it because of too much uncertainty within the party over what it believes and what it stands for.

...Reform failed because it couldn’t win seats in Ontario or the eastern provinces. The Canadian Alliance did no better. Harper succeeded by managing to contain the hardliners at a time when the Liberals were in ruins and much of their vote had shifted temporarily to New Democrats. For all the endless Liberal accusations, the Conservatives have never won an election on the sort of hard-nosed social conservative platform that the fiercest of O’Toole’s critics advocate.

If social conservatism was an electoral winner, former leader Andrew Scheer wouldn’t have put so much effort into trying to disguise his. O’Toole’s biggest mistake was seeking the leadership by pandering to the right, then quickly trying to decamp to the middle. But he did it because he clearly didn’t believe the alternative had a snowball’s chance of carrying the country.

McParland figures the moldy remnants of conservatism past might as well just roll the dice and give the job to Pierre Poilievre.  Then again, he wrote that before Pete appeared on CBC to denounce the truckers, the same guys he so warming greeted just last Saturday.  Anything is better than  mass suicide.

Comments

  1. rumleyfipsFebruary 4, 2022 at 11:16 AM

    Mirrors all around. Reformatory hacks at the Groat and Flail, Last Post, Sun etc. have been cheerleaders for Mulrooney, Harper, Sheer, Otoole 's anti Canadian nonsense for years. Now that they have bitten themselves in the ass they have second thoughts. Please ; be careful what you wish for.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibFebruary 4, 2022 at 12:05 PM

      They do seem to be soiling their dainties, Rumley. What they fear isn't extremism but another fracturing of the right delivering carte blanche to the Liberals for another decade or more. MacKay sold out the PCs but the two camps never got beyond their differences and, for that, we should be grateful.

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