It is fascinating studying the 14 aspirants in the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. It is also hard to believe. Just where would any of these people lead the party? There is certainly no John George Diefenbaker in this baker’s dozen.
Yes, a baker’s dozen is really 12 plus one but it appears this race has a backfield of 12 and two that are at some point going to be left broken and bleeding on the stage because the others are fed up with them.
Whether Kellie Leitch or Kevin O’Leary survive is in the hands of the 12-person jury of their peers. The very fact that Leitch and O’Leary are the two best known candidates is not only frightening but why either of them thinks they can win is confusing. O’Leary lives in Boston, Massachusetts, does not speak French, knows nothing about the job of leader, has never been elected to anything and has nothing to contribute. And he can hardly use bigotry al a Trump because Leitch got there first.
Leitch is pathetic in her attempts to fuse the Trump bigotry with her big-eyed, little girl pose. As someone who has taught public speaking, it was painful to watch as much as we did of her recent and obviously heavily edited video trying to explain her “Canadian values” pitch to Conservatives. She even goes back to the Mike Harris “Common Sense Solution” in reaching for code words that appeal to the right-wing of her party.
Kellie Leitch’s only asset is that she is a sitting Member of Parliament. Her electoral district is in that swath of ridings across central Ontario where they have periodically tried to put a bounty on Liberals. She might be a frontrunner but will not grow much in the ballot counting.
What Leitch and O’Leary will have a hard time overcoming is the voting system the Conservatives will be using in May to determine their next leader. Each electoral district across Canada will be equal and the voters can indicate their second, third, fourth votes and so on. As nobody is the least bit likely to have 50 per cent plus one on the first few ballots, it really will be an election where the losers are the choosers.
But that will not prevent us to from producing a morning line for the punters who want to see the odds on the race before placing a bet. The good news-bad news is that there are lots of longshots for the gamblers.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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