Tory In Name Only

It’s a testament to the sad shape of the Ontario Conservatives that Tory was allowed to hang around and fail as often as he did. As a result we’ve been saddled with one of the worst premiers – a nadir amongst unprincipled Liberals - that this province has ever known. History will not judge McGuinty kindly, but in his defense will note that there was no one else worthy of our votes during his tenure. I don’t even know of anyone who can take over the Cons; they seem, like the province, gutted.

It wasn't just Tory who was defeated. The direction the entire 'Progressive'' Conservative Party has taken since Mike Harris was defeated.

It's a party without purpose.

I totally agree with Matt and irwin - what really annoys me is that we seem to have wasted a lot of time to regroup, re-evaluate, and redefine things after the last election. I still hear from my candidate that he didn't feel we had closure as a party since the last provincial election.

I think the Ont. PC party needs a fresh face. Someone younger and able to bring both the right and left of the Ont. PCs together better.

Who do we have in the wings besides Hudak?

Kate has it right with "Tory in name only". He swings further to the left than McGuinty for God's sake. But don't look to a re-incarnation of Mike Harris to save the day. Harris couldn't get elected dog catcher if he ran again. The Progessive Conservatives are done in Ontario, a decades old dynasty that Harris belligerently blew away. Though he's got the standard coterie of liberal whackjobs in his cabinet, McGuinty (who seems to have a Michael Jackson complex) runs the province more in the style of Robarts and Davis than Harris ever did, and that's why he's premier.

As a conservative who lives in Ontario, I have found nothing to inspire me in Mr. Tory. He might be a good man (they keep telling me this), but a conservative party leader needs to actually be conservative.

Further, he demonstrated devastating lack of judgment and complete inability to listen to the voices of his constituency in the October 2007 election.

So, glad he's gone. Maybe there is a conservative in Ontario who can lead the party and actually interest me in the Ontario PC party, though right now I see no one on the horizon. I think Ontario PCs need to reconnect with their inner conservative, or just move to the Liberal party if they can't.

The one who could pull it off, I think, is the current CPC MP for St Catharines, Rick McGinnis(? - last names escapes me for some reason). He presents well and sounds good, without coming off as a blowhard. But then fed CPC would have to come up with another member...

Poor Ontario . . . looks like the GM pension fund members believe that the Province is on the hook for tens of $billions in pension underfunding.

Goes back to Bob Rae days,

Gotta love the CAW - your pain is our payday.

Skp - Rick Dykstra is the MP for St. Catharines; I'm just an out-of-work journalist in Toronto, though I was born there. Of course, I can't see why Dykstra would give up being a sitting member of Parliament for the entirely thankless job of spending half his year campaigning as a conservative in Toronto. I'd think rat-catching would be a more attractive career option.

Kate has it right with "Tory in name only". He swings further to the left than McGuinty for God's sake. But don't look to a re-incarnation of Mike Harris to save the day. Harris couldn't get elected dog catcher if he ran again. The Progessive Conservatives are done in Ontario, a decades old dynasty that Harris belligerently blew away. Though he's got the standard coterie of liberal whackjobs in his cabinet, McGuinty (who seems to have a Michael Jackson complex) runs the province more in the style of Robarts and Davis than Harris ever did, and that's why he's premier.

Mike Harris was never defeated by a liberal outside of the OPC party.  The internal red tories wore him down.  They took over and the rest is history.

Remember that insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  The OPC party had better see a shrink this afternoon and look for areal ‘conservative’ in a hurry.

Clement or Baird, perhaps? If the provicnial Tories don't anything in reserve, maybe its time to recruit someone from the federal party.

Frank Klees looks like he'll probably take over. He's a conservative who believes in expanding private health care and education among other things. Decent looking bloke which is good for optics in the TV age of politics.

As for the comment about Mike Harris, he was a good premier. We needed someone to reduce the size of government in Ontario, especially after Bob Rae.

I heard Tim Hudak might be good as well.

This was not a conservative loss--it was a John Tory loss. I talked to locals. They were pissed off that he was indifferent to the riding. For example, instead of having lunch at the local favorite Kozy Korner diner, where he might actually meet locals, he dined at the Domain of Killien. This is an exclusive, European-style quiet retreat owned by a French count or something, who flies over his own chef. The price range is beyond the locals and you can't even make a reservation because guests have priority and the restaurant is small. This just typified John Tory's tin ear. He came off as an arrogant Toronto, Forest Hill bastard with no interest in local politics. He even showed up at one event in his Toronto Maple Leafs jacket. Sorry, John--no one up here can afford Maple Leaf tickets. The local team is more in their league. I spoke to long-time conservative voters who said they were going to vote against him.

I think Tory's downfall was that his personal appeal is somewhere on the level of dry toast. When he speaks, I find myself tuning out after about ten seconds. He just seems unable to connect with people on a personal level; it's not surprising to me that many people wouldn't vote against him, but couldn't motivate themselves to get up and vote for him. (Turnout, according to the papers, was less than 50%.)

After two years of huge defecits in Ontario, you can garauntee that people will be looking for a new common sense revolution. I mean the rats have already started to abandoned the McGuinty ship.

Sounds like he's going to resign at his 2:00 press conference.

Arso, Hunable Moe Stlong own ploperty in Kawathas

I did not vote for Tory in the leadership race. I thought he was a Forest Hill, Granite Club liberal with a yen for power. He was -not- going to be the guy to trim back government and taxes in this province, and his every pronouncement since then has proved me right. He's a pink underwear socialist who likes big government, big business, big deals and big paydays.

The OPC party leadership better pull their collective head out of their @ss if they want to get votes anywhere besides 416. Ontario does not exist as a tax base to feed Toronto's appetites.

Smaller government, less regulation, lower taxes. This is not a hard concept.

warning for those who do not go there, rat = Catsella

Glad to see the back of him. He turned evrything he touched into dust. Remember that he was kim Campbell's campaign manager.

The biggest loser without doubt is mcginty. It is very likely that the next pc leader (canwe drop the "p"?) will be much more conservative and thus be a real alternative to the LP.

The biggest winner is stephen harper as he will eventually have a real ally in Ontario and someone to take the fight to dalton on a daily basis -talk about a target-rich environment!!

Righhtoid rightard conbats still don't get it. Witness the fact that they think Rand's John Galt was/is a conservative.

Conservatism has no place in our socio-political global economic society. PMSH did not win the election...Lieberals lost it!

Dykstra, that's it. And yes I agree, leaving the CPC might be a fool's game. Still - if its played right and he gets elected, he'll be in for a long time.

LOL! That just kicked in, Rick. Well, hey, maybe you can be the member from St. Catharines... !!!

Im starting to picture NA with a nice new country stretched up the middle from the gulf coast to the arctic coast. coloured purple on the map with remnents of pink bits each side of it in the north and red bits on either side of it south.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

not stirred at, we understand your argument... such as it is. We hear this argument all over the place on TV, radio, movies, papers, everywhere.

We just don't agree.

And John Tory just got both barrels of that non-agreement between the eyes. The next guy will too, unless he starts in doing what -we- want. Less regulation, less taxes, smaller government.

Skip...you have expressed your disdain for Harris before, I recall based on the amalgamation issue..?
Glad Bill Maclean corrected you on the history. Harris was the best thing that happenned to Ontario. He took Rae's mess and turned the ship with hard working tax payers in mind. Perhaps that is why we see PMSH turning the Federal ship slowly, instead of at the pace that Harris took.Beaurocracy and Red Tories ruined the party for Harris.Sad to admit I was one of 13 people who were bused in (what a party) to nominate Eves for the PC candidate in Parry Sound in the early 80's. He won that night by 13 votes.

Yesterday's vote is very revealing about 'conservative' voters. In Iggy's riding, he could parachute in knowing Lib voters will put the X in the Lib box without a second thought.
Scott won by 10,000 votes in 2007.What happenned to those votes? The electorate did not mindlessly vote...they voted for the candidate that would represent them. They voted against 'parachuting'.And conservative voters would not vote for a 'Tory in name only' candidate.
Kinsella is spinninig this as usual...just proof that Libs are out of touch with the voters.
From one of the comments at Blue Like You:

"Actually, Tory’s loss is very much to Harper’s advantage, because there is no way that the Ont. PC ground support and members will settle another Tory Lite."
Kinsella would never be able to get his litte R&R head around that truth.

Kate, take a look at 'CLIMBING OUT OF THE MOUNTAIN' the subject TAMIL-LTTE-TIGERS is back on focus read her article. where is the MSM for canadians not terrorists supporters to speak out for canadians. WHERE ARE THEY, KATE.

Kate, take a look at 'CLIMBING OUT OF THE MOUNTAIN' the subject TAMIL-LTTE-TIGERS is back on focus read her article. where is the MSM for canadians not terrorists supporters to speak out for canadians. WHERE ARE THEY, KATE.

Jen... I think you meant this blog:

Let's use readers tips next time.

http://climbingoutofthedark.blogspot.com/

John Tory: Too much progressive, not enough conservative

Bluetech:

"Yesterday's vote is very revealing about 'conservative' voters. In Iggy's riding, he could parachute in knowing Lib voters will put the X in the Lib box without a second thought."

Quite right. Lib is the default option for people that would rather be led than think. That lets Lib leaders parachute wherever somebody feels like retiring to the Senate, the bench, or some quasi-judicial sinecure.

I think it's very telling that Tory managed to lose with blue signs in one of the most conservative ridings in the province (Leslie Frost's old home town, ferrevin's sakes). There's a certain perverse genius at work if you can do that. As Reid at Right from Alberta points out, the conservative voters simply stayed home; and as Bluetech points out, that's largely because they still believe in making political choices.

Even if OPC get a Harris look-alike, the red tories will tear him down the same way. The job is to get rid of the reds and replace the whole bunch with real conservatives. Likelihood of that happening 0.0%. Hello socialism, for my lifetime at least.

Thanks, Skip, but I don't believe in parachuting candidates, and I don't think the party should either. I'm marooned here in downtown Toronto, doomed to live in ridings where nonexistent threats (global warming) are considered more immediately threatening than real ones (overtaxing, manufacturing decline, immiserating health care bureaucracy.) Hell, I didn't even dare put up a sign in the last few elections because my wife was worried that it'd drive business away from the coffee shop downstairs, or get us a rock through our window.

Good luck to whoever gets Tory's job, but I don't imagine a sudden veer to the right, not in this province, not even right now.

As we are made aware on a daily basis the economy is in free fall and the future looks pretty dismal. I think a guy like Harris would be a perfect fit today as more people are frightened of their economic wellbeing and want someone take control of Ontario's financial mess. Anybody with any sense will support a steady, solid leader like Harper in tough times. Even long term liberals are seeing this is not a time to continue to piss away money on stupid utopia ideas like carbon trading.

Harris quickly brought Ontario out of the Rae disaster because the American economy was strong after 1992. Because there was money around the red Tories like Eves could undermine Harris' common sense platform. Today it is a vastly different world.

Well at last, I hope Mr. Tory finally makes a corect political decision, and resigns post haste!I supported (and still do) Mike Harris and reluctantly E. Eves, (altho I voted for another leadership contender), I stopped working for the party in elections and contributing, explaining that I wanted a Conservative not a Progressive.
I shall await the leadership contest outcome to see if I return, or perhaps sooner if some contender piques my interest.

As a longstanding member of the Ontario PC's, may I add the following observation.

GOOD RIDDANCE TO THE LATTE SIPPING, WANNABE CONSERVATIVE, FAMILY COMPACT ARSE KISSING ROBBER BARON !

And, might I add, just in time so that we can prepare for the next election.

By that time, chimpy mcf#$%face will have run this province completely into the ground, and even the centrist liberal voters in Toronto will be looking for change.

Just remember this one factoid, outside of Toronto, Ottawa and maybe Windsor, Ontario is a centrist, right of centre kind of province.

It is up to us true FISCAL conservatives to make sure we do it right next time.

Yesterday I mentioned that Stelco (US Steel) is being shut due to reduced demand. That means 1500 of the highest paying jobs in Hamilton just got vanished.

The thing about John Tory that irritates me is his views on Stelco closely paralleled those of Dalton The Sly. Those being "Hamilton? Where's that again?" If it ain't in Toronto it doesn't exist.

We can't afford that. We can't afford to keep making it impossible for anybody who isn't a megabuck multi-national to do business and make stuff here. We can't keep hoping the Big Three will make a come back.

John Tory is about doing more of what is already not working, with blue lawn signs instead of red ones. He deserved this defeat, and the next guy in the chute better DAMN well be paying attention.

There is only one candidate who can bring the Ontario PC Party together: Randy Hillier.

http://www.draftrandy.com

"Just remember this one factoid, outside of Toronto, Ottawa and maybe Windsor, Ontario is a centrist, right of centre kind of province."
Don't forget N. Ontario. So we are doomed! That's all it takes to elect a government.

The next PC conservative leader to replace John Tory should not waste time in exposing Dalton MC GUINTY and the un-necessary high taxes he Dalton brought in and so on.

Time for the George Hamilton of ontario politics to step in ...
Vote Frank Klees!
Publicly subsidised private tanning booths for everyone.

Finally an opportunity for the Ontario PCs to under go a requisite catharsis and reform as a germane political entity that will reverberate with weary voters looking for a viable alternative to the McChimpy banana republicans.

Come on! Why is this being talked about? Without his teleprompter this guy is useless - he's a zero! Think back to any prepared speech "Zero" has given. He's great reading the teleprompter! Wow - how impressive!

Now - lets do a Q & A. Uhhhh - Ahhhhh - Ummmm. Just think back to the news conference with Pres O (as in Zero) and PMSH. The difference was startling. SH outshone this upstart to the extreme. The guy reads a great speech but beyond that he is pathetic.

Fact is - he hasn't operated a hotdog stand and it really shows. America will rue - no - make that - is rueing the day they voted this guy in as President.

If only the PC listened to the voter base for the past year.