Friday, March 09, 2018

Nothing runs like a Ford except an Elliott

Tons of politicos from all different colours and parties have been asking me what are my thoughts on the provincial Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leadership race for 2018, with a vote is not even a pure one member one vote styled, rather equally weighted by a 100 point electoral district riding across 124 electoral district ridings in order to win the leadership race, this makes the vote into more of an electoral college vote rather than a popular vote from a one man one vote result. Where an electoral district riding has less than 100 members, a single vote there is worth one electoral vote, where there is more than 100 members, an electoral vote there is worth a percentage of votes overall, which might actually mess up the value of the numbers given at the bottom, most likely between 2-5% plus minus give or take. Not sure if Patrick Brown will be on or off the ballot, as he was supposed to be left on being take out after the deadline, a fifth name of which none remaining on it would likely wish it to stay, we shall have to assume it will still be only four on the ballot being Tanya Granic Allen, Christine Elliott, Doug Ford, and Caroline Mulroney Lapham, all of whom found their way down there at the Markham Hilton Hotel and Convention Centre in Markham.

Three major factors become obviously in play throughout the affair, first whether the provincial party could run away from the shadow of their former leader and Opposition Leader Patrick Brown or mimick his successful balance act that held up only months before the election. Second, was the new ideology going to remain that was devoid of any kind of conservatism via Elliot or Mulroney, or would fiscal and social conservatism along with democratic reform and civil libertarian ideals mix into a populist altright message against political correctness via Ford or Granic Allen. Third, were those major campaign issues with created splits and crisis such as carbon tax pricing, sex ed curriculum, and the cleaning of internal party chaos, collusion, and corruption which created temporary voting blocs for those single issue voters, which artificially increased and decreased the numbers for certain teams in the race, though at the end of the day, nothing runs like a Ford except an Elliott.

Those other 4 remaining leadership candidates outside Brown who I list in order lowest to highest to be in the first round were 
hard right socon Tanya Granic Allen fourth at 12%, soft right redtor Caroline Mulroney Lapham third at 13%, hard right fiscon Doug Ford second at 36%, and soft right redtor Christine Elliott first at 39% on the first ballot with the first of two possible kingmakers in Granic Allen dropped off for a second ballot, next round leaves Mulroney Lapham third at 13% with no gain being the absolute ideologic opposite of Granic Allen, Elliott second at 39% increasing slightly as the more sellable choice, and Ford first at 48% on the first ballot increasing massively as the candidate for change, finally Ford second at 48% is overtaken by Elliott first at 52% on the third ballot in the race to replace Brown his big bad Peoples Guarantee platform. But does it all really matter, the Ontario Tories still rot to its very marrow of the bone is dying if not dead, have now publicly shown themselves to be what everyone in the know always knew it to be, the party of corruption protected by lawyers and lobbyists all lined up to take their lick from the porkbarrelled gravy train. With little to no difference between any of the Big Three parties at Queens Park, one looks to cleaner and clearer provinces like Saskatchewan, unlike even the dirty Tory politics Jason Kenney has participated next door over in Alberta, real principled leadership from the likes of Elwin Hermanson, Brad Wall, and right now Scott Moe have shown us that burning down parties of corruption like the Progressive Conservatives to rebuild more righteous parties for people might be the right way to go in the end!