Conservative Party of Canada Leadership Race Megathread-May 27th 2017

[DC Al Fine]

Dias is a Leitch donor.

Leitch being the Trump candidate confirmed.

I imagine this might move some votes. Kind of like if an NDP candidate was found to be taking money from Campaign Life Coalition.

[Vega]

Why do Canucks take so long to choose a new opposition leader? Certainly you guys could have picked a new leader the next day/within a few months at most.

Parties will select a capable interim leader to run things for a while. The idea is that a good leader is best found by a fairly lengthy pre-campaign and campaign.

[RogueBeaver]

Raitt will announce tomorrow.

[136or142]

Raitt will announce tomorrow.

I don't even know what I did, but it seems Don Martin blocked me from his twitter.  It seems that many of the most snarky, sarcastic journalists are also the most sensitive to being criticized/insulted themselves.  One thing I can't stand is losers who like to dish it out but can't take it themselves.

I would also add less snarky or sarcastic journalists but those who write cynically like Mike (dick of the century) Smyth, Kelly McParland, Tristin Hopper and John Ivison also are very quick to block people who criticize/insult them.

Finally, the generally very serious journalist Paul Wells is said to have the quickest blocker finger in Canada.

The snarky and sarcastic journalist Colby Cosh doesn't block anybody, but seems to like being criticized/insulted so that he can return fire in kind.  I can respect that, but unfortunately Cosh doesn't seem capable of writing pieces that require major research and is only capable of being snarky and sarcastic.

I should point out that since the defeat of the Conservatives in 2015 Tristin Hopper has actually transformed from being a National Post Conservative Party partisan hack into being a solid and credible journalist.  I'm actually a little sorry that I can't follow his twitter comments.

On the other side, Jen Gerson is on my most favored list as is Andrew Coyne.

[RogueBeaver]

Raitt will announce tomorrow.

I don't even know what I did, but it seems Don Martin blocked me from his twitter.  It seems that many of the most snarky, sarcastic journalists are also the most sensitive to being criticized/insulted themselves.  One thing I can't stand is losers who like to dish it out but can't take it themselves.

Welcome to the club: Delacourt blocked me years ago even though I never interacted with her.

[136or142]

Raitt will announce tomorrow.

I don't even know what I did, but it seems Don Martin blocked me from his twitter.  It seems that many of the most snarky, sarcastic journalists are also the most sensitive to being criticized/insulted themselves.  One thing I can't stand is losers who like to dish it out but can't take it themselves.

Welcome to the club: Delacourt blocked me years ago even though I never interacted with her.

I think I follow her, never interact with her though.

[RogueBeaver]

Blaney trying to Trump Leitch with a taxpayer-funded nativist witch hunt.

[136or142]

Lisa RaittVerified account
‏@lraitt
Join us for our full announcement tomorrow at 10AM ET. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puzvf9oDzNY … http://www.lisa2019.ca/

https://twitter.com/lraitt/status/793906365639061504

[136or142]

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/11/04/dan-lindsay-andrew-saxton-make-tory-leadership-debate-cut-off

12 candidates have registered and will be at the debate.
M.Ps
1.Deepak Obhrai
2.Andrew Saxton
3.Brad Trost
4.Erin O'Toole
5.Kellie Leitch
6.Lisa Raitt
7.Michael Chong
8.Steven Blaney
9.Maxime Bernier

Former M.Ps
1.Andrew Saxton
2.Chris Alexander

Other
1.Dan Lindsay

[Poirot]

A Mainstreet poll done just before the first leadership debate. Candidates who have declared late are not doing well in the poll compared to those who have campaigned for some time. Answers are from Conservative supporters not members but still better than general population.

Leitch 19%
Scheer 14%
Chong 12%
O'Toole and Bernier 11%

http://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/canadas-donald-trump-leads-conservative-leadership-race/

Top three favourable opinion:
Scheer 34%
Leitch 31%
Chong and O'Toole 26%


Top three unfavourable opinion:
Bernier 29%
Leitch 22%
Trost 17%

[2952-0-0]

I remember when Kellie Leitch was asked flat out whether her ideology test would prohibit Roman Catholics and orthodox Jews, she stuttered like a deer in the headlights. That's the biggest weakness that her opponents should exploit.

[DC Al Fine]

I remember when Kellie Leitch was asked flat out whether her ideology test would prohibit Roman Catholics and orthodox Jews, she stuttered like a deer in the headlights. That's the biggest weakness that her opponents should exploit.

That's why I'm not voting for her.

Pretty sure some of my opinions would fail a Canadian values test.

[Hatman 🍁]

Oh wonderful, Leitch is winning. Hopefully she has a ceiling below 50%.

[DL]

Oh wonderful, Leitch is winning. Hopefully she has a ceiling below 50%.

I hope you're being sarcastic.

1. The people who will elect the next CPC leader will be card carrying Conservative Party members with each riding given equal weight. A poll of the general public is really just a measure of who has been in the news. If gen pop polling months before a membership vote was at all predictive of who would win party leadership contests then the current leader of the Ontario Liberals would be Gerard Kennedy and the current leader of the Ontario PCs would be Christine Elliott.

2.  If we were to take the polling at face value - it really just points to a cluster with 4 or 5 candidates polling in the teens...but bear in mind that Maxime Bernier is in the mid-teens and I suspect that about 0% of his supporters would rank unilinguals such as Leitch or Raitt any higher than dead last on their preferential ballot

[Hatman 🍁]

Oh, and if anything Leitch is the Patrick Brown of this race, so the Elliott comparison is strange. Perhaps this means Leitch is way ahead in reality. But of course, I don't pretend to know anything about the internal voting patterns of the Conservative Party membership.

[2952-0-0]

I wonder how the membership will take it, if one candidate decisively wins the popular vote, but a bitter rival candidate wins because of the points system. It'll be impossible to ignore the cries of "the rules are all rigged".

[Hatman 🍁]

Will they even count the popular vote totals?

[DC Al Fine]

Will they even count the popular vote totals?

They did last time. Harper won ~70% of the vote but only ~55% of the points.

[Poirot]

The wikipedia page about the 2004 leadership election has vote totals, points by province and percentages of points by ridings. I hope all data is correct. 
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_of_Canada_leadership_election,_2004

Stronach finished first in points in NL, PEI, NS, NB, Quebec and Nunavut. Probably small membership provinces so she received 23% of total vote but got 34% of points.   

[Cynthia]

Where's O'Leary? I am not following this contest closely the last time I checked he was front runner no?

[Hatman 🍁]

Where's O'Leary? I am not following this contest closely the last time I checked he was front runner no?

He's probably not running. We already have our Trump candidate.

[DL]

Where's O'Leary? I am not following this contest closely the last time I checked he was front runner no?

He's probably not running. We already have our Trump candidate.

As much as i dislike Kevin O'Leary - he is really nothing like Donald Trump...for one thing he is very socially liberal and supports gay rights and abortion rights and more immigration. His TV show actually deals with economics and public policy...nothing like The Apprentice

[Hatman 🍁]

You're right, Kevin O'Learly is not literally Donald Trump.

[2952-0-0]

Kellie Leitch openly praised Donald Trump, but she has none of his charisma or political intuition.

[Hatman 🍁]

She has positioned herself as the alt-right candidate, that is why she is dangerous. That is if Canada has enough crazies to get on board her campaign. I'm hoping not, but then again I didn't think Trump could beat Clinton!