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

[Njall]

How do you guys think the Conservatives are interpreting this loss? Do they think it was just because Harper was in charge for almost a decade and he was thrown out because of a desire for change. Or was it because he led the party too far to the right?

From what I've seen, it's much more the former than the latter so far.

[Njall]

No vote for at least 18 months.

Maybe holding out hope that Brad Wall will enter once the Saskatchewan election is done with?

[Njall]

YUGE: Kenney is leaving federal politics and heading for Edmonton, probably to commandeer the PCAA's smoking hulk. Best of luck to him, and hopefully he joins Brown and Pallister.

I'm not in touch with AB politics. Would he cruise to the PC leadership or would he face a fair amount of opposition?

Speaking only for what I saw at the AGM, and at PC Board of Directors meetings that I've been to since the election, there's VERY little appetite for a merger with the Wildrose.  Keeping in mind that Kenney would be running explicitly as a candidate who would merge the parties, I would say that this would shoot his campaign in the foot right from the beginning.  After all, PC and Wildrose supporters are still at each others' throats more often than not, and tensions from the past 8+ years are far from dissipating.  Kenney's social conservatism will likely turn off some PC voters as well; in an engagement survey (completed by at least 2,000 respondents) that the party sent to members after the election, 73% of respondents agreed that the party is socially progressive (in the sense that social progressivism should appear in the party's principles).  It won't be impossible for him to win, but it certainly won't be the sort of campaign that Prentice faced.

Another thing to consider is that this PC leadership election will be done as a delegated convention, and delegates will effectively have to be members for 45 days before the convention (delegate slates must be finalized 30 days before the convention, and in order to participate in CA delegate selection meetings as voters and delegate candidates, members must have been in the party for at least 14 days).  That is to say, unlike past elections, Kenney wouldn't be able to sign up a bunch of last minute supporters and direct them on where to vote on election day; he will have to have members signed up and strong ground organizations in at least a majority of ridings well in advance of the convention.

[Njall]

Also keep in mind there is no reason for the parties to merge. Alberta has no business having one conservative party, for democracy's sake. Wildrose doesn't need to merge to win the next election. And what would probably happen is Wildrose becomes the mainstream right of centre party, and the Tories die a quiet death. No need for a merger.

Where would the P.C voters go then?

A plurality would probably go Wildrose (though the exact amount would depend on how "mainstream" the WRP would actually get).  The rest would probably either not vote, at least for the following 1-2 elections, or go to whichever non-NDP and non-WRP alternative looks the best.  I imagine that the Alberta Party would become a favourable option for a fair number of ex-PCs, at least in the cities.

[Njall]

Also keep in mind there is no reason for the parties to merge. Alberta has no business having one conservative party, for democracy's sake. Wildrose doesn't need to merge to win the next election. And what would probably happen is Wildrose becomes the mainstream right of centre party, and the Tories die a quiet death. No need for a merger.

Where would the P.C voters go then?

Pretty much what Njall said. Where did the SoCreds go when they folded?

I think SoCred support slowly bled over to the PCs, but it wasn't an instantaneous process, by any means.  The situation was different compared to today as well, because the PCs and SoCreds collectively took something like 88% of the vote in 1971, and the province has urbanized significantly since then as well. 

The PCs drew support from all of the opposition parties (including practically all of the Liberals' support) in order to win the 1971 election, but even though the SoCreds were decimated in terms of seats, they still came away with 25 seats and over 40% of the vote.  After that, I would say that roughly half of the SoCred vote drifted over to the PCs, but the SoCreds still got just under 20% of the vote in 1975 and 1979.  Post-1979, it would appear that more former SoCred voters would have drifted over, but upstart populist parties (the WCC, most prominently) would have also received support largely from the old SoCred base.  And once the '90s came around, Alberta was really into the Klein era, and Klein likely would have appealed to the old SoCreds more than the PCs of Lougheed's day.

[Njall]

LMAO. He'll get parts of the Prairies and that's it. In a GE, a strident, single-issue socon would get results closer to Alliance 2000 than Harper in 2004/15.

I just figured because he is the only so con and the only candidate west of Ontario he would have an opening in the leadership race not in 2019

He'll have to compete with Deepak Obhrai and (possibly) Andrew Scheer for the Western Conservative vote, so his Western roots won't really be an advantage.

[Njall]

Bernier tweeted a red pill meme but says it was a purely Matrix reference. Raitt and O'Toole raised eyebrows, Rempel defended.

Coyne on Bernier and Chong's tax plans.

Unfortunately (hopefully coincidently), that meme came out around the same time this minor s***storm from the Wildrose club at U of Calgary hit the media: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/wildrose-on-campus-fire-comms-director-1.4012824

[Njall]

 Trost decides this is the best time for a homophobic campaign push

[Njall]

Chong won Laurier--Ste-Marie (old Duceppe riding).

Outremont, too.

Other Chong wins include Vancouver East and Toronto--Danforth.

[Njall]

I just wanna know the general consensus: is Scheer a good choice for the party (and by that i mean could he lead conservatives to victory in 2019)?

I could see it being possible for him to lead them to victory, but I think that a hypothetical CPC victory in 2019 with Scheer at the helm would be more likely to happen due to Trudeau making missteps during the campaign than anything Scheer would bring to the table.

[Njall]

Grenier has some high-level raw vote numbers.

Essentially, the article says that out of the 141,362 votes cast in the leadership, the 13th and final round went as follows:

Scheer: 62,593 (44.3%)
Bernier: 55,544 (39.3%)
Inactive ballots: 23,225 (16.4%)