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

[Hatman 🍁]

Baird isn't running. Also LOL Reds.

Ignore the reds at your own peril. If Trudeau brings in AV, then there's no way the Tories will win another majority with someone as conservative as Harper.

[Hatman 🍁]

My guess is that it will be a Kenney-McKay race. Despite his many shortcomings, Peter MacKay is a household name, and that always helps in these things. He will be the "moderate" candidate.

Kenney will likely win though. He'll run a Patrick Brown-style campaign, signing up lots of immigrant supporters.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mennonites, maybe?

[Hatman 🍁]

Mennonites, maybe?

There are different types of Mennonites. A friend of mine is a Mennonite who is from a very liberal sect that are all pacifists and more like Quakers and they are all social gospel types 

This is of course true, but I was reminded of how Conservative they are in Manitoba, especially.

[Hatman 🍁]

Do Mormons count?

[Hatman 🍁]

Even without the long form census issue, Canadian religion stats wouldn't be very good.  For some reason StatsCan put way too many groups into the "Other Christian" category in 2011 that used to have their own categories before. Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Mennonites, non-denominational Evangelicals, Dutch Calvinists, and vaguely spiritual, unaffiliated Christians all get put in the same category, which makes analysis more difficult.

While those religions are lumped together in riding data, you can find this information for other levels, such as census agglomeration. Unfortunately Cardston is too small. However, we can look up Lethbridge, which is about 8% Mormon. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/Lp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=0&PID=0&PRID=0&PTYPE=105277&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2013&THEME=95&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF=

[Hatman 🍁]

So Forum did a poll and Peter MacKay is winning the name recognition contest

SHOCKING

[Hatman 🍁]

These sorts of polls of the general public on party leadership contests are pretty worthless and are just a measure of name recognition. Remember Forum's poll of Ontarians after McGuinty quit that said that Gerard Kennedy was far and away the leading candidate for the Ontario Liberal leadership? (he ended up a distant third). Or what about their poll way back when that showed that Christine Elliott was far and away the leader in the race to be Ontario PC leader...she was crushed by Patrick Brown - who the initial polls said was at about 1% among the general public.

Well, obviously campaigns matter. Though name recognition means more in federal leadership races. There's a reason why Brian Topp didn't become NDP leader.

Having said that, MacKay likely won't win. BUT, he will likely do much better than the nay-saying pundits think he will. My money is on Jason Kenney.

[Hatman 🍁]

These sorts of polls of the general public on party leadership contests are pretty worthless and are just a measure of name recognition. Remember Forum's poll of Ontarians after McGuinty quit that said that Gerard Kennedy was far and away the leading candidate for the Ontario Liberal leadership? (he ended up a distant third). Or what about their poll way back when that showed that Christine Elliott was far and away the leader in the race to be Ontario PC leader...she was crushed by Patrick Brown - who the initial polls said was at about 1% among the general public.

Well, obviously campaigns matter. Though name recognition means more in federal leadership races. There's a reason why Brian Topp didn't become NDP leader.

Having said that, MacKay likely won't win. BUT, he will likely do much better than the nay-saying pundits think he will. My money is on Jason Kenney.

I probably should be above this, but I want to point out that I mentioned months ago that Peter MacKay would start out as the front runner in any Conservative leadership campaign and would be a serious contender and my comment at that time was roundly ridiculed.

Not from me, I hope. Though the last time this was brought up was right when he resigned after some scandals, so not the best time to suggest he had a good chance.

I was ridiculed 4 years ago when I said Justin Trudeau was the only saviour for the Liberals, but look where we are now.

[Hatman 🍁]

You're right about Jack and Audrey. Big caveats being 1989 was a delegated convention (therefore different dynamics) and in 2003, the party was much smaller.

Once you start getting to an electorate of over 100,000, name recognition becomes more important, as your voter base is increasingly less knowledgeable.  I don't think more people knew who Topp was than Mulcair, even by the time the vote happened. And even if people knew who he was, they didn't know as much about him. And even those who did perhaps didn't vote for him because they knew Mulcair had better name recognition to the average voter.

I never said Peter MacKay would win. In fact, I expressly stated that Jason Kenney has the best chance of winning. However, my big criticism has been that people here have underestimated him, because of his perception as a "dumb jock". Of course, Justin Trudeau had that perception as well once upon a time. 

[Hatman 🍁]

I can see Kenney running a Patrick Brown-style campaign. Big difference in personal lives (if we want to bring that up) is that while both are Bachelor's, their sex lives are polar opposites. Or so I've heard.

The media in this country aren't big into delving into politician's personal lives though.

[Hatman 🍁]

Canadians have to become aware of that in the first place.

[Hatman 🍁]

I don't think Kenney is gay, is he? He's just an asexual.

[Hatman 🍁]

Tony Clement is a low energy loser, so the Jeb Bush comparison is accurate.

[Hatman 🍁]

For the hilarity: Caroline Mulroney floated again.

So dynasty politics is a thing now in Canada?

[Hatman 🍁]

Worse than TRUMP imo

[Hatman 🍁]

Why are people comparing him to TRUMP? The Fords are a better comparison. They represent anti-establishment populism. O'Leary may not be establishment, but he is the embodiment of Bay Street fat cats. No way he gets the same kind of support as TRUMP.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ah yes, Danny Williams is probably the most TRUMP like politician in Canadian history. Very high energy.

[Hatman 🍁]

Let us not forget that it was MacKay who turned his back on the PCs by merging the parties. He had promised David Orchard he wasn't going to do that.

[Hatman 🍁]

Kenney is not exactly a household name yet. Though his connections with the immigrant communities make him a front runner. Also note, immigrants don't answer polls, and are not factored into weighting.

[Hatman 🍁]

I may want to ask a leadership question in a future EKOS poll. Here's who I would include:

Maxime Bernier
Kellie Leitch
Stephen Harper
Michael Chong
Tony Clement
Doug Ford
Peter MacKay
Kevin O'Leary
Erin O'Toole
Lisa Raitt
Michelle Rempel
Jason Kenney
Brad Wall

Anyone else I should include?

[Hatman 🍁]

So I did end up throwing a leadership question in the last omnibus poll we did. Here are the results:



Despite Ambrose not being a listed option, she still managed to get 4%.

Highlights:
O'Leary is ahead in Alberta; Bernier in Quebec; MacKay everywhere else.
O'Leary leads with people under 45; MacKay with people over 45.

I also included Brad Trost in the poll, but he received less than 1% in support. After Ambrose, the next popular write-in was Brad Wall, but got less than 1% as well.

[Hatman 🍁]

I'd like to see a poll without O'Leary and maybe MacKay, just to see where his voters go.

Maybe next time, I'll include a ranked ballot.

[Hatman 🍁]

'defeat the socialists'



The virgin MP is adorable.

[Hatman 🍁]

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.