Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

Consolation prize

by Paul Wells on Thursday, March 5, 2009 11:26pm - 51 Comments

It’s not true John Tory never won anything; He did beat Jim Flaherty once.

Tags: sad

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A reader

I kind of feel sorry for the guy. A decent human being plagued with horrible timing.

Mike T.

and one really really bad idea!

Dave

And a whole bunch of really really really bad judgment.

Remember, this is the guy who ok’ed the “Is this a Prime Minister?” ads for Kim Campbell in 1993.

Critical Reasoning

Farewell, sweet prince.
Derek Pearce

John Tory is a decent guy, a gentleman. But there’s room for only so much bland at Queen’s Park. Ontario is content with it’s comfy porridge-just-right government. It’ll be interesting to see who runs for the Ontario Tory leadership. They can’t be bland like Dalton but they can’t be an ideologue either.
edeast

Well-played campaign by the Liberals. I was amazed Tony Clement squeaked (28 votes) by when he was parachuted in, but at least he had a family cottage, or something. A family cottage is in the family for generations it’s still bad but better than a cottage owner, which would be devastating especially in winter. And I know they are not the same riding, but the Muskoka, Haliburton region is very similar. Citiots, Terrorists, and all that are welcome just not welcome.

Thinkster

Huh?

edeast

I was just trying to explain the local electorate in a paragraph or less.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

I missed John Tory’s parabola, but he seems like a decent guy who did his best — perhaps got really bad advice in the last election. I hope he has a happy retirement.

The good news is that, according to Canada411, there are at least four people in the province with the last name “Dipper.”

TobyornotToby

That’s fascinating news Jack. Of course I headed straight for Canada 411 to get the Manitoba resutls.

Hypothesis: Surely there will be more Dippers here than Ontario
Result: No Dippers in Manitoba!
Discussion: Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is at least one Libby west of the Ontario-Manitoba border, and there is a Con living in Winnipeg.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Heh heh! That’s ominous. Still, we could do worse than restrict party leaderships to people who are actually named after the party.

It’s always been my fantasy (muted, of course) that the Toronto law firm “Torys” (formerly “Tory & Tory,” IIRC) would both revert to its former name and somehow ensure that one partner’s son might marry the daughter of a man named Moore; the grandchild could then be taken on as a partner and you’d have “Tory, Tory, and Moore-Tory.”

Deb

Maybe the Conservatives won’t win Ontario in the next provincial election after all!!
Wascally Wabbit

Yawn – once more we will be subject to a parade of the inadequate and neverwillbe’s…
Klees
Flaherty?
Clement?
Baird?
Randy the tractor man…
Snobelen
Hudak…

I’ll bet McGuinty was tossing in his sleep last night….
DR

How does a conservative lose a rural by-election at the start of a recession? Did people see this coming? I don’t remember seeing any indication of this from the media…the narrative was about how Tory getting a seat would solve all his problems and Deficit Dalton was toast. Wait, why did I believe a media narrative? sily me…

Does this mean Deficit Jim quits Federal politics to take the job? I hope so!
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

I can’t believe he lost the by-election, it’s hard to imagine Tory winning anything, ever. I will be shocked if Tory does anything but quit this afternoon when he outlines his political future but who knows. I thought he would have got the hint months ago but he didn’t. I am not surprised the constituents didn’t go for him because Tory made it seem he might run in another riding when the next general election came along and he had zero connections with the riding. Why would they want this clown as an MP?
archangel

Add me to the list of those who wanted Tory to win this one. To me, the only reason he lost is his prior association with Rogers Media.

TJ Cook

What does that have to do with anything? Do you have any evidence that indicates this was a factor in the election results?

archangel

No, I am simply alluding to the opinion of the majority that Rogers is evil. And please do not to ask me to provide evidence to support the patently obvious. Besides, I don’t do evidence — only knee-jerk reaction.

Like most Conservatives, methinks.

avr

The conservative Ontarian base – such as it is – seems to want another fire-breathing Mike Harris type, not a mushy, nice-guy centrist indistinguishable from the Premier. It’s a shame it’s taken Tory so long to realize that.
TJ Cook

I wouldn’t mind beating Jim Flaherty myself, the angry little wanker.

Lord Kitchener’s Own

LOL
archangel

I would be pleased to join you, were it not illegal.
Mulletaur

LMAO. Also, does he dye his hair ? It sure looked like it to me when he appeared on Newman yesterday. Never trust a man who dyes his hair.

Mike T.

I think the Liberals erred in running somebody against him. Surely they’s want him to stay on as party leader?

Derek Pearce

Not if the Ontario PC party chooses a Common Sense Revolutionary for their next leader. The Liberals will have it made if the Tories do that.

avr

That would at least lead to an election with a real choice, not merely a pick of Blandly Genial Centrist Technocrat #1 and #2.

And who knows? Maybe heartless fiscal conservatism may start looking palatable to a majority again, by 2011.
archangel

Randy Hillier for Leader!

And I believe the Liberal member from Scarborough Centre (current Minister of Aboriginal Affairs) ought to succeed Dalton McGuinty as Premier. Brad Duguid can do no wrong.

golfers digest

I’m all for Conservatives losing elections, but two opposition parties with essentially no leaders makes for an easy run for the hapless Premier from Ottawa.

An ideologically driven opposition is still better than no opposition at all.

archangel

What about Peter Kormos?

golfers digest

Just my feelings, but I think the Ontario NDP are still caught in some malaise. Great opportunity for them to make some gains on both parties. Should be interesting when new leader convention is held.
Derek Pearce

Whack job. I found it a bit rich when he was yelling at Geri Hall the other day– he’s the most notorious for pulling stunts to get on camera.

Justin

He also won in a by-election in Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey in 2005 to become an MPP in the first place.
sbt

Finally, the Ontario PCs can get back to being the right-wing lunatics we elected back in 1995. They need to face the sad reality that becoming more like the McGuinty Liberals has only led them to losing more and more of the popular vote. And for what? What has McGuinty done for Ontario? The manufacturing base is in shambles (Personally, I blame Harris. If he hadn’t created all those manufacturing jobs then McGuinty wouldn’t have lost them), taxes have gone up, and he’s going to post record deficits despite receiving billions more in federal transfers. McGuinty’s been a disaster of Bush-like proportions and it’s high time the Ontario PCs started trying to do something about it instead of obsessing over getting John Tory into the legislature.

Derek Pearce

Of Bush like proportions? Ahem. He’s uninspiring, but really, he’s a genial bystander to this world economy. There’s more to governing than tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts.

Mulletaur

What a pity, Tory might have made a decent mayor of Toronto.

archangel

He would have made an excellent mayor of Toronto.

avr

That’s not setting a very high bar.
Mulletaur

It’s not too late, although he is a bit ‘damaged goods’ now.

Lord Kitchener’s Own

No, it’s too late.

I think Tory probably would have made a very good mayor of Toronto (and I’m not a Miller-basher either, I like Miller) but your “damaged goods” line is the salient point. As I implied, I really quite like Tory as a person, and I think he’s an intelligent and worthy public servant, but the voters of Toronto have already rejected him once, and not to be harsh, but pretty much everything he’s touched since then has turned to mud. Even if one feels that Miller is unpopular, bound to be dumped, and too “extreme” (which, frankly, the people of Toronto – who actually make the decision – by and large DON’T) Tory’s image is just too far gone to be rehabilitated at this point.

It’s not entirely “fair”, and he deserves better, but I’m afraid Tory’s name politically is now synonymous with “loser”, and to an extent to which I don’t think any politician could recover.

Mulletaur

The one thing that stands out about John Tory’s political career is his tremendously bad political judgement. Convincing Laurie Scott to resign so he could run in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock is just the latest chapter in that particular saga. Losers can always be winners someday, but political judgement is something that you either have, or you don’t. Tory doesn’t.

Jenn

My advice for the next leader of the Ontario PC Party.

First, she should remember that this conservative party has Progressive in its name. She should highlight that.

Next, she should make a very public showing of removing the back-room, wedge issue nutbars currently running things behind the scenes of that party.

After those two (relatively simple) things are done, she can concentrate on providing alternatives to Dalton McGuinty’s ideas (or lack thereof).

No issues designed to divide Ontarians. No ‘puffin-poop’ type partisan attacks. Treat the job like its serious–propose sound yet compassionate fiscal policies, force McGuinty to raise his game or get out of the way.

Oh yeah, and realize that sometimes a convenient name, well, isn’t always that convenient.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Excellent advice, Jenn, I hope they follow it. I’m not a Tory (er, tory), but I agree with golfers digest above that democracy requires a healthy opposition, and your prescription would revive them.
avr

Highlight the Progressive part, hmm?

Look at the results from the by-election. The Liberal candidate didn’t win dramatically more votes than the 2007 election; the PC vote simply stayed home in large numbers. I somehow doubt they’d have been more inspired to turn out if Tory had just a little more squishy Toronto progressivism to him.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

By-election turnout is always lower than in full-dress elections. The Liberal percentage went through the roof (29% –> 43%). Doesn’t look to me like the good voters of Haliburton – Kawartha Lakes are looking for red-meat Harrisery right now, and it’s a pretty representative rural Ontario riding.

avr

By percentage of the vote, yes. By hard numbers, no, which is my point; Rick Johnson won 14,434 votes running for the Liberals in 2007; he won 15,482 yesterday. Laurie Scott won 24,272 votes in 2007, compared to Tory’s 14,576. The other parties had slightly depressed turnout consistent with a by-election.

What I make of that is not that turnout was equally depressed across the board for all parties’ supporters, but was disproportionately affecting the PC vote; something like eight to nine thousand former PC voters simply didn’t show up. Do you really think Tory’s failure to close the deal with that bloc was because he wasn’t far enough left?

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

No, I think it was because he was unloved, sadly enough.

Re: the numbers, I don’t buy your argument that PC voters stayed home, because turnout would naturally be down for a by-election, even a high-profile one. Seems to me that instead Liberal voters flocked to the polls, or the undecideds went Liberal. I wouldn’t take that as a yearning for Harrisism. Besides, wasn’t the 2007 debacle the direct result of the PCs’ bowing to red-meat social conservatism on schooling?
avr

The funny thing about the religious school policy is that it may have been pandering, but it was very badly planned pandering, without much support from even die-hard Harrisites. It was like a parody of what the conservative base wanted, obviously cooked up by someone not familiar with it.

Tory thought he was getting a two-for-one there – support from the simplistically appeased social conservatives, as well as applause from the centre-left for taking on a discriminatory current state of affairs slammed by the UN. Funny how that worked out.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Ah, that’s interesting, thanks. I missed the election so my only impression was of a distant nuclear explosion. So you think there’s a demand out there for less Disneyfied social conservatism, eh? Should be interesting to see how it plays out, by way of the leadership race and then for the election.

Claude

John Tory is not a conservative. Given the choice between a Real Liberal and a fake Conservative, voters will take the Liberal every time.

hosertohoosier

They voted for the fairly wet Ontario PC’s in every election from 1943-1985, so I don’t know how true that is. I am a big fan of Mike Harris, but I wonder to what extent the Common Sense Revolution could have succeeded outside the context of the mess Ontario was in in 1995. Indeed, much of Harris’ radicalism is overstated. Harris cut welfare payments such that they equaled the Canadian average. In every budget but his first two, he expanded spending on healthcare and education. The Common Sense Revolution was more of a counter-revolution.

Unfortunately, the state Ontario is in demands more than a counter-revolution. Our main industry is failing fast. We don’t need to go back to 2003, we need to go forward to 2011. Instead of picking winners (McGuinty’s economic approach), the Tory alternative should be creating an environment conducive to the emergence of new industries to replace the dying manufacturing sector. I should think that means lower corporate taxes, deficit reduction, and a shift in post-secondary strategy from tuition subsidization to encouraging leadership in research. Silicon valley or Detroit are, or have been leading industry clusters at some point in history. That didn’t happen because a beneficient state threw money at them. It happened because each had the right institutions at the right time. Creating an environment conducive to economic growth is something the Tories can absolutely do. The trouble is that such a message may get drowned out by cries for short-term “stimulus” solutions that only create more problems in the long run by propping up failed industries.

hosertohoosier

“Tory thought he was getting a two-for-one there – support from the simplistically appeased social conservatives, as well as applause from the centre-left for taking on a discriminatory current state of affairs slammed by the UN. Funny how that worked out.”

What really boggles my mind is that Tory – who worked for Bill Davis – didn’t get that the religious school issue would open up persistent divisions in Ontario. The same rural conservatives that stayed home in 1985 over Catholic schools (even when Frank Miller, one of their own, led the party) don’t like paying for the schooling of people that aren’t them.