Canadian Conservative Party Leadership

[Valka D'Ur]

The last election was all about bringing down Stephen Harper. A lot of people held their noses and voted Liberal, who would otherwise have voted for different parties. Some of them did it because Trudeau promised electoral reform. He betrayed that promise, so I think he's going to discover that those votes will not be there in 2019.

I didn't have that decision to make, as a piece of waste material from my cat's litter box could run as a Conservative candidate and be elected in this riding. So I went with how I'd have voted anyway. It's annoying that there will still be a reason for strategic voting in 2019; as much as I feel betrayed by the Liberals' promise-breaking (on electoral reform and assisted dying legislation that falls far short of what the Supreme Court said it should include), I'm not going to have the luxury of sitting back and voting my conscience.

Something else that's annoying is how the Reformacons on CBC.ca carry on about the lack of female Liberal leaders. They point to Kim Campbell, and I have to point out to them that Kim Campbell was Progressive Conservative, not Reform, Canadian Alliance, or this mashup of those two plus a hijacked party. The current Conservative Party of Canada has had only three leaders: Harper, Ambrose (interim), and now Scheer. Their history only goes back to 2003, and even the Reform Party can't claim Campbell as one of theirs.

 

[Recon Rover]

You can be sure of one thing: Andrew Scheer will deliver an undeserving Liberal Party a second mandate. The real interim leader is Scheer and the Conservative Party is well aware of this.

 

[Zelig]

I'm pretty progressive, and could pretty easily have voted Conservative based on party platform in recent elections (other than 2015 when they went off the rails) if I wasn't always in ridings where they ran total knobs.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The current prediction is that the Conservatives will lose in 2019, Scheer will either resign or lose a leadership review, and then the real race will happen, between Ambrose and MacKay. Having either of those as the real leader is unsettling. Both are Harper yes-people, and both are in it for the "power." And we already know MacKay has no honor, either politically or personally.

 

[warpus]

Maybe that's the Conservative plan.

1. Put in a lacklustre yet competent candidate for a couple years, while the public slowly soaks up the Liberals' high spending and several now broken promises
2. Wait until the Liberals screw up in some big way
3. Put in a new star leader
4. Hope swing voters say "JT has to go. The alternatives suck and this new conservative leader looks so much better than the last guy"

 

[EricTheGreat12]

The current prediction is that the Conservatives will lose in 2019, Scheer will either resign or lose a leadership review, and then the real race will happen, between Ambrose and MacKay. Having either of those as the real leader is unsettling. Both are Harper yes-people, and both are in it for the "power." And we already know MacKay has no honor, either politically or personally.

Would definitely be interested in a bigger pool of people: Candice Bergen, Michelle Rempele among others. This leadership race was unfortunately very bland with people like Deephak Obhrai and Chris Alexander, and wouldn't be surprised if more senior representatives of the party stand up in the leadership convention in 2019.

"Harperism" is strong in the Conservative Party and will be for a long time. Don't be surprised if the next 2-3 leaders are similar to him.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Would definitely be interested in a bigger pool of people: Candice Bergen, Michelle Rempele among others.

No. We do not need the twin attack poodles vying to be the leader. I have zero respect for either of them, as they're loud, boorish, and far too taken with themselves. Michelle Rempel sees absolutely no hypocrisy in demanding to be treated like a lady, yet letting loose with a torrent of foul language at whoever she's arguing with.

Candice Bergen seriously needs to find a sense of humor somewhere. She flipped out when one of the male Liberal cabinet ministers (John McCallum, if memory serves) made a joke about not being photogenic (Bergen had made yet another snide remark about "selfies") and she spent the next more-than-a-few minutes ranting that the cabinet minister had been "rude". She didn't do the sensible thing and shut up when he pointed out that he'd made the joke on himself, not her or anyone else.

Both these women are seriously unstable. Not quite Kellie Leitch levels of unstable, but neither of them should ever get near a cabinet job again, let alone run for Prime Minister.

 

[EricTheGreat12]

No. We do not need the twin attack poodles vying to be the leader. I have zero respect for either of them, as they're loud, boorish, and far too taken with themselves. Michelle Rempel sees absolutely no hypocrisy in demanding to be treated like a lady, yet letting loose with a torrent of foul language at whoever she's arguing with.

Candice Bergen seriously needs to find a sense of humor somewhere. She flipped out when one of the male Liberal cabinet ministers (John McCallum, if memory serves) made a joke about not being photogenic (Bergen had made yet another snide remark about "selfies") and she spent the next more-than-a-few minutes ranting that the cabinet minister had been "rude". She didn't do the sensible thing and shut up when he pointed out that he'd made the joke on himself, not her or anyone else.

Both these women are seriously unstable. Not quite Kellie Leitch levels of unstable, but neither of them should ever get near a cabinet job again, let alone run for Prime Minister.

Whatever; all I want is a bigger more interesting race. This one was my first and I just came out of highschool so it was exciting for me. Nonetheless, I was expecting more action coming from 14 candidates.

Every race has its own case of bad candidates. Conservatives had Kevin OLeary and Kellie Leitch and the NDP has Niki Ashton ...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Whatever; all I want is a bigger more interesting race. This one was my first and I just came out of highschool so it was exciting for me. Nonetheless, I was expecting more action coming from 14 candidates.

Every race has its own case of bad candidates. Conservatives had Kevin OLeary and Kellie Leitch and the NDP has Niki Ashton ...

Yeah, I'm not overly impressed with Niki Ashton. She was laughing and smirking with the NDP MP who wailed about being "elbowed" by Trudeau. My answer to the people on CBC.ca who keep bringing up "elbowgate" is that if the NDP MPs had been in their seats instead of obstructing the whips, and if the Speaker had done his job in the first place and told everyone but the whips to SIT DOWN, then none of that would have happened.

I've remembered more about that incident with Bergen and McCallum. She made a snide crack about Liberals, photos, and selfies, McCallum replied that he didn't have any intentions of doing anything like that since he wasn't that photogenic, and the Liberals started laughing. So Bergen started whining to the Speaker that "they're laughing, Mr. Speaker!" as though she was the target of their laughter.

Well, that may not have been how it began, but the more she carried on despite McCallum explaining that he was talking about himself, not her, the more I'd be inclined to laugh at her.

Nope, definitely not leadership material.


The problem with those 14 candidates is that too many of them were ex-Harper cabinet ministers. They have one goal: to "get back in power" to finish what they started. And the rest of them were just plain nuts, including O'Leary. How he thought he could win this, with no French and everyone knowing that he hadn't made even the slightest pretense at sincerely wanting to serve (not moving to Canada, not making a decent effort to learn French, constantly skipping debates, saying he had no plans to seek a seat) is beyond me.

 

[EricTheGreat12]

Although I do have a lot to say about N. Ashton, I will only post it on the NDP thread

I wouldn't say though that they were all 'successors' to Harper. While none called Harper crap, they still were offering a different perspective. Problem though comes when the lesser known candidates do nothing to improve their situation, and they have nothing unique. Deephak was cute and funny but offered nothing worth noting, whereas Chris Alexander was bland like printing paper.

Don't get me started on Rick Peterson. Biggest idiot of the bunch who thinks wearing a Connor McDavid jersey to a debate will win him more than 5% of the vote...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You think he was a bigger idiot than Kellie Leitch, who made a video when both she and the cameraman were obviously high on something?

(I hope they were high. It's scary to think they'd do something like that if they were sober.)