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Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com. This summer I am joined by Keir Wilmut and Omar Soliman.
Monday, September 20, 2004
On John Tory
Most of what needs to be said about John Tory's election to the leadership of the Ontario Conservative Party on Saturday has already been said. As a small 'c' conservative, Tory was obviously not my preferred choice. Tory has a long track record of hostility toward conservative values, and he doesn't have the most examplary record as a party apparatchik (Grossman '87 in Ontario; Campbell '93 federally, etc...) And where was he during the glorious early years of the Common Sense Revolution? Seems to me he was AWOL. But the party has made its choice, and it should have a decent shot at defeating Dalton McGuinty in 2007 given his disastrous first 12 months in office.
UPDATE: Signs of trouble are already visible:
The Ontario Conservatives are moving away from the right-wing politics of former premier Mike Harris because "there are different prescriptions required for different times," new leader John Tory says.
....
"We will express Conservative principles differently when the next election comes around, but the bottom line will really be to be very concise in what it is we're going to do and then to get into government and do it," the former Rogers Cable president and CEO said in an interview on CTV's Question Period.
....
Federal deputy Conservative leader Peter MacKay, who chatted with Tory at the Front St. taping of Question Period, said his victory "signals a shift in the mindset within the party."
"This is clearly the centrist, pragmatic approach that the federal party has to emulate as well," MacKay said of Tory, the former principal secretary to premier William Davis.
You'd think that after Larry Grossman, Kim Campbell, Jean Charest, and Ernie Eves the Tories would realize the failure of this strategy. Guess not.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:54 AM
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