Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
Voters just strongly rejected Harper. They will just as surely reject Jason Kenney (aka Harper 2.0) in the next election, so if the CPC leadership has any brains, they'll strongly encourage Kenney not to run and instead make him interim party leader. He's an experienced MP and would make an effective opposition leader for the next 12-18 months, but he'll never win a national election.
Outside of Brad Wall (who hasn't indicated he has a desire to run and doesn't speak French), I'm not sure if there are any prominent conservatives currently serving at the national or provincial levels who could turn the fortunes of the CPC around in the short-medium term. Maybe we'll see an out-of-nowhere candidate from the private sector?
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I think that is the best situation for the PC's to do now. There is no clear cut great choice so put someone in place who can be a holdover leader for the party in the legislature and spend the next ~4 years either grooming someone or waiting for someone outside of the party to emerge.
I am from the Reform/strong right side of the party so I obviously have no issue with Kenney but I can see that he is likely not a candidate that will do a lot to bring back the voters that shifted to the Liberals. Likewise I can't see myself or others like me to support a PC party led by Charest that takes a big step toward the center. Maybe for one election since there likely wouldn't be another choice but long term that seems like a set up to a move towards a split party.
I am not inside politics enough to know if there are some possible candidates in the private sector or Provincial politics that would be better choices but of the names that I have heard (Kenney, Charest, Oliver, Wall, Riatt) none of them seem likely to do much more than form the opposition and none of them outside of Wall (and thats a big maybe) seem to have any sort of personality to them to try and re-energize the party at all.