Which is where the PC Party will find itself for the better part of the next 4 years. 66.9% is neither a defeat, nor a ringing endorsement, but it is technically a win. However, when the person that received that number lost his own seat in an election the course should have been clear. Tory should have called a leadership race and run as a candidate. Even if Tory won the race, it would have been a cleansing act with the potential to wash away the sins of last October.
If conservatism stands for personal responsibility, advancement of democracy, smaller government and lower taxes, Tory has transgressed against all those principles:
1. He should have called a leadership race and run again as a candidate (goes to personal responsibility and the advancement of democracy),
2. He should never had offered the faith based schools proposal, because it was never a grassroots approved policy decision (goes to the advancement of democracy),
3. He put forth a policy platform document that increased program spending by 14% and almost mirrored Liberal policy (which goes to smaller government and the fact that his policy platform didn't even qualify as a 'conservative' platform)
4. His financial plan only marginally pledged to reduce taxes by phasing out the hated health tax over four years but would have increased government revenues through some magical economic expansion which everyone saw as unrealistic in order to compensate for it. Bottom line is that taxes would have had to increase somewhat because Tory would not have been able to significantly reduce government spending without hurting his 'red tory' reputation (which again goes to smaller government and lower taxes).
Democracy dictates that 50% + 1 is a majority. Tory got 66.9%. He has legitimacy behind him. Therefore, I'll stand behind him.
If he wants to win the hearts and minds of conservatives and energize the party his path is clear: work to increase the individual freedom of people in this province, pledge to lower taxes, vow to reduce the size of government, show why our province can be great when we extol the virtues of personal effort and belief in oneself instead of reliance on an oversized bloated money draining government and you will win the hearts and minds of voters. Behave like a liberal and you will give the electorate no reason to choose you over a real liberal.
I am hopeful.
3 comments:
John Tory lost me when he proposed faith-based schools but was unable to answer whether they could be allowed to teach Creationism. I don't give money to research cancer or donate time on my computers to protein folding in order to allow the teaching of superstitious drivel on my dime. The Conservatives will get me back only when they have an intelligent leader
FYI, Creationism is already taught in publicly-funded Catholic schools - in religion courses, which is exactly where John Tory said it would allowed to be taught.
In fact some public schools mention it in science classes as another POV, but it isn't necessarily part of the curriculum.
But that's all water under the bridge now. Communications have to improve big-time or we'll be right back here again in 4 years discussing the same sad story.
Winning the leadership convention means nothing to the rank and file conservative voter they still have the same offensive and socialist choices in the next election. No matter how bad McGuinty is I will not vote for his conservative party clone. If you want me to vote then promise me less government, less regulation and lower taxes. I really could care less about more government funded social engineering.
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