Another divisive leadership race?

OUR EDITORIAL: WHAT WE THINK Conservative race could use some decorum, unity

The race for the federal Conservative party leadership is looking more and more like the earlier race for the Republican presidential nomination which occurred south of the border.

That U.S. race also featured a lengthy list of candidates and was marked by personal potshots throughout the campaign. Even the Democratic race which boiled down to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders became acrimonious before Sanders finally surrendered and grudgingly threw his support behind Clinton.

Now we’re seeing a similar dynamic in Canada as the Conservative party seeks a new leader.

Kevin O’Leary, the celebrity businessman who is being viewed as the Conservatives’ answer to Donald Trump, sparked a storm of controversy with his late withdrawal from Tuesday’s leadership debate in Edmonton.

O’Leary took exception to the scheduled format for the debate and indicated that the majority of the other 13 candidates agreed with him. But on Monday, several of the other candidates fired back at O’Leary. Lisa Raitt called him a “chicken” and said, “Format is irrelevant. Presence is mandatory. Suck it up and play by the rules.”

It’s probably to be expected that when candidates are vying for the same high-profile job, they will pull no punches to win and things might get a little heated. It’s a competitive process and only one person can come out on top.

By the same token, since these 14 people are seeking to lead the same party, they presumably are on the same page with respect to their basic political ideology. That’s why they’re Conservatives rather than Liberals or NDP members. One might also expect they would be united by the common goal of restoring the party to its former strength.

The Conservatives are trying to rebuild their party after losing the reins of power they had held through three straight federal elections. Stephen Harper has ridden off into the sunset and the party needs a new person to take the helm and guide the Conservatives into a new era. They need someone to step in and do what Justin Trudeau did for the Liberals — serve as a force to unite the party behind him and convince enough Canadian voters that he could be a strong and capable leader of the country, and that the party is the right choice for Canadians.

Conservative supporters across the country will be looking for such a leader among the 14 candidates. One might think that task would be aided by a leadership campaign built on statesmanship rather than divisive infighting. After all, the ultimate goal is to draw the party membership together in order to revive its fortunes.

But that doesn’t seem to be the way it’s done these days. The Republican leadership campaign was as bitter a battle as one could imagine. Little wonder those who lost out to Trump had difficulty uniting behind him for the presidential bid.

And yet, somehow, it all worked out. Trump and the Republicans attained their goal in spite of a game plan that, from the outside looking in, seemed selfdestructive.

So who knows? Perhaps the “disfunctional family” approach will work for the Conservatives, too.