Brown’s demise may fuel winning formula for PCs

Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario Liberals must not be able to believe their luck. The self-destruction of one’s key opponent just four months before an election is an astounding development that seems to substantially increase the Liberals’ chance of re-election.

It might be too soon to pop the champagne corks, however. Patrick Brown’s resignation as Progressive Conservative leader dramatically alters the dynamics of June’s election, but it isn’t all in the Liberals’ favour. Let’s not forget that the change in leadership will throw the Liberal campaign into disarray, too. They were geared up to destroy Patrick Brown, but he’s done that himself.

The Liberals were expected to run a two-pronged campaign. One would feature all the wonderful fairness things in their own platform. The other would have tried to persuade voters that Brown was a bad guy based on old votes from his days as a backbench MP in the Stephen Harper government. That’s all dead now.

Faced with a lesser-known and innocuous PC leader, the Liberals will struggle to make their opponent seem like Satan’s second cousin.

Then there is the problem with the similarity of the two platforms. One of the things Brown did right was to adopt many key Liberal planks, then add a tax cut, a better child-care program and serious money for mental health. It will be hard for the Liberals to disparage the PC plan because it is so much like their own.

Not to say that the new PC leader does not face a huge challenge, but that can be turned into an advantage. The new leader automatically starts as an underdog with low expectations. People like underdogs.

With Brown as leader, the PCs were expected to win. That magnifies mistakes and leads to the “he’s blowing it” narrative. The new leader will score points just by showing up and seeming sensible.

The new leader will have lots of work to do reuniting the party. That’s critical to winning the election. The PCs were deeply divided by Brown’s victory. There are two distinct camps.

The first consists of those who wanted to burn the party to the ground after too many consecutive losses. Brown was the man with the torch. The other element in the party considered Brown’s victory a hostile takeover. Those people never warmed to Brown, and some nomination irregularities in which Brown and his executive ignored grassroots concerns didn’t help.

The second group will not be heartbroken to see Brown go. The tough part will be to keep the allegiance of the new people he brought into the party.

There’s no doubt the party will campaign on the platform Brown devised. It has a lot to offer and at this point, there is no other choice.

Brown’s campaign team and senior staff, an experienced and skilled group, quit when he resisted their advice to resign. It’s nice to see that someone still has principles. The new leader will be running the same campaign. It should be a priority to get these folks back in their offices Monday morning.

In truth, Brown was a lukewarm leader, the kind many PCs would have had to hold their noses to vote for. He seemed inauthentic, a striver with an undistinguished track record and an ambition that outstripped his talents.

Brown was running on an enhanced version of the Liberal plan, giving voters a chance to choose Liberal ideas without getting the Liberals.

The new PC leader will offer that plan, but with the further improvement that they can have Brown’s plan without Brown. It just might be a winning formula.

Before the election is over, the Liberals might find themselves missing Patrick Brown more than the PCs do.