Premier Doug Ford? After this weekend, anything’s possible

“I call it a scandal.”

“Voters are outraged, disillusioned and confused. This is just another in a long line of scandals coming out of party HQ. What games are being played here?” Those quotes are from Doug Ford.

He was calling for an extension in voting for the party leadership because of what he said were serious irregularities in the voting process. He alleged a shadowy conspiracy was at play to fix the game in favour of Christine Elliott.

The party denied his request. The rest is history. After a Gong Show of a leadership convention this weekend, Ford was declared victorious. He rode the system, the same one he previously decried as corrupt, to a leadership win over Elliott.

Not surprisingly, there was no talk of scandals, no hint of anything wrong after his win. Ford and the party leadership say there’s nothing to see here. Move along.

As of yesterday, Christine Elliott wasn’t having it. She says there are serious issues concerning the geographic distribution of votes, which, if true, justifies her complaint that Ford’s victory, and his leadership, are tainted.

Former Premier Mike Harris went public telling Elliott to shut up and get in line. No doubt she will, eventually.

But what if her claim is true? What if the man who could easily be premier after June 7 gained his leadership through a broken or even fraudulent process?

Make no mistake: Ford has a very good shot at running Ontario after the next election. The party that made a laughable mockery of its own leadership contest could be the government.

Their odds of winning would have been much better had they chosen Elliott, a political veteran with established conservative credentials. But thanks to the current government being 14 years long-in-the-tooth, with a leader who can’t shake low popularity ratings, the Ford-led PCs have a better-than-even shot.

The one-term Toronto councillor has an undeniable populist appeal, like a more famous and successful millionaire populist who now inhabits the White House.

Ford doesn’t care much about policy. He seems to care most about his own narrative — the outsider, here to drain the swamp, to stand up for the little guy — although he will do so wearing expensive suits befitting a millionaire industrialist who got his start taking over his father’s successful factory.

If there’s an upside to this debacle, it’s that voters will have a clear and distinct choice on election day. The PCs, who should now drop the progressive from their name in the interest of honesty, are a socially conservative, libertarian-leaning party — and they have momentum, at least so far.

But could Ford really become premier? Could Ontarians actually endorse as leader a man who will do nothing on climate change, allowing the federal government to step in and impose a carbon tax? A man and party who want to roll back modernization of sex education in publicly-funded schools? A man who is on the record as saying he would accept reopening debate on women’s reproductive rights?

Surely it’s one thing to convince enough party members that right-wing populism is a viable political alternative, but another to convince Ontarians overall?

To all those questions, we offer this two-word answer: Donald Trump.

Make no mistake: Ford has a very good shot at running Ontario after the next election.