TORIES GO OUT ON A LIMB SELECTING FORD AS LEADER

ONTARIO’S PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVES REALLY have to hope the anyone-but-Wynne movement sweeping the province really means anyone.

In picking Doug Ford as the party’s new leader, the Tories are really putting voters to the test. They, and many Ontarians, may even end up wishing they’d stuck with Patrick Brown instead.

Supporters are taking great pains to stress that Ford is not his brother, the late Rob Ford, who’s many personal demons played out very publically during his time as mayor of Toronto. We may not be treated to videos of a substance-addled Ford talking out of school ... or simply talking gibberish, but the comparisons will persist. And there is plenty of video of the elder Ford being less than politically correct.

Atop the list will be his defences of the younger Ford’s mayoralty, along with the brothers’ short-lived show on the equally short-lived Sun News Network.

Then there are the comparisons to one Donald J. Trump. That’s almost its own meme these days, but there are similarities, from being born on third base and inheriting daddy’s money to the crude, everyman persona. As with Trump, Ford also courted religious and social conservative groups, though without the dog-whistle issues much more prevalent in the U.S.

The comparison also extends to the last American election, in which the Democrats picked the one person – Hillary Clinton – who could possibly lose an election to the bombastic Trump.

This is all manna for Wynne and NDP leader Andrea Horwath.

While Ford has remained relatively low key – at least for him – we’ve got a few months until the provincial election. Handlers will be trying to keep him under wraps, concentrating on policy and playing up the very prevalent anti-Wynne Liberal sentiment. As with Trump, no good will come of the leader going off script.

The PCs will also be moving quickly to heal the internal rifts. If getting rid of Brown was an internal putsch, it’s almost certainly backfired. Worse still, the selection process for a new leader – admittedly rushed – had problems. And the reputed frontrunner, Christine Elliott, won more ridings and votes than Ford, though lost the leadership under the formula devised by the party (shades of the Trump/Clinton divide in 2016). Very few of the party’s MPPs and candidates backed Ford.

All of that adds up to the Tories having a few hills to climb even before we go to the polls June 7. As for the voters, we’re already not overly impressed. The Conservatives still top opinion polls – Wynne is simply reviled – so the party has that going for it. But the voters Ford courted as the kind who were already going to vote PC. But a survey prior to last weekend’s leadership contest found that for every middle-ground (i.e. not an already decided partisan) voter Ford could win over, two were less likely to vote Conservative as an alternative.

That’s where Wynne – counting on the vote of the bought and-paid for civil servants and Ontarians not paying attention to the scandals, corruption and incompetence – hopes to see opposition votes split between the Tories and the NDP, letting the Liberals crawl up the middle.

In choosing Ford, the Progressive Conservatives may have handed Wynne a gift – another four years of making things worse for Ontario – which is certainly pas un cadeaux for the rest of us.