VIBERT: TORIES READY TO REGROUP AND HIT RESET

These aren’t your granddaddy’s Tories.

Eight months after throwing a gut-churning election night scare into Nova Scotia’s governing Liberals, the don’t-forget-to-say-progressive Conservatives are reeling into Halifax this weekend, leaderless and emotional.

Just 10 days ago, the party suddenly lost leader Jamie Baillie to a reported incident of sexual harassment. Pictou East MLA and caucus chairwoman Karla MacFarlane was named interim party leader and became leader of the Opposition.

Last week, before officially entering the race to succeed Baillie, Sydney Mayor Cecil Clarke went public with his sexual orientation to blunt subterranean homophobic attacks.

Someone was reportedly threatening to crawl out from under a rock long enough to “out” the mayor and former MLA.

Clarke’s candour drew plaudits from the two MLAS already in the race, Tory Finance critic Tim Houston (Pictou East) and John Lohr, (Kings North) whose critic responsibilities include labour and agriculture. The party’s health critic and Cumberland North MLA, Elizabeth Smith-mcCrossin, will make her leadership bid official early this week.

So there will be at least four announced candidates for Tories to size up at their annual meet- ing Feb. 9-11 at Halifax’s Westin Nova Scotian hotel, where all 310 rooms are sold out. A few other possible contenders may still be testing the waters, and there’s no better place to do that than in the hospitality suites at the old Nova Scotian.

Former MLA and education minister Judy Streatch is rumoured to be considering a run. The Musquodoboit Valley native and Chester-area resident might be as close as the Tories get to filling the metro-gap in the leadership contest. Halifax PR executive Rob Batherson, a pastpresident of the party and arguably the most prominent Tory in the capital area, has decided against a run. A political resurgence in seat-rich Halifax County is essential for the Tories to reclaim a government they held for 38 of the past 60 years.

The shocking news of Baillie’s fall from grace will cast a heavy pall over the annual meeting, where the party will try to turn the page and move on.

Baillie had announced in November he was stepping down after leading the party through two elections, outperforming expectations both times and taking the party from life-support to a 19- member- strong opposition caucus in the 51-seat legislature.

This annual meeting was going to celebrate his contributions as party leader and officially kick off the leadership campaign to replace him. The celebratory mood will be muted, if not silenced, as party stalwarts try to come to terms with the nature of Baillie’s political end.

While he didn’t win over enough of the general electorate to form a government, Baillie was extremely popular and respected within the party. Delegates to the annual meeting will be dealing with a range of emotions from grief to anger, and the salacious details of their fallen leader’s alleged transgression will be shared in hushed conversations and embellished by those who want people to think they are “in the know.”

Revelation that Baillie may have contravened the legislature’s workplace harassment policy and his immediate resignation moved the leadership race to the front burner. The format and rules used to elect the next leader will be announced at the annual meeting.

The party has already limited each candidate’s spending to $350,000 but has yet to decide how it will conduct the election.

One- member- one- vote elections for party leaders have become favoured in recent years. Parties like the open and democratic positioning that comes with allowing all party members a direct vote, and selling memberships during a leadership race is good for party coffers and offers a ready list of campaign volunteers. The Tories will almost certainly give every member a direct vote.

But old-time political insiders will tell you a delegated convention offers the height of political drama and intrigue, particularly in a wide-open race like this one with at least four choices. Convention floor arm-twisting and deals cut under the bleachers are the stuff of political lore.

How ever the Tories decide to elect their next leader, it will happen this year. Baillie’s abrupt and ignominious departure creates political urgency to put a new face on Nova Scotia’s PCS, particularly given the proximity to power the party attained in last May’s election.

Before Baillie, every full-time Tory leader back to the 1950s has also been Nova Scotia’s premier, so it is still the hottest political job vacancy in the province.