OTHER VIEWS Never in it to win it

So, he’s “out.” And nobody is “in” a state of shock. Kevin O’Leary’s withdrawal from the federal Conservative Party’s leadership race is no more surprising than that time he and his fellow Dragons’ Den panellists offered a collective “I’m out” to a couple of skateboarders looking for investors in an aerosol spray-on pants business.

It was ridiculous, destined to fail and one of many laughable moments in the popular CBC series that launched O’Leary to stardom in 2006 and afforded him the level of celebrity that made it possible to step into the Tory contest without having spent a day in politics.

And like that poorly planned pitch to the TV Dragons, O’Leary’s brief flirtation with becoming the Conservatives’ next prime ministerial hopeful can only be seen as having been doomed from the moment he stepped into the political den. Now that he’s out, one is left wondering what in the name of John Diefenbaker’s ghost made him consider a foray into Canadian politics in the first place.

From the outset of his candidacy, O’Leary never seemed to be taking the leadership effort seriously. He just didn’t seem to be in it to win it — if, by “win it,” one means becoming party leader and then the leader of the nation. It isn’t all that difficult to embrace the notion that this was simply an exercise in self-promotion that became too elaborate for its own good.

So it’s probably best that O’Leary has opted out, leaving things to more experienced and decidedly more committed Conservatives. Besides, what a drag it would have been to have to move out of a high-end Boston brownstone and into that musty old dump on Sussex Drive.

Winnipeg Free Press