What happened to those 1,600,000 PC votes?

In the aftermath of Meech Lake, the shattered old Progressive Conservative organization was a zombie – dead, but still staggering around. Mulroney had lost two-thirds of his record-breaking mandate, and gone from 211 seats down to 2!

Yet with Charest as leader, the PC’s could still command 2,400,000 million votes in 1997.

But the organization had lost its soul. The people who carried the traditions had been marginalized by Mulroney’s crowd. When the question of succession came up, the senior Tories bailed out. It was left to Kim Campbell.

She was given the helm of a sinking ship, and she promptly went looking for an iceberg. When the Tories finally gurgled down to 2 seats, the party didn’t even have a presence in the House anymore.

It was the greatest political defeat in Canadian history.

With Joe Clark as leader, the PC’s pulled only 1,600,000 votes and the bells were tolling. Within three years, Joe Clark was sidelined, David Orchard was narrowly prevented from taking over the party, and the new leader, Peter Mackay, had endured his humiliation as the price of his elevation.

Mackay could see the direction things were going in. He had the good sense to merge his party with its once-bitterly hated foe, the Canadian Alliance. Political competition returned to Canada.

Our question for today: what happened to those 1,600,000 PC votes in the 2004 election?

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TO BE CONTINUED …