Tory’s Tories: Group Hug Or Else?

I know that infighting isn’t looked upon kindly within the conservative parts of Canada these days, what with the recent 13-year Liberal situation which was caused by the division of what is now the Conservative Party of Canada but I don’t think anyone sheds any tears about the arguments made against David Orchard back in the day or people like Belinda Stronach or Keith Martin. They were, of course, the easy cases for our hindsight vision, with all of them formally confessing the Liberalism that many of us knew was buried not so deep inside.

This accusation has also been directed John Tory’s way, first when he was fighting in the 2004 leadership campaign and now that he is insisting on continuing at leader, no matter the consequences. Indeed, we probably wouldn’t have seen Tory become a Liberal if one of his opponents got the crown instead of him, but the only reason I can be assured of that is because of his closeness to the Bill Davis establishment in the party and not because of anything the man represents himself.

The argument goes that Tory is void of any principle and is actually quite the egomaniac (something that has been evident to anyone who has followed his career). Tory apologists strongly deny this, and also attack anyone who dares to speak out these days against the leader-in-limbo as being disloyal to the PC Party.

Case in Point: Meet Joan Tintor, Tory apologist and self-appointed defender of the PC Party’s image. Joan just finished a post today of *how dare they*s claiming that the Yes campaign is hurting the party by accusing the Grassroots PC campaign of agreeing with McGuinty on something. Now, aside from the irony of a pro-Tory individual claiming that the other side is too cozy with the McGuinty government or that the release she quotes doesn’t confirm such an accusation, Joan also goes on at length about how members are hurting the party by not agreeing with the implied argument that anything, ANYTHING the McGuinty government does is either inherently wrong or not enough. Apparently Dalton’s government, despite winning a second majority, is the first in history to do everything wrong in four years! Imagine if this were true; what would that say about the alternative people saw in John Tory then?

Of course Joan, thanks to your guy, we’ve got another three-and-a-half years of McGuinty as of today; I don’t think that a past-president of the PC Party agreeing that McGuinty did some obscure thing properly (and the release does not clearly state that!) will cost us the election in the same way that John Tory’s leader-knows-best platform full ‘o’ gems did. Maybe if Tory let us vote on that stuff in June, your crew wouldn’t have to be going through this stresses of this review right now. But he did, and as a real leader, U.S. President Truman, stated on his desk: “the buck stops here”. It was from Tory’s desk that the campaign staff appointments, the policies and the strategies came from, not to mention the verbal gaffes or this. Maybe when the Tory Tory crowd can properly convince the rest of us, PCs and general public, that Tory isn’t as inept as we all saw him as during the past 12 months, then you guys can play Chicken Little and claim that every deviation from the John Tory Script hurts our chances of getting a PC government in Ontario.