{"id":330,"date":"2005-05-08T02:13:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-08T06:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=330"},"modified":"2005-05-08T02:13:00","modified_gmt":"2005-05-08T06:13:00","slug":"belinda-mania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"Belinda Mania"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: <\/em><\/strong>If you got to this page on google, looking for the latest on Belinda’s defection<\/strong><\/a>, go here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now that the Liberals are back up in the polls, the speculation has shifted from replacing Paul to replacing Steve. And that\u2019s fair enough. While Martin has lusted for power his entire life, I get the sense that Stephen Harper\u2019s internal monologue on most days would be something like:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy on earth do I have to shake hands and smile and talk to people\u2026I hate people. And why am I doing this? I\u2019m a smart guy, I\u2019ve made the party moderate, and I\u2019ve got an incompetent ditherer with the biggest scandal in our lifetimes as an opponent and I still can\u2019t crack 30% in the polls\u2026this is absolutely ridiculous! It\u2019s not worth the time, effort and half an hour it takes me every morning to get my hair looking so spectacular for this\u2026\u201d
<\/em>
So I think it\u2019s safe to say he\u2019ll quietly walk away if he loses the election. Which raises the obvious succession question and hence all the Belinda talk of late<\/a>. Now, I\u2019m not overly plugged in to the Tory ground war but I figure I\u2019ll give a quick run down of the contenders for leadership as I see them \u2013 mainly since I\u2019m starting to get a little tired of writing posts on polls and election speculation. Any Conservatives who know more than myself are invited to weigh in with their thoughts.<\/p>\n

Heavy Weights<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Peter MacKay \u2013 I know I\u2019m going against the popular train of thought, but I think Ken has a much better chance to win than Barbie. I just can\u2019t imagine the hard right Conservative members backing her whereas they might be willing to compromise on MacKay. The Orchard deal will hurt him but at least it shows he\u2019s cutthroat enough to win.<\/p>\n

2. Bernard Lord \u2013 I\u2019m firmly convinced that Bernard Lord would be Prime Minister today and Paul Martin would be milking cows on the Martin farm had Bernie decided to throw his hat in the ring for the Tory leadership last year. Admittedly, you can count the number of premiers who have successfully jumped to federal politics on one amputated hand but he\u2019s the best they have. The only reason I don\u2019t have him at the top of the list is because of the unstable minority government they have in New Brunswick right now.<\/p>\n

3. Insane Right Winger To Be Named Later \u2013 I\u2019m not sure who it will be, but this party has a reputation for shooting themselves in the foot. I think there are enough grass roots Conservatives who either don\u2019t care about winning or haven\u2019t learned their lesson from the Stockwell Day\/Stephen Harper fiascos. I could see a strong groundswell of support for\u2026Stockwell Day. Don\u2019t laugh. Rick Mercer will endorse him, I\u2019m sure. Jason Kenney is another guy I wouldn\u2019t count out. The never married 36 year old\u2019s strong fight for the traditional definition of marriage could play well among a lot of the grass roots members.<\/p>\n

4. Belinda Stronach \u2013 Yeah, she\u2019s good looking and very moderate which would finally put all this \u201chidden agenda\u201d nonsense to bed. And seeing the Canadian Prime Minister in the US tabloids would be kind of cool. But I just can\u2019t see Belinda succeeding until she:
a) learns French
b) learns how to give a speech without reading it word for word from a paper
c) shows she\u2019s got some smarts and\/or political savvy
And, like I said, I can\u2019t see the old Alliance crowd supporting her.<\/p>\n

Great candidates who likely won\u2019t run<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Moore \u2013 This guy is a future PM. Very smart, very well spoken, right where he needs to be right and left where he needs to be left. He\u2019s likely too young to win this time but keep an eye on him, he\u2019s going places.<\/p>\n

Rona Ambrose \u2013 Belinda\u2019s looks and Harper\u2019s smarts. She\u2019s not seen as a fanatical Alliance lunatic but is still conservative enough that the old Reformers might back her. She\u2019s a bit of an unknown but I think she\u2019s got a very bright future.<\/p>\n

Monte Solberg \u2013 Deserves it, if only because his blog <\/a>is one million times more interesting than \u201cPaul\u2019s blog\u201d from when Martin ran for leadership.<\/p>\n

Weak candidates who just might run<\/strong>
<\/strong>
Jim Prentice \u2013 His SSM stand makes him seem more moderate but I just can\u2019t see him finishing ahead of the other \u201cmoderate\u201d candidates. And I know he\u2019s really despised by a lot of Conservatives in Calgary.<\/p>\n

Tony Clement \u2013 Seems to enjoy losing so much that he might just give it another try. Plus, I\u2019m sure he\u2019s closing in on the record for political defeats in a three year span.<\/p>\n

Rahim Jaffer \u2013 If nothing else, he\u2019d have a great attendance record in Question Period as Prime Minister since his assistant could impersonate him on days Rahim is too busy to attend.<\/p>\n

Interesting Names\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mike Harris
Jean Charest
Mario Dumont
Gordon Campbell<\/p>\n

Just throwing them out there for discussion. And I\u2019ve opened up the comments section of this blog to everyone so comment away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: If you got to this page on google, looking for the latest on Belinda’s defection, go here. Now that the Liberals are back up in the polls, the speculation has shifted from replacing Paul to replacing Steve. And that\u2019s fair enough. While Martin has lusted for power his entire life, I get the sense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}