Well, that ended a whole lot more interesting than it started! Upstart Patrick Brown defeated deputy leader Christine Elliott in a 11 month campaign.  It was like an American primary.  Party President, Richard Ciano, did not disappoint those eagerly awaiting the results with a riding-by-riding announcement of results.  By about the 10th riding, the results so clearly indicated that this was going to be a landslide win – and it was!  Some 40,000 party members cast ballots over two days to determine the winner.  Democracy can be both glorious for the victor and vicious for the defeated.

In the end of it all, the kind of leadership race that I had hoped for – one where there would be a contestation of ideas – simply didn’t materialize.  Elliott ran a classic front runner campaign by focusing on elite endorsements and advocating for a turn to the political centre.  There is a big problem in running a front runner campaign when you’re not the front runner.  And, when your voters believe the very people that are the problem are those very elites who are giving the endorsements, it gives those voters a sense that Elliott’s campaign was disconnected with the people she was trying to win over.  Brown’s victory, on the other hand, focused on getting boots on the ground and reaching out to disenfranchised conservatives and to new Canadians as well.  Brown stunned observers with his massive membership haul that led to the growth of party membership to 74000 members.  And, we’re told, another 2000 have joined since the end of February.

I predicted a much closer race.  My prediction of a close race was also laden with a whole lot of fear.  A close race, I feared, would lead to a deeply divided party.  As of the Friday before the convention, both camps felt that their candidate still had a shot.  This was the evidence I used to make my prediction of a close result.  However, that’s not what happened.  In fact, 4 out of 5 ridings were won by Brown, and many of those ridings were landslide victories.  While many Elliott supporters will be disappointed with the result, it’s a result that was so profound that any muttering about disunity would automatically place dissenters on the wrong side of history.  Some may be tempted to look elsewhere, but everyone owes Brown the opportunity to see how he manages himself and the party over the near term.

A few months ago, I mentioned that a party that secured 1.5 million votes was not a party that was in dramatically terrible shape.  In fact, what the party needs to do is have a thorough debate about how it can attract some 300,000 more people to vote for it.  Elliott and Brown didn’t really debate this point.  They just answered this question by their actions.  For Elliott, becoming more centrist was a place where we could potentially find those new voters.  For Brown, his answer was reaching out to ethnic and religious voters.  He managed to sign up 10% of the number needed to vote for us as new members, and they helped him win the leadership.  In the end, the choice couldn’t be more pronounced, not because of any massive policy disagreement, but in their approach to the leadership.

With Brown as leader, the PCs now look to form a new electoral coalition.  Back during Hudak’s reign, we always used to talk about the tens of thousands of voters who voted for both Harper and McGuinty. It’s a strange alliance of voters, and we had some difficulty understanding who they were.  Brown seems to have figured out what that coalition of voters looks like, and what needs to happen to give those people a home in the Ontario PC Party.  At least that much was true during the leadership race.  Whether it will last will be Brown’s true test.

The other true test is to see whether Liberal/Working Family branding will stick to Brown.  Groups spending millions to demonize an individual have proven effective, and they’re already out calling Patrick Brown a “tea-party fundamentalist.”  I’m not sure how that will stick.  Brown has suggested that he will not reopen divisive social issues. He has made alliances with key public sector workers during his leadership campaign.  He hasn’t advocated for radically downsizing of government.  All of these things defy the “tea party” moniker.

In the end, members took back their party. Where it will end up in 3 years is hard to sort out, but I wouldn’t count Brown out.  The party is gambling that its new face and approach will pay dividends at the polls.  Brown will have to carefully balance his desire for changing the party and keeping the ship that exists together.  Voters will be watching to see if he has the stuff to lead.  Conservatives watch to see if they finally can return to power.  Things are interesting indeed.