This week the Conservatives elected Erin O’Toole as their new leader and one political commentator says his approach is much different than his right wing counterpart south of the border.
Jeffrey Meyers, lecturer at Thompson Rivers Uuniversity, says the new Tory leader is trying to appeal to a much broader group than U.S. President Donald Trump is. “I think it’s a bit hard to draw the comparison there because remember, this conservative leadership race that just completed in Canada.”
Meyers says this Conservative Party leadership is unlike past races. “I mean it was four people effectively and people are ranking their ballots so, the way in which those have shaken out, they do have to reflect the kind of big tent question of sort of social conservative versus perhaps more libertarian or center right folks.”
“But the presence of four people in there really complicates things in terms of how they vote.
He says O’Toole adapted his strategy from three years ago. “In the case of the new leader Erin O’Toole, I mean I think he’s been criticized in some quarters for being in 2017 I think it was when the last leadership race went for presenting himself for changing from being a sort of conservative kind of figure to being more of a centrist kind of figure, sort of flip-flopping in terms of making the best of his electoral situation.”
Meyers admits this kind of thing isn’t all that uncommon. “That’s normally what candidates do both in general elections and sometimes at the end of leadership campaigns, they triangulate.”
“They try to be all things to everybody but the idea that your core constituency is what sort of motivates you in a general election, that’s been the gambit of the Trump administration, they sort of just rely on the intensity of their base.”
“Usually that’s not enough, you have to cobble together some kind of coalition, but if you have a depressed outcome for the base on the other side, for whatever reason, whether it’s because the electorate is sexist and there’s somebody divisive like Hillary Clinton or because Joe Biden doesn’t motivate young people or whatever, but you’ve got this rabid base, sometimes that can work.”
“That’s been the the play book for Donald Trump and it’s upset the apple cart in terms how these things normally work.
The new Conservative leader will be on the NL Morning News with Friday at 8:40 am.
