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Tim Hudak wins PC leadership - Who Will Be Premier in 2011?

Who Do You Prefer to Be Premier in 2011?

  • Dalton McGuinty (Liberal)

    Votes: 32 72.7%
  • Tim Hudak (Conservative)

    Votes: 8 18.2%
  • Andrea Horwath (NDP)

    Votes: 2 4.5%
  • Frank de Jong (Green Party)

    Votes: 2 4.5%

  • Total voters
    44

jks

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Tim Hudak is the new PC party leader

Be afraid! What were they thinking though?? This guy is exactly like Mike Harris, and we all remember what came of that.

Hudak is new Tory leader

TONY BOCK/TORONTO STAR
Conservative MPP Tim Hudak listens as his victory in the Conservative leadership race is announced, June 27, 2009. With him are wife Debbie and daughter Miller, 20 months.
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Will Ontario Tory race seal Jim Flaherty's fate?
Ottawa Conservatives have a slightly different perspective on today's choice of a new Ontario Conservative leader. For the nation's ruling party, replacing John Tory is partly, but far from exclusively, about Jim Flaherty.
Election is seen as move back toward Harris era, away from Tory's centrism

Progressive Conservatives today elected Niagara-area MPP Tim Hudak as their new leader, charting a new right-wing course for a party that has struggled while moored in the political centre for the past seven years.

In a third-ballot victory at the PC convention in Markham, Hudak, 41, bested MPP Frank Klees, 58, (Newmarket-Aurora), winning 5,606 of 10,250 electoral votes cast in 107 ridings in the preferential-ballot contest.

The married father of a toddler won by securing the second-choice votes of also-ran MPPs Christine Elliott, 54, (Whitby-Oshawa) and Randy Hillier, 51, (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington).

He will lead the Tories to battle against Premier Dalton McGuinty Liberals in the 2011 election.

Heir apparent to former premier Mike Harris, who governed Ontario from 1995 until 2002, Hudak plans to steer the party back to the right following politically unsuccessful forays to the centre by former premier Ernie Eves, leader from 2002 to 2004, and John Tory, who led from 2004 until his surprise defeat in a March 5 by-election in Haliburton.

Hudak, front-runner throughout the campaign, led on all three ballots in the contest, which ended up being something of an "Anybody But Klees" vote.

After the second ballot at the party's convention this afternoon in Markham, Hudak had secured 4,128 of 10,332 electoral votes.

Klees, a social conservative who was backed by a coalition of evangelical Christians, anti-abortion activists, and new Canadians, sat in a second with 3,299 electoral votes and Elliott was third with 2,903.

Senior Elliott campaign sources had told the Star that her supporters would break "two to one for Hudak."

Elliott herself remained publicly neutral after dropping out.

"There are two good candidates left in the race," she said as she exited the convention room floor with her husband Finance Minister Jim Flaherty at her side.

"Of course, you always want to win but I am happy with how the campaign went and the race we ran," said Elliott, who put on a brave face.

On the first ballot, announced around 11 a.m., Hudak — the heir apparent to former premier Mike Harris in whose cabinet he served -- finished with 3,511 of 10,348 electoral votes cast from 107 ridings. Klees had 3,093 and Elliott had 2,728.

Prior to the voting last Sunday and Thursday, Hillier, who received just 1,013 electoral votes, had instructed his supporters to make Hudak their second choice in the preferential-ballot election.

"I'm happy with my showing," said Hillier, who largely defined the policy debate during the campaign with his passionate libertarian views.

"I voted for Tim as my second choice," he said.

The leadership of the party opened up after former party chief John Tory unexpectedly lost a March 5 by-election in Haliburton.

In a stirring address to the convention, Tory, who is mulling a 2010 bid against Mayor David Miller for the Toronto mayoralty, urged the party to come together after a divisive several years.

Some 25,429 of 43,000 eligible Tories voted in the contest across Ontario.
 
So this dude won the party leadership. So what. They're not going to be in power any time soon. WE're still smarting from the Harris "legacy", then the Eves fiasco. PLease. This Hudak won't even smell the Premier's office.
 
So this dude won the party leadership. So what. They're not going to be in power any time soon. WE're still smarting from the Harris "legacy", then the Eves fiasco. PLease. This Hudak won't even smell the Premier's office.

People easily forget. Remember Conservative Mulroney? Never again we said. Remember that Stephen Harper was part of the Alliance, the extreme right wing party? The same Stephen Harper is Prime Minister today.

As it stands now, McGuinty has proven to be a very capable and progressive Premier, maintaining popularity with the logical/reasonable electorate. Of course he'll never get votes from the right wingnuts but if he keeps the boat steady, McGuinty could win handedly against Harris The II in 2011... but never say never.
 
Harper never sold himself as a Mulroney protege ... which is what Hudak is doing. Harper sold himself as being very different than Mulroney. He also has never achived a majority government, preventing the kind of wholesale change he seeks. Nor does it look like he'll get it, based on the polls.

McGuinty and the Liberals must be laughing themselves silly! A centrist or left-wing Tory who doesn't have his foot always in his mouth would be a difficult challenge.
 
People easily forget. Remember Conservative Mulroney? Never again we said. Remember that Stephen Harper was part of the Alliance, the extreme right wing party? The same Stephen Harper is Prime Minister today.


They'll probably put out attack ads reminding people of the Harris years:rolleyes:. Besides its kind of hard to forget how much of a nightmare Mike Harris was. I would rather have the NDP win government than a Mike Harris clone.
 
They'll probably put out attack ads reminding people of the Harris years:rolleyes:. Besides its kind of hard to forget how much of a nightmare Mike Harris was. I would rather have the NDP win government than a Mike Harris clone.

Yes and so I put forward that the majority of people in Ontario agree with you CodeMonkey, hence no Cons in power any time soon provincially. As if having Harris support Hudak is a selling point. It literally terrifies most people.

Harris being a conservative should have solved fiscal problems not created them.
 
in general, one problem i notice with people who are fiscal conservatives is that they'll save some money in the short term through some action but end up losing money/having to spend more money in the future as a result of that cost saving action in the past.

remember that episode of the simpsons when homer's basement was flooded and he didn't want to pay the plumber for that washer that just cost a few cents?
 
Oh brother. Here we go again.
If its not one its the other though. You can't win for lose in politics.
There should be a better way to do things. One would think we would have come up with it already.
 
There should be a better way to do things. One would think we would have come up with it already.

There certainly is, but politicians are motivated by staying in power, not doing what's right for society.
 
I would rather have the NDP win government than a Mike Harris clone.
Tough call (assuming we're talking about a Bob Rae clone), but I would have to reluctantly agree.

Maybe if David Peterson hadn't been erred by calling that snap election, we wouldn't have had either.
 
Ey Semour, This is true. But hay, Job security right? lol. Well if you cant beat them join them. MAybe we should all try our hand at politics. Wonder what that would look like...
 
Ey Semour, This is true. But hay, Job security right? lol. Well if you cant beat them join them. MAybe we should all try our hand at politics. Wonder what that would look like...

That'd be cool, yeah a career in politics..... (check out the movie Blindness based on a book by Jose Saramago, it's a metaphor for what people do with power )
 
Yah it would. But I wouldnt be able to do it. there cant ever really be an honest politician lol, So id fail...
 

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