{"id":62012,"date":"2017-01-05T12:01:19","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T12:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/?p=62012"},"modified":"2017-01-05T12:01:19","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T12:01:19","slug":"the-big-winner-of-the-conservative-leadership-race-so-far-justin-trudeau-robyn-urback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/the-big-winner-of-the-conservative-leadership-race-so-far-justin-trudeau-robyn-urback.html","title":{"rendered":"The big winner of the Conservative leadership race so far \u2014 Justin Trudeau: Robyn Urback"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>I can only imagine the prime minister&#8217;s delight upon hearing the news \u2014\u00a0wherever he is (Nassau? Is that still <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">a secret<\/a>?) \u2014\u00a0that Conservative leadership candidate Lisa Raitt has <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">launched a website<\/a> attacking not-yet-leadership candidate Kevin O&#8217;Leary. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Raitt, who was pegged early on by Ottawa-types as a leadership front-runner, said she started<\/span> <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">StopKevinOleary.com<\/a> so that &#8220;people will understand what they&#8217;re getting&#8221; with O&#8217;Leary as a candidate. The move came about a week after a spatula-wielding O&#8217;Leary promised to &#8220;scrape the crap&#8221; out of Ottawa \u2014 a slogan that is as gross-sounding as it is grievously unoriginal.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Conservative leadership contenders spend more time agreeing than debating<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>Raitt&#8217;s website will afford her a fleeting wave of attention, to be hijacked by whatever campaign promise Kellie Leitch next decides to steal from Donald Trump. (How about a wall between Canada and Mexico, Kellie? It doesn&#8217;t need to make sense \u2014 just go with it.) <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, not only are these vacuous gestures a welcome distraction from some of the issues he hoped to leave behind at the end of 2016 \u2014 his <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">cash-for-access dinners<\/a>, his <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">pipeline quagmire<\/a>, his government&#8217;s <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">handling of the electoral reform<\/a> file, to name a few \u2014 but they also help to sustain the notion that not a single candidate among the Conservatives&#8217; cast of candidates poses a plausible challenge to his\u00a0second term. Not yet, anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Trudeau&#8217;s popularity<\/h2>\n<p><span>The prime minister&#8217;s popularity remains\u00a0remarkably strong even after a year in office (despite a drop near the end of 2016), with an approval rating hovering around 55 per cent. So far, his potential challengers from the Conservative corner include nearly a dozen names that 55 per cent of Canadians probably couldn&#8217;t identify, as well as two (or likely two) cheaply produced Canadian versions of Trump, who are like the store-brand cola you only buy because it&#8217;s on deep discount. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Pundits have taken to reminding smug Canadians that a Trump-style upset could happen here \u2014 and that&#8217;s certainly possible\u2014 but Trump had the good fortune of facing off against a deeply flawed, disliked candidate who was perceived as an extension of an eight-year regime, not against a well-liked single-term prime minister in a country with a nagging congeniality complex. Still, it&#8217;s not beyond the realm of possibility that someone like Trump could pose a real challenge to Trudeau. But then, remember that &#8220;someone like Trump&#8221; tastes like budget caramel syrup and aspartame.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/6c9d1_conservative-convention-20160527.jpg\" alt=\"CONSERVATIVE CONVENTION 20160527\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Ultimately, it doesn&#8217;t matter who lands the best jab against Kevin O&#8217;Leary, above. (Jonathan Hayward\/Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p><span>For lesser-known candidates, attacking the de facto front-runner is an easy way to take over headlines for a couple hours, but it offers little by way of signing up new party members (which might very well be the winning ticket in this race, <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">as it was in Ontario<\/a>) and\u00a0affords Trudeau the respite he needs to recover from his end-of-year vulnerabilities. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span>Challenging the Liberals<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>The nature of a party leadership race necessitates a certain degree of infighting, of course, but it ultimately doesn&#8217;t matter who lands the best jab against\u00a0O&#8217;Leary\u00a0or Michael Chong (info<\/span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"> here<\/a>, for those outside of Ottawa) or Maxime Bernier (info<a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"> here<\/a>, for non-libertarians outside of Quebec)\u00a0if he or she can&#8217;t demonstrate even the slightest potential of posing a challenge to the governing Liberals.<\/p>\n<p><span>So far, the Conservative leadership race has been a relative snoozer, with a handful of good ideas eclipsed by a lack of name recognition and charisma, and a number of bad ideas amplified by celebrity and savvy political strategy. Taken together, it looks like a promising start to 2017 for Trudeau. Take an extra few days in the sun, Mr. Prime Minister: the Conservatives are here, doing your work for you. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>This column is an\u00a0opinion. For more information about our commentary section, please read this\u00a0<a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">editor&#8217;s\u00a0blog<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">our FAQ<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/opinion\/winner-conservative-race-1.3921456?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can only imagine the prime minister&#8217;s delight upon hearing the news \u2014\u00a0wherever he is (Nassau? Is that still a secret?) \u2014\u00a0that Conservative leadership candidate Lisa Raitt has launched a website attacking not-yet-leadership candidate Kevin O&#8217;Leary. Raitt, who was pegged early on by Ottawa-types as a leadership front-runner, said she started StopKevinOleary.com so that &#8220;people [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-62012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}