The Con Leadership Race Is Getting Ugly

I knew the Con leadership race was a total bust. With the desperate search for a good leader continuing, but getting nowhere.

But at least it's been peaceful, and incredibly dull...



For obvious reasons.

But now that the SoCon Andrew Scheer has joined the race, that's changing.

Now it's getting ugly.



With Kellie Leitch's campaign manager Nick "Big Nick" Kouvalis accusing Scheer of being one of the "out-of-touch elites." 

On Wednesday night, a fundraising email from Kouvalis dismissed the latest contender in the Conservative leadership race — without using Scheer’s name — as yet another member of the “elite” attacking Leitch for wanting to screen immigrants for Canadian values.

Blasting Scheer for having made his leadership announcement in the National Press Theatre.

“You didn’t read that wrong, they actually announced they were running for leader of our Party from the National Press Theatre across from Parliament Hill,” he wrote.

While doing his best to sound like Donald Trump.

 “So it shouldn’t be of any particular surprise that they immediately pandered to the whinging media hordes by attacking Kellie and her view, the view of the vast majority of our members, and that of the vast majority of Canadians, as pointed out by a recent poll, that Canada should screen immigrants for Canadian values.”

Or his Trumpling Leitch...



Only to have Scheer fire back. 

Andrew Scheer says he “perplexed” by his Conservative leadership rival Kellie Leitch’s claim that he’s guilty of ‘elitism’. 

“I certainly don’t recall being raised in an elitist household. We had a very middle-income lifestyle growing up and I’m not sure what she’s referring to. I’ll leave her to explain it,” Scheer told iPolitics in a phone interview from Saskatchewan.

Deny that he's a member of the The Elite, and leave Leitch to try to explain why she doesn't consider herself a member in good standing.

Leitch is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and an associate professor with a doctorate in medicine from the University of Toronto. She appeared repeatedly on Ontario’s Sunshine List — introduced by the Mike Harris provincial government in 1996 to disclose the incomes of high-earning individuals — before being elected and joining Stephen Harper’s cabinet. 

Leitch said that her idea of “elite” has nothing to do with income. “No. I’m not talking about an income level,” she said.



Only to sound even more like an idiot, or a shameless opportunist, who would use racism to win votes.

Even as Deepak "Mr Experience" Obhrai blasts her for fear mongering and promoting anti-Canadian values.

Conservative leadership candidate Deepak Obhrai is railing against his opponent Kellie Leitch’s proposal to screen new immigrants for “anti-Canadian values” and says the barbaric practices tipline, which she championed during the 2015 election campaign, is an example of her misplaced priorities. 

In a video posted to his campaign website, electdeepakobhrai.com, Obhrai said Leitch’s proposal to screen new immigrants is “unCanadian, anti-human rights and a misplaced priority.”

And if that isn't enough the religious fanatic Brad Trost is also causing a scandal by going after the Con honcho Guy Giorno, to pressure him to pay back his moving expenses like the Liberals.

the gist of my statement that was not approved for #QP #SO31 today #cdnpoli #cpcldr #cpcmovingexpenses #holdourselves2account pic.twitter.com/wArn7Vk6W6

— Brad Trost (@BradTrostCPC) September 26, 2016

As well as attacking the Con's Deputy House Leader Chris Warkentin, who Trost claims stopped him from delivering that statement in the Commons.

While Giorno fires back and humiliates Trost. 

In his latest lengthy Facebook rebuttal, Giorno details all Trost’s “generous perqs” as an MP and how his making use of those makes it hypocritical for him now to “impose one morality” and “practise another” — particularly since many public servants take a pay cut (and here Giorno includes himself) when they leave the private sector. 

Along the way, Giorno suggests that Trost’s annual MP salary of $170,400 is far more than he could earn outside Parliament and notes that Trost sees no problem expensing even the most trivial amount of money — like a $2.60 purchase at Dollarama in January.



And Rona Ambrose, who started the whole phony expense "scandal" runs for cover.

Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose charged taxpayers nearly $10,000 in secondary housing costs — while she was living in an official residence also paid for by the public, records from the House of Commons show.

Before she's charged with gross hypocrisy.

Leaving the ex-Con Brent Rathgeber to wonder whether the Cons need a new leader or a time-out. 

So, let’s review. We’ve got a social conservative who wants to reopen the same-sex marriage and abortion debates, and is attacking another social conservative, who is supporting a third social conservative who does not want to open those debates. All of the leadership aspirants seem opposed to Leitch’s Canadian values pitch — and one of them was attacked by her campaign manager as being an out of touch elitist for using a free press theatre to launch his leadership bid. 

Because renting an expensive hotel ballroom would, I guess, make him the salt of the earth.

And come to this bleak conclusion.

It’s going to be a long eight months. 

I never thought I would say this, but here goes: Maybe it takes an iron fist like the Stephen Harper PMO to keep this bunch in line.

Which just happens to be what I have always believed... 



It still is the Harper Party, the monster made it in his own image, and only he could hold it together, and stop the Cons from killing themselves.

Which means that Rona Ambrose should keep digging that hole.

Because the way this Con leadership race is going.

She is going to need one big enough to bury them ALL...