Pierre Poilievre's Delusions of Victory

Ever since the deadline for selling Con leadership memberships came and went, Pierre Poilievre has been acting like he is already the winner.

The new King of the Cons.

His campaign is claiming that he sold more memberships than almost all the other candidates put together, in what is clearly a blatant attempt to try to turn the election into a coronation.

But many observers are not convinced that he has the numbers he claims he has, or even if all of them are really Cons.

Which is not surprising since as in all Con elections the threat of corruption hangs heavy in the air. Did many of those who bought memberships buy them to vote for Poilievre, or to vote against him?

The Con friendly pollster Tim Powers says the claim the Cons signed up 600,000 supporters sounds dubious:

Since hearing the 600,000 figure, I’ve thought often of Saddam Hussein’s legendary information minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, a.k.a. Baghdad Bob. You remember him. The most outrageous and oft-satirized propagandist who told the world Saddam’s Iraq forces were walloping its allied invaders, even as the statue of his boss was being pulled down on live television. He sold his story hard, even while sinking into a pile of turd.

Now, I am not calling the Conservative leadership race a pile of turd, nor am I saying that the global figure of 600,000 is off base. But I do have a feeling, based on past experiences, that in some leadership camps there is some Baghdad Bob-level spinning going on—whether that is about memberships sold and paths to victory—and it is not just me who feels that way.

So,what is in a number? A lot of things; some of them, however, may or may not resemble the truth.

And of course his recent bitcoin meltdown made Poilievre look even more like a dangerous fraud...

So who on earth could trust him, when he can't even count?

But the big question is whether those who did buy memberships will actually vote for Poilievre, when the time comes.

Or will many, as Gary Mason suggests, be turned off by his naked hypocrisy?

This idea of someone taking over in Ottawa and bringing the elites to their knees has obvious appeal. So when Mr. Poilievre say he’d fire the governor of the Bank of Canada and all the “gatekeepers” preventing Canadians from enjoying their true potential, the freedom fighters cheer him on. When he boasts about putting forward a private member’s bill that would “scrap all vaccine mandates and ban any and all future vaccine mandates,” they applaud even louder. 

The fact that his supporters are blind to the gross hypocrisy that underscores much of Mr. Poilievre’s public persona is just good fortune on the candidate’s part.After all, we’re talking about a career politician who qualified for a gold-plated government pension at the age of 32. He has been a wealthy, full-fledged member of the Ottawa elite since he was elected in his 20s. 

And either vote for another leadership candidate, or don't bother to vote at all.

As for Poilievre's criminally irresponsible private bill to ban all vaccine mandates...

Even Andrew Coyne can see it's just another crude attempt to firm up the support of his trucker mob buddies.

So imagine what Canadians are going to think about Poilievre's bizarre attempt to pretend that climate change isn't a threat, as the days get hotter and hotter.

Or imagine what they will think when an inquiry exposes the way he helped the trucker terrorists who tried to overthrow a Canadian government.

The Toronto Star editorial board has this warning.

At the moment he is riding a tiger. It looks like it’s carrying him to the Conservative leadership, but he’s feeding forces that he may not be able to control down the road.

It’s time for Poilievre to get serious and make clear where he stands on all this. Becoming leader of one of the country’s national parties carries with it great responsibility. Fuelling fringe theories and casting doubt on whether he would fight a future pandemic fails that test spectacularly.

But since I don't believe Poilievre can change, when you add it all up it should provide Canadians with a real easy choice, when the next federal election finally arrives:

Thanks to his far right extremism, and his contempt for our Canadian values, Poilievre and his ghastly Cons have made the next election a referendum on whether we want to remain who we are.

They will find out that we do.

And it will mark the beginning of the end of the Harper Party...