Did John Tory get enough votes to stay in as leader?

You forget that the voters will actually turn out for a real righty.

A better question is: If Dion had to face a leadership review, would he even get 50%?

Well Raphael, It’s obvious you haven’t read up enough on your party’s history, and I repeat my suggestion you go read up on it.

And I do read a lot of blogs, thanks very much, though I do tend to stay away from the whacko fringe right-wing blogs (which unfortunately take up 80% or more of the Blogging Tory blogroll nowadays), and if that’s what the whackos want, they’re deluded - sorry to see you’re sharing in their delusion into thinking a hard right-winger will win. That right-wing leader will get crushed. Ontarions learned their lesson from Harris  and won’t repeat that mistake -  leaders who are too extreme aren’t and won’t be desired in this province.

But, I won’t go out of my way to convince the fringe that they’re out of their minds. I prefer to keep them in the political wilderness where they can do no harm.

For those calling for another Red Tory, there are some things to remember:

There are 17 seats in Ontario held by the Conservatives federally and Liberals provincially (and they are scattered all across the province from Windsor to Hawkesbury). With a couple exceptions (i.e. Baird’s seat), all are held by strong conservatives who are well to the right of Stephen Harper. Yet they couldn’t get out to vote for the mostly Red Tories in the John Tory camp.

There are only a handful of seats where the reverse holds true - and only one (Kitchener-Waterloo) lies outside the GTA.

If they have a more populist and conservative leader, while they may get creamed in Toronto, they will more likely get those 17 seats back and could make gains elsewhere, like in northern Ontario where Reform/Alliance support was higher than even Mike Harris support.

From a Liberal perspective, the fact Tory said the party needed to turn right is pure gold.  If Tory is forced to appease the nuts like Hillier, he will alienate any appeal he had with moderates and that will ultimately be his death sentence in any future election.  About the only rationale for Tory in the first place is because he was a supposed different sort of conservative.

" If they have a more populist and conservative leader, while they may get creamed in Toronto, they will more likely get those 17 seats back and could make gains elsewhere, like in northern Ontario where Reform/Alliance support was higher than even Mike Harris support."

Do yourself a favour Blue Dog Tory and dump Harper ASAP.  Replace him with someone like Flaherty, Baird, and Stockwell Day.  Make immigration the key issue in the next federal election.   Harper is stuck in the mid 30s.  The others can do much better.

"He was not elected and reelected because he was right of centre. He was elected because Ontarians were sick and tired of arrogant (Liberal’s Peterson) and lying (NDP’s Rae) politicians who said one thing and did another once elected. If it was a left-right thing, Harris would never have won two majorities since the majority of Ontarians are in the middle (where almost all Conservative premiers including Bill Davis were)."

Mississauga Joan has revealed in this comment Mike Harris’ successes.  Ontarians relate to him, compared to others.  They have trouble relating to the Larry Grossman, John Tory crew.  Posh, privilege Bay Street elitist.  McGuinty with his Family Day appeal goes well with Ontario.  If John Tory is opposed to Family Day because small business owners don’t want to pay overtime to their employees, then the Ontario PCs deserve to keep its wheels spinning.