Who takes the hit for Tory Tumble ? Will heads’roll?
John Tory took the hit for screwing up the last election by sticking to his guns on funding faith based schools. Voters not only rejected the policy but rejected him as well. He promptly stepped down after failing to win his own seat. But who will take the hit this time? The Leader? or the campaign team who put together the ” change book ” strategy that fizzled ?
I spoke to one of the senior Conservative fundraisers about 3 hours before the polls closed and he was not a happy camper. Although he still optimistically thought the seat count could split more closely than it turned out, he was clearly PO’ed. ” they just couldn’t find the message ” he said. The ” they ” he was referring to, is the campaign team who gets a lot of money from him to execute a winning strategy.
In the political game, fundraisers sit at the table , but don’t necessarily set the policy. In many cases, ( not all ) they are given token attention by the centre to feel important to the process but are not considered qualified strategists when it comes to policy or execution. In this case, he told me he’d be looking for answers because he’ll have to provide some to the thousands who contributed cash towards what they thought would be a sure Conservative victory after two Liberal Terms.
6 months ago, my fundraising acquaintance was so sure that Conservatives would win that his main concern was that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford would screw something up badly enough to taint the Provincial Conservative brand. Ford, in his view , in this case , is not the culprit.
So who is ? Who made the decision to stay with the ” tax man ” advertising theme long after it became evident that it wasn’t sticking and wasn’t working? Who made the decision to spend so much time, energy and advertising money criticizing Mcguinty’soffer of a tax credit to help foreign trained professionals to get a job? and who thought putting shackles on prisoners was more worth talking about than jobs and the economy?
I don’t have the answer here, not yet, but I got a clear signal from the fundraiser guy that he intends to find out – and soon. Stay tuned…