Despite Poor Support...John Tory Decides To Stay

TORY BARELY SURVIVES CONFIDENCE VOTE ON LEADERSHIP

Embattled Ontario Conservative leader John Tory has(for now) survived a review of his leadership skills at an event that was held in London yesterday, nearly 6 months after his astounding electoral defeat .

Despite the fact that 1/3 of delegates to the convention had knives out for him, Tory decided to stay anyways after receiving 66.9% of the votes cast. He categorized his support as "large" in a statement made to the media yesterday.

Tory said ,"the grassroots spoke today, and more than two thirds of those people said they did not want to have a leadership convention."

Although nearly 2/3 of convention supporters voted in favor of allowing Tory to continue in his role as party leader(a poor result at best)it's the other 1/3 that he needs to be concerned about.

Immediately after the votes were cast, Tory announced that he would require some time to think about his future, but then later in the evening he came out and said that it wasn't fair to his supporters to be kept hanging on for an extended period of time while he pondered his future, so he made the decision to make the announcment that he, despite the odds, would be staying on...until the cows came home, or in some wierd Caeser scenario until he meets his doom at the hands of the 1/3...the official Tory, tory opposition.

John Tory is a great fund raiser, and for that reason, the CONservative party should keep him on.(really, there are no other reasons to keep him on the job)

His downside is his ability to come up with absolutely stunned ideas which have left his party in shambles after the 2007 provincial election.

During the campaign of 2007 Tory suddenly(without the knowledge of CONservative insiders) decided that he would announce the funding of radical Islamist schools and other religious schools in ordwer to grab up on a few voters.(thousands of Ontario residents send their children to alternative schools that are neither financed by the government or tax deductible. Tory believed that by offering substantial financing for alternative religious schools he would be able to draw more red tories like himself into the CONservative fold, and as well increase his chances at being elected to the top job in Ontario.

Unfortunately for Tory he was not prepared for the backlash of public anger that awaited his stunned decision to announce the governmental financing of religious schools. Dalton McGuinty went on the attack(even though his government finances several right wing christian schools, and the Penetanguishene protestant school board amongst others) and through the use of misinformation was able to push Tory into retreat forcing Tory to re-evaluate his position in light of the public howl over the issue. Tory offered up a free and public vote, and McGuinty played on that calling Tory "weak' and "indecisive" and catering to special interests.

Although John Tory might think that 66.9 % of the vote is a solid lead (and it is when you are talking about an election), the fact is 2/3 support is weak when considering the role is one of leadership.

If I were John Tory, I'd take my cue from the responses of the 1/3 of delegates who openly opposed him during the review and step down.