Is there a big difference? I don’t see a big one. His tie is a different colour today...
Former Toronto Mayoral candidate and former Liberal National Director Rocco Rossi announced today that he was going to run for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party in Eglinton-Lawrence.
There was the predictable unfavourable reaction from many places but I was especially struck by Warren Kinsella’s vicious reaction to the news. While I understand why some people, such as Kinsella, feel betrayed and will react negatively to the news, I see very little difference between the right edge of the Liberal Party and the left edge of the Conservative Party. I think this is true of provincial and federal parties.
If you want to call us Blue Liberals and Red Tories, both parties have members with centre-right ideologies that can “fit” in either party. In reality, there isn’t much difference in terms of policy or ideology between the two. And I understand perfectly how one could be a supporter of one at the provincial level and the other at the federal level.
Not surprising that you would have this view on the party mobility of those in the centre-right. I think a lot of the determination of party depends not on your own views, but on the expanse of other views which you think are reasonable. Those on the centre-right who can identify with farther right views, or at least not see them as crazy go with the conservatives. Those who find their own ideology right of centre but can easily defend and identify with centre-left ideologies end up in the Big Red Tent (hopefully).
ReplyDeleteBut I think Rossi's move is a little wishy-washy. It screams of a personal need for notoriety - ohhh let's get a big name to run for the Libs, oops Iggy kind of sucks...ok I'll run for mayor, that's gotta go well. Well...guess that didn't go so well...ok, switching parties will give me some serious name recognition, let's do that.