The CPC have a problem. Lewis and Sloan together had more support than either O'Toole or MacKay. This means the social conservatives comprise a large segment of the party faithful. Then their support went to O'Toole, which means he is more SoCon than MacKay.
The broader Canadian public will not accept an extreme social conservative agenda. But, if the CPC tries to move towards centre to broaden their support, they will alienate their far right "sure thing" voters. What will they do?
I have a hunch. Probably the scariest thing I heard during the leadership thing, was the phrase "A lot of you are conservatives, you just don't know it yet". This says to me that they are going to do a lot of finely targeted campaigning...
They are going to use whatever has replaced Cambridge Analytica, and data mine to figure out which buttons to push for sliver demographic segments. They are going to try to find issues that will rile up each small segment of society, and offer a conservative answer.
They are going to use closely targeted ads to try to force some sort of "enlightenment" upon us, convince us that some small bias we might hold is a big enough deal to abandon all our progressive principles and vote CPC.
They can't change who they are. So they are going to try to change us. We must be vigilant. We must hold fast against fake news, fake scandals, and propaganda. Always think critically. Always fact-check. Always remember who we are.
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