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The second step? Picking a leader who can build beyond the base. Here, the leadership race was added to, if not strengthened, by the recent declarations from Tony Clement and Deepak Obhrai. Fine men both, but they’re not the answer. Clement has run for everything and won nothing. As for Deepak, when your primary skill is (deliberate) inscrutability in your House responses, it doesn’t augur well for sharp outreach.

The most important contribution from the current crop of leadership candidates, if not their persons, will be their ideas. Obhrai couldn’t be more right that minority communities need to re-enter the Conservative fold. Squandering the good work done from 2004-2011 was a barbaric cultural practice.

Likewise, the next leader must be credible on the economy, trade and energy. Too many people who trusted Harper on the economy left for Trudeau. They must be won back. Spiralling Liberal deficits will help, but the problems they will leave behind are ambition-limiting. It’s time to think big, not focus-grouped and micro-targeted.

Some candidates are already swinging for the fences. Promising free trade with China, as Maxime Bernier suggests, is bold but unrealistic, both in that China isn’t interested in “free” trade, and Canadians aren’t comfortable sleeping with the Chinese elephant. But it’s better to have the conversation than avoid it.

Trade could be the stickiest wicket for the next Conservative leader, especially if the next president sewers the Trans Pacific Partnership. Much of what fuels Trumpism is a lack of economic opportunity and people feeling as though government has shut down their industries, or worse, traded them offshore for future considerations that have yet to materialize.