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And yet, as the years have passed, the party’s presence at each conference seems to have grown, the movement’s declined. The more open the conflict between what conservatives are supposed to believe and what the Conservatives have tended to produce, the more it has been resolved in favour of the party. As late as last year, when the party was at its lowest point in the polls, there was still a useful tension in the air, the odd veiled suggestion that the Conservatives had lost their way. But this is an election year, and the party is back in contention, and so this year’s conference has thus far broadly favoured politics over ideas, discretion over debate.

No fewer than seven separate sessions at this year’s conference are devoted to social media and other campaign tools and tips: How Facebook Can Help Power Your Campaigns, How Digital Engagement Will Determine the Next President, Introduction to Media Relations, Capturing Voter Attention Online, and so on. On the panels, academics and policy wonks have this year given way, not just to ministers and MPs, but lobbyists (hello, Hill & Knowlton!) and sponsors (take a bow, Google, Facebook, Spectra Energy, etc…)

Treasury Board president Tony Clement and Industry Minister James Moore were invited, not to share their thoughts on the critical challenges facing the nation and the exciting new initiatives they had planned to address them, but to burble on about “Technology and Politics,” to which task they took with enthusiasm. Still another session was devoted, without apparent irony, to building a “Perpetual Fundraising Machine.” Which would more or less describe the modern Conservative party.