There is a new political draft on tap.

A movement to woo federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt for the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership launched Tuesday, joining similar efforts on Twitter for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Tory MPP Lisa MacLeod.

Now that Tim Hudak is leaving as leader July 2 after a political drubbing in the June 12 election, the race to replace him is coming to life.

The front-runner for Hudak’s old job is MPP Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa), who will announce her leadership plans Wednesday morning at Queen’s Park.

Elliott finished third in the 2009 leadership contest and her late husband, Jim Flaherty, was runner-up in the 2002 and 2004 PC races.

The PC party executive meets July 5 to discuss next steps with an eye toward the 2018 election, and would-be leaders are jockeying for position.

“Lisa represents a generational transformation and offers real-life credentials that our party needs to be able to provide voters the real change they are looking for,” states the draft-Raitt website.

Tories were stunned when they lost nine seats in the election, handing Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals a surprise majority.

The PCs had believed Hudak was headed to the premier’s office, but his pledge to eliminate 100,000 public sector jobs over four years backfired.

Now the party that has governed Ontario for 50 of the past 71 years is regrouping after a fourth consecutive defeat.

Raitt, MP for the riding of Halton since 2008, is a lawyer and former chief executive officer of the Toronto Port Authority (TPA).

Her office told the Star in an email that the “minister continues to focus on her job and kids at this time. The minister congratulates Premier Wynne on her election and looks forward to working with her and her government on issues important to Ontario and Canada.”

In an op-ed piece in Tuesday’s Star, MacLeod said her party “let Ontario down by not offering an alternative that more voters were prepared to accept.”

The Nepean-Carleton MPP said the Tories have their work cut out for them, but adds there is plenty of time to regroup.

“We have a lot of work to do over the next four years. The party needs renewal, a new direction, and most important, fresh leadership,” she wrote.

“For PCs, this is the time to look forward and face those challenges, not to indulge in endless dissection of the 2014 campaign. We must spend our energy preparing for the election in 2018, not refighting the election just past.”

Tory MP Randy Hillier, meanwhile, has sent his caucus mates and the party brass a detailed letter urging “fundamental and necessary changes to address our party’s structural deficit in engaging and including the public, our members and caucus into a cohesive and inspired team.”

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“Since 2003, as a party and as a caucus, we have witnessed party leadership from across the political spectrum and from a broad range in style and personality; however, with each of these leaders, we have experienced failure at the polls,” wrote Hillier in the email, which he gave to the Star.

Mindful of the 100,000-job-cut fiasco, the Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington MPP wants “checks and balances placed upon the absolute power and authority of the leader.”

With files from Robert Benzie

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