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So far so good. But even as the convention date draws near it is becoming evident there’s more troubling the Tories than structural issues and a need for better ideas. The party itself is becoming an issue. The one-time Big Blue Machine, which found a way to appeal to something in everyone, has become a refuge for cranks and oddballs. If the party was a rider on the TTC at rush hour, no one would want to sit beside it.

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Until such time, the pundits concur, they must be shunned, silenced, expelled from the company of other conservatives. For they have committed the cardinal sin of openly expressing their convictions, and as such put at risk the perennial Conservative ambition of convincing the public they haven’t any.

This old standby — Why Can’t a So-Con Be More Like a Pundit? — has been given fresh life by events on the Ontario political scene, notably the discomfort of some conservatives, and Conservatives, with the Liberal government’s recently unveiled sexual education curriculum.

To be sure, this has been expressed in some infelicitous ways — “What’s Next … Safe Animal Sex?” was one of the signs at an anti-curriculum rally outside the provincial legislature on Tuesday — and not only by members of the ghastly public. Progressive Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton was called out for suggesting that “it’s not the premier of Ontario’s job, especially Kathleen Wynne, to tell parents what’s age-appropriate for their children” (emphasis and exaggerated winks added), while fellow Conservative Rick Nicholls somehow took the controversy as an opportunity to reveal to a waiting world that he doesn’t believe in evolution, with predictable — and richly deserved — results.