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OTTAWA — Canada’s Conservatives, after nearly eight years of power, have become the country’s Establishment Party.

Traditionally viewed as a collection of misfits who couldn’t keep power once they achieved it — and who stabbed each other in the back during opposition — the Tories are now a political powerhouse.

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But can they win a fourth-straight election, in 2015? The last time a Conservative prime minister did that was in 1891, under Sir John A. Macdonald. Expect Wednesday’s throne speech to be focused on this goal.

Here’s how the Conservatives hope to become Canada’s Natural Governing Party.

The Leader

Prime Minister Stephen Harper controls his party with a tight leash. Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers can challenge his views, but only behind closed doors and not many have the self-confidence to do it.

Harper almost always gets his way and Tories are generally happy with that. In Harper, they see a leader who has handed them political success: striking a deal in 2003 to merge the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives, becoming leader of the new Conservative party in March 2004, quickly reducing the Liberals to a minority, then winning elections in 2006, 2008 and 2011. In past, the Tories were happy to run on Harper’s coattails, with attack ads against Liberal leaders Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff.