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But my goodness, what a fine mess they made of it. To be fair, the party had scant weeks to stage a leadership contest after the sudden resignation (and revival, and re-resignation) of Patrick Brown: some degree of chaos was to be expected. But the option was available to them to stick with the unanimous choice of the party caucus, Vic Fedeli, who while he does not give off quite the same sparks as Ford, had the advantage of beingthe unanimous choice of the caucus.

Not only did a majority of the party Ford now leads vote for someone else, so did all but two of its sitting members, and all but three of its nominated candidates. So to add to the daunting list of tasks facing him, and the party, with an election less than 13 weeks away — hiring staff, planning the campaign, writing (or rewriting) the platform, and so on — he must also establish his leadership over a largely hostile caucus: the people he must count on to take the fight to the enemy in the ridings.

Perhaps he might at that. There’s nothing like the smell of victory to cause people to set aside their misgivings and fall in behind the leader: Elliott, having been dissuaded from contesting the results, being the prime example. With polls showing the Conservatives, for all their internal turmoill, still — still! — far ahead of the governing Liberals, the party will give Ford every chance to prove himself — at least so long as they remain in the lead.