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Cast your minds back to the PCPO leadership campaign of 2015. A little-known and lightly-regarded federal MP, Brown had the support of just four members of caucus. He had scarcely more support, according to a poll taken six weeks before the event, among PC-leaning voters (11 per cent) or Ontarians generally (6 per cent). He had little relevant experience, stood for nothing in particular, was unimpressive personally.

What he could do was sell a ton of memberships — 40,000 of a total of roughly 76,000 — with the help of a lot of money raised who knows how, or where. Were there skeletons in his closet, waiting to jump out? Not that his instant supporters knew, or cared. I suspect more than a few caucus members did. But by then it was too late.

Under his leadership, it is true, the party raised a lot of money, moderated some of its stands, added thousands more members — aided greatly by the imminent prospect, so it was assumed, of power. But the Conservative lead in the polls was always more a matter of the unpopularity of the governing Liberals then any great enthusiasm for the party, or its leader. Never mind the private uneasiness of party officials, the sense that there was something out there, waiting to blow up. Even on the basis of what was known publicly, it was hard to imagine him as premier.

Please don't call this 'more democratic'

The question is whether the party is about to repeat the same mistake. Perhaps it is impossible to turn back, the now-departed president having peremptorily announced that the party would install a new permanent leader in the short time left before the election, by a speeded-up version of the usual elephantine process. Perhaps that will preclude, formally or practically, the unseemly free-for-all that usually marks the leadership race-as-recruitment drive.