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Equally telling were the emotional data gathered by the CBC’s David Cochrane from Newfoundland Conservatives who were expected to publicly welcome and embrace Cleary. “Please shoot me,” whimpered one anonymously.

No doubt it is galling for party workers at the volunteer level to see someone like Ryan Cleary change colours. His New Democrat supporters probably did work hard for him — but then, as supporters of the NDP rather than Cleary personally, they got a seat out of it in the larger numbers game, as well the services of a member of Parliament. If they are Ryan Cleary fans, rather than New Democrats, why don’t they follow him to the new banner?

This is a mutual parting: Cleary is bidding adieu to their energy, time and prestige, just as they are losing his. Examined closely, these ill feelings seem a lot like the gripes and growls of a dumped boyfriend. They are not so much an objection to injustice — more a response to being rejected.

Rathgeber had a strong case that the CPC had become a prisoner of its own electoral apparatus, and he made it well. But who are we to tell the voters of St. Albert and northeast Edmonton that they are wrong

Cleary has an independent intellectual reputation, his own following, and, as a Newfoundland nationalist, views that do not map well onto the ideological criteria of any one party. Are we prepared to tolerate the existence of “loose fish” and square pegs like this within our political framework, as our 19th-century precursors did?

What I know about Newfoundland might not fill a page of foolscap, but Danielle Smith’s 2014 Alberta experiment in floor-crossing suggests that Cleary may be walking into a trap. When Smith and a few Wildrose colleagues tried to join the allegedly renovated Alberta Progressive Conservatives (PCs), most failed to survive the nomination gauntlet, and the rest were turned out in the ensuing election. (Along with most of their fellow PCs.)