What Conservative party has Stephen Harper left to a successor?

It is the Conservative party of 2004, the party created by and tailored for Harper, a party that won 29.6 per cent of the vote in 2004, 31.9 per cent Monday, won 99 seats in 2004 and 99 seats (in a larger House of Commons) today.

It is a shadow of its high water mark of 2011 when Harper captured 39.6 per cent of the vote and 166 seats. It is again western-based, it is older, it is whiter, in many respects out of touch with mainstream social thinking.

It looks more like its Reform-Canadian Alliance antecedent than at any time since it became the Conservative party.

It is a party that, like its only leader, has run out of gas and needs a major overhaul if it is to avoid a long sojourn in a political forest as its base gets older and crankier and less relevant to the Canada of 2015.

That’s why it would be so difficult for this party to reinvent itself under Jason Kenney, the presumptive leadership frontrunner, the loyal Harper lieutenant and indefatigable minister who called for a change of tone and a “sunnier” disposition for the party on election night.

Some close to Kenney question whether he really wants the job. If he does, he has the chits to call in to win the party job, even if returning the party to power under his leadership seems like a longer shot.

Kenney was the party’s chief advocate of the horrors of niqabs at citizenship ceremonies, the hardliner on “bogus” refugee claims, the man who took on Naheed Nenshi and “people like him’’ over the Calgary mayor’s charge of an anti-Muslim thread in the Conservative message. He would have to harness a lot of heretofore absent solar power to become the man who can bring that sunnier disposition to this party.

Kenney’s ascension was always thought of as an orderly passing of power, not a rebuilding exercise. He is inextricably linked to the disastrous 2015 campaign, he is from Alberta at a time when the party should be seeking leadership from other regions, and his magical 2011 touch in courting new Canadians for the party disappeared Monday.

Two Ontario female ministers who resisted the crimson tide Monday, Lisa Raitt and Kellie Leitch, will now move to the forefront as potential party leaders, as will Michelle Rempel, an Alberta minister who took the Conservative message to the airwaves during campaign 2015

Three former ministers who sat this one out will also be on any list, James Moore, John Baird and Peter MacKay, but for them, timing will be everything. If the party takes up to a year to choose a new leader, as many within are advocating, their presence grows. If the party moves more quickly, it is harder for the trio to justify jumping back in after bolting before the campaign.

There will also be talk about Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall (as always), former federal Progressive Conservative leader and Quebec premier Jean Charest and even Doug Ford. Former Quebec minister Maxime Bernier and Ontario minister Tony Clement will be in the mix.

Any leadership hopeful will have to reach out to the red Tories who have abandoned Harper. Clearly some — MacKay, Moore, Wall, Charest, Raitt, Leitch — would be better placed than others for that task.

But the big allure for anyone with designs of following Harper was power. The potential for a long stay in opposition will weed out a number of names and mean new ones will surface before the party begins the process.

For Tom Mulcair and the New Democrats, the situation is more complicated.

The party does not have a history of chewing up its leaders, but this time might be different.

It also has no history of styling itself as a government-in-waiting, entering a campaign with a nominal lead in the polls then collapsing and reverting to its distant third-party status.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

There is discontent in the ranks that the party strayed so far from its traditional positions and ran a timid centrist campaign and did not aggressively take on Justin Trudeau and the Liberals as some internally had advocated.

Mulcair also does not have deep roots in the party and was not the choice of the establishment in 2012 when he won the race to replace the late Jack Layton. He was chosen as the man who could deliver the NDP the final mile to power. He took them backward instead and, in the process, a lot of NDP caucus talent is today looking for work.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1

Read more about: