Thursday, July 20, 2006

And then, there were three PC's

With the entry of Jan Spragge into the race for provincial Progressive Conservative nominee for the Northumberland-Quinte West riding yesterday, the race became very interesting.
Spragge, a resident of Cobourg, will join Cathy Galt, wife of former MPP for the area Doug Galt, and Carl Eggimann, a retired OPP officer from Trenton.
The first thing to notice about this race is the geography. Spragge will be the candidate from the west end of the riding,while Eggimann is from the east. Notably, Galt is from the Colborne area, which sits approximately in the middle.
Nomination races tend to be very internal affairs for local riding associations. We might get a small glimpse into the minds of these people, if the media decides to profile anyone one of them. But, the real battle at the gut level will not be for public consumption.
Galt's entrance into the race mirrors a similar jump into politics by Canada's finance minister, Jim Flaherty's wife, Christine Elliot. Both are wives of Tory politicians. Elliot won the Whitby-Ajax riding comfortably. Doug Galt has a power base in the riding and served two terms, beating out some tough competition. He lost in a province-wide shift that threw the Tories out of office when Dalton McGuinty won. So, Cathy has some pretty strong connections.
Eggimann may be trying to mimc Rick Norlock's success. The current MP for the riding is also a former OPP officer, who won in the Harper sweep of eastern Ontario. The law and order stuff plays well in this riding and garners much respect from voters.
Spragge will launch her campaign in two weeks and then we will find out more.
This is one worth watching.

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