There are two Doug Fords. Which one will govern?

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And Ford did not ride a Donald Trump-style insurgency to take power. He did not, for instance, speak against immigration. Perhaps that’s because Ford’s roots are in multicultural Etobicoke. Perhaps it’s because the epic failure of Kellie Leitch’s run for the Conservative leadership showed that anti-immigrant messages do not work in Ontario. Ford even dialed back his anti-elitist messaging — not, I think, because of its laughable absurdity, but because it wasn’t necessary. Ford, son of a millionaire politician, did denounce party elites when he launched his campaign in his mother’s basement, but his strategists likely judged that he didn’t need to rage against the elites to win an election that was his for the taking. Until Thursday, the Ontario PCs were the Bad News Bears of Canadian politics, finding ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in election after election as Ontarians stuck with the ethically dubious Liberals. But this one long looked like their election to win.

Frustrated Ontario Conservatives, tired of losing, were not going to let this one go, not if they could help it, especially not with a Liberal running Ottawa. Justin Trudeau’s election likely helped Ford in another way, aside from enraging Ontario Tories: it made available a large number of former politicians and staffers who learned their craft in Stephen Harper’s Ottawa (some of whom have been coaching Ford). As Queen’s Park provided strategic depth for the federal Liberals in their long years in opposition, now it will do the same for the Tories.

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