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    • Don Martin: A nasty fracturing surfaces as the Conservative leadership race kicks off

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    Two political polar opposites are on a collision course for the Conservative leadership - and the winner could be the leader of the Liberal party.

    Moderate, extremely experienced, dignified but largely forgotten four decades after entering the federal fray, former party leader and Quebec premier Jean Charest will officially enter the race in Calgary on Thursday, no doubt sporting a Stetson.

    He faces the daunting challenge of beating Pierre Poilievre, a right-wing firebrand with two years of junior Harper cabinet experience whose primary skill seems to be unleashing devastating clips and quips at his hapless rivals.

    Put them together in a brass-knuckled brawl and you have a nightmare clash for the Conservative party 鈥 and perhaps a dream matchup for the Liberals.

    But consider the 鈥榩rize鈥 offered in the winning of this leadership.

    The Conservative caucus is hopelessly divided into hard right, middle right and moderate factions, its membership is laden with too many anti-vaxxers and convoy cowboys while some MPs are holding grudges from previous leaders, right down to who was on the guest list to drain the wine cellar at Stornoway.

    That鈥檚 a deep longer-term fracture for a party that鈥檚 supposed to be a writ-drop away from forming a government to replace the weary Liberals under a lacklustre leader.

    If Charest wins, which seems doubtful without a lot of membership sales help from the likes of potential rival Patrick Brown, he will confront a fence-mending mission impossible that could make his post-referendum Captain Canada reunification effort look like child鈥檚 play.

    He will face more than a few MPs and their assorted bloodhounds who have already declared him unfit to lead the party for being too left. Some of them may need to be evicted to find a home in the People鈥檚 Party under increasingly-unhinged Maxime Bernier.

    But that鈥檚 the easy part. The Progressive Conservative party he led in the mid-1990s no longer exists, right down to having the "progressive" label stripped from its name. His policy preferences will not easily fit with the drift the membership wants to take - and even that direction will have to be changed to attract a general election victory.

    As for Poilievre, he鈥檇 better be a helluva chameleon. He will have to shift from proudly standing with the trucker convoys and worshiping every extra barrel of oil production to bonding with the middle-road, climate-fretting Ontario voters he鈥檒l need to win a general election. Spoiler alert: It鈥檚 hard. Ask Erin O鈥橳oole.

    And he will have to learn to play nice in a caucus where he鈥檚 considered an unfriendly force of difficult personality.

    All told, there鈥檚 the risk any leadership result will put the Conservatives into a crash and burn election followed by another decade of walking in the wilderness.

    But, but, but . . . there鈥檚 also the possibility of a Liberal collapse which could give the Conservatives a cakewalk into the prime minister鈥檚 office under any leader with a pulse.

    Trudeau is increasingly surrounded by nagging troubles, from his botched handling of the truckers鈥 convoy to consumer pain at the pumps and an energy crisis in Europe which has cabinet fighting over climate change versus filling the Russian energy sanctions vacuum with ramped-up Canadian oil production.

    A fed-up throw-the-bums out election is not entirely out of the question.

    Yet handed this golden opportunity to drive regime change, the Conservatives seem fixated on fighting over who has truest blue blood to be leader instead of debating important questions of the party鈥檚 fiscal, environmental and health care directions.

    But there鈥檚 another sharp contrast between the two titans as they start this prolonged battle.

    Being someone who carries no social Conservative baggage, has a climate change record and delivered effective deficit reduction in Quebec, Charest is the candidate Liberals desperately hope will lose.

    And unless there鈥檚 a kinder, gentler version of Pierre Poilievre than the one I鈥檝e observed for eight years, the Liberals are salivating for him to win.

    As one insider told me, Poilievre as Conservative leader would be an arrogant and mean version of Jason Kenney, minus a government.

    So with Charest鈥檚 entry in two days, the stakes are becoming extremely high for the government-in-waiting party. Deep divides are being drawn between yesterday鈥檚 moderate man and an untested MP鈥檚 hard-right Tory turn.

    With the leadership vote still six months away, it sets up the risk of a lose-lose Conservative scenario 鈥 and another Liberal win.

    That鈥檚 the bottom line.

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