And another one's gone

So Prentice is leaving.  There has been some speculation that he is clearing his path to run for CPC leadership.  Maybe, but I doubt it.  He would be inheriting a very fragmented party that has been held together only through Harper's bullying and battering.  Without following similar vicious top hyena tactics, whoever leads that party would be eaten by his own.  With a touch of Tea Party infecting some of the wackier members as well as voter base, any leader would have to take on not only keeping the nut job voters happy, but appeasing the MPs who constantly push for very unpopular legislation.

I don't think Prentice has that in him, and I doubt he has enough support in his own party since he hasn't shown much of that fundamentalism that keeps the extremists in the party believing if they bide their time and get a majority, all their atavistic dreams will come true.

I think it's more likely that Prentice knows there is no upside to staying in the CPC and enough downsides having to deal with Harper that he would do far better career-wise in the private sector where he can apply his skills with less restraint.  Spouting blatant lies and nonsense has to take its toll on someone who has any sense of self, and Prentice does seem to have more character than many of the other Harperites.

He probably wants to go out before the party crashes and burns because when it does, it won't be pretty.  By leaving now, while the CONs are still in power, he is more marketable to banks and big business than he would be later, but even then, his contacts would remain valuable.

I think this is a case of jumping a ship that is showing interior signs of decay so severe that the ship will have to be re-built but the workers won't agree to a design.  Jay Hill  may have been another who sees the end coming and is tired of compromising his own image for a hopeless cause.

The CONs have presented themselves almost to the man and woman as a bunch of brown-nosers who will do anything the master strategist demands, even to playing the fool to keep Harper's feet out of the filth, but they must recognize that life goes on after Harper Land and with that end looking like it may be coming soon, they are thinking of what they want their personal lives to be like.

I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more of the smater ones take a bow over the next few months.