Posted by MoS, the Disaffected Lib:
An old friend of mine from Ottawa is a veteran Tory with roots going back to the Stanfield years. A couple of years ago my friend mentioned Jean Charest as a possible successor to Stephen Harper. I've heard that rumour off and on since then but nothing ever came of it - until now.
The Montreal Gazette's Don McPherson is now exploring whether Charest could succeed Harper.
Gone, at least for now, but not wanting to be forgotten, Jean Charest raised some eyebrows this week by encouraging us to keep him in mind for political leadership openings that might come up in the next few years.
'“Never say never,” the former Liberal premier said twice to CBC Daybreak host Mike Finnerty on Thursday, about returning to politics, and about running for the federal Conservative party in particular.
At 56, Charest is not too old to consider resuming the political career to which he has devoted most of his adult life.
In terms of election results as a leader, he was generally successful at both the federal and provincial levels.
In his only federal general election as a leader, he brought back the federal Progressive Conservative party from the brink of extinction. In Quebec provincial politics, he was the first leader since Maurice Duplessis in the 1950s to lead his party to victory in three consecutive general elections, although his Liberals were held to a minority in the middle one.
And he was hardly driven from office in disgrace, with the Liberals only narrowly losing the 2012 election after more than nine years in office and an especially difficult last term.
What I've been hearing all along is that Charest is the only likely successor who has had an active organization to springboard a leadership campaign. We'll see.
