Wisdom for today from the past

Had been planning for weeks to pick up the local copy of "Leaders & Lesser Mortals: Backroom Politics in Canada", and just happened to pick it up today from the library. The timing is great, based on what we're seeing in Guelph and Toronto Centre.

I submit to you that page 7 has an appropriate little nugget for what's going on with the two tossed Tory candidates;

"There is little place for sentiment in political backrooms. The object is to win, and winning means finding candidates who can succeed at the polls. Backroom politicians take a hard, pragmatic view of aspiring frontroom politicians. And in making their choices, they look for that intangible quality: electability."

I submit to you that what we've seen over the last few days is simply that... local ridings taking a pragmatic view of electability, and making the hard and necessary choices to win.