Posted by Sudbury Northern Life 
Toronto - A political party has room for only one leader and
those in Ontario politics who refused to accept this usually
have had their political careers cut brutally short.
This has happened to Liberal Michael Bryant, who held several
cabinet posts competently in a decade as an MPP and made no
secret he wanted to succeed Dalton McGuinty as premier, and the
sooner the better.
Premiers want ministers to be enthusiastic, but not breathing
down their necks, and the strained relations between the two
have prompted Bryant to leave for a less influential post with
the city of Toronto.
Bryant joins other politicians whose careers were cut short
because they were over-eager to have the top job. William
Davis, Progressive Conservative premier from 1971-85 and the
longest-serving premier of recent years, faced no fewer than
three such challenges.
Davis, the establishment choice, won by only 44 of the 1, 580
votes cast in a leadership convention because of an
unexpectedly strong run by a little known minister, Allan
Lawrence, that showed their party was divided and prompted
suggestions they should almost share power.
Davis was cool to this and gave Lawrence a newly-created job
developing justice policy that kept him out of the public eye,
which is death to a politician, and soon after he left and was
elected federally, but never came close to the prominence his
earlier march to the threshold of being premier promised.
Davis also felt threatened by Bert Lawrence (no relation),
another losing candidate for leader who provided some of the
brightest ideas, but found an excuse to drop him from cabinet
when he used a government plane to take his wife and two
children to Cuba without clearing it with the premier.
Lawrence explained he was trying to promote trade, but it
appeared misuse of public funds and a second pretender to the
throne quit provincial politics.
After the Conservatives under Davis won only minority
governments in two successive elections, the most serious
attempt to replace him was launched by Darcy McKeough, another
of those Davis had defeated, who had built up a following as an
innovative and powerful treasurer.
Davis made it clear he was in for the long haul and had no
intention of quitting as premier and McKeough, when it was
clear his path to premier was blocked, joined the ranks of the
disappointed and left, and the patient Davis hung in and even
won back the Conservatives' cherished majority.
The Liberals had a similar episode in opposition in the 1960s,
after they narrowly chose Andrew Thompson, a former aide to
federal leader Lester Pearson, as leader with a push from the
party's federal wing, over an unusual outsider, evangelist
preacher turned newspaper editor and TV personality Charles
Templeton.
Templeton hoped for a worthwhile role in the party, but its
comfortably entrenched MPPs feared a newcomer telling them what
to do and froze him out.
When Thompson resigned because of sickness and faltering
leadership only two years later, the party went to Templeton
and begged him to take over, but he had had enough of deceitful
politicians and refused.
Ambitious politicians have forced out leaders twice in recent
decades. Conservative premier Frank Miller lost the party's
majority and then government in 1985, when the Liberals and New
Democrats forced him out, but tried to stay as opposition
leader.
Larry Grossman undermined him with the cry the party needed a
younger and fresher face, only to lose the next election by an
even bigger margin.
Stephen Lewis as a young, oratorically inspiring New Democrat
MPP in 1970 collected overwhelming support behind the scenes
for himself as leader and presented it quietly to the
long-serving leader, Donald C. MacDonald.
MacDonald accepted he would have difficulty holding on and
stepped down, but not without a fight, because he supported
another candidate in the leadership race Lewis won.
Those who have managed to push out leaders usually have had a
strong case for it and there is none now against McGuinty.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen's Park press gallery.
