Warning: This post could bore you to tears. I am a really lousy writer. I'm very good at plaigiarism however.

David Orchard. He's running again for the leadership of the Party of McDonald, the Party of Diefenbaker, the Party of Mulroney. The Party of Clark.

Orchard somehow came in second in our party's last leadership race in 1988, after he was advised by former Liberal Prime Minister John Turner to run. In addition, Mr. Orchard's 1988 candidacy won the blessing of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Mr. Orchard recalled in an interview that Mr. Trudeau "very much encouraged me" to run for the Conservative Party leadership in May, 1998. "He called it 'an ingenious use of political reality and it's historically correct. Don't be ashamed of it.' "
Now I have a lot of respect for Mr. Trudeau, but I'm not sure that a person should be taking Tory leadership advice from him and John Turner.

So why exactly is David running for the PC leadership in 2003? His website has an article entitled "What makes me a Conservative". It discusses Preston Manning, Benjamin Disraeli, Sir John A., and gives a very good history of conservativism in this country. But at no point does it explain why Mr. Orchard considers himself to be a conservative. The words "I", "me" and "myself", are completely absent from the document. The only instance in which he refers to himself is when he refers to "My encyclopedia".
Mr. Orchard is best-known for his opposition to the Free Trade Agreement brought in by Tory Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. "The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) took effect January 1, 1989, against the will of the majority of Canadians." link
"Many Canadians, including many politicians, still don’t know what’s been signed away in the FTA and NAFTA" link
Mr. Orchard believes that the end-game of free trade is that Canada will cease to exist: "This breeziness with which we say 'Let's join the United States,' would be regarded in almost any other country as treason." link
(Which of course begs the question of why Mr. Orchard's campaign website has a US commercial (.com) domain instead of a .ca domain name).

Other causes that Orchard has championed include the idea of a Canadian car, created and manufactured here (guess he hasn't heard that the Bricklin is going back into production). An organic farmer, Orchard has also spoken out in opposition to the use of Genetically Modified crops, herbicides, pesticides, or artificial fertilizers.
Orchard's supporters include Margaret Atwood, artist Robert Bateman, Stompin' Tom Connors and classical pianist Anton Kuerti. All of whom have earned respect in their fields, but are not really political luminaries. One Orchard supporter from Cambridge Ontario wrote this article in the Cambridge Reporter, in which she states:
"Don't confuse Mulroney and Clark with the Conservative party."

And finally, on August 18th, 2001, Orchard published this article in the Montreal Gazette, entitled "ROAD MAP TO VICTORY; TORIES SHOULD SHUN TALKS WITH ALLIANCE AND FILL VACUUM ON THE LEFT OF LIBERALS"

So blah blah blah. If I haven't bored you to tears, you now know that Mr. Orchard is opposed to free trade, thinks the Tories should position ourselves to the left of the Liberals, and that he has received free advice on running for the helm of our party from Pierre Trudeau. Not a real solid Tory.

So why on earth is he in second place in the number of committed delegates selected so far?