It's already begun. Various newspaper editorials and assorted columnists - all of whom remember former Ontario premier Mike Harris with fear and loathing - are warning the Ontario Conservative Party not to veer back to the right-of-centre policies which they abandoned when Harris left.

Now that John Tory has finally resigned - after doing his best to drag the party down with him - they'll chose a new leader on June 27 in Markham. On his way out the door, apparently unaware that his own selfishness in clinging to the leadership well beyond his "best before" date, Tory, a quintessential "red Tory," cautioned Tories not to go back to the Harris approach of hard-edged conservatism.

Editorials in The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star - and elsewhere - have parroted this warning, aimed mainly at the leading contender - and likely winner - Tim Hudak (Niagara West-Glanbrook) who, in the eyes of the elite is guilty of actually subscribing to real conservative values. Imagine?

Of course they want him stopped. They don't want the Tories to win. And they may not defeat Dalton McGuinty and his Liberals 30 months from now in the next election, but there's one thing for sure, opting for another squishy, milquetoast Tory would give them no chance. None.

Whatever people care to say about Harris - and much of what is said is not only distorted by downright vicious - he was the only Conservative since the 1960s to win two consecutive majority governments.

The party declined rapidly after Harris quit and his former soulmate Ernie Eves took over. Rather than trying to build on the Harris formula, however, Eves decided to abandon what he had long claimed where his values and move swiftly to the left, opening the way for McGuinty and his Liberals to begin what has been - and continues to be - a disastrous record of decimating Ontario's economic and social standing in Confederation.

For those who argue the party would be wise to continue the John Tory approach, i.e. the "red Toryism" of former premier Bill Davis (who also didn't win two consecutive majorities), perhaps they've been out of the province since Tory became leader. How well did the Tory experience work? Not only did he hand the last election to McGuinty by tying himself to his stupid policy of extending full public funding to all schools, but he couldn't even win a seat himself and he continued to drag the party down by playing to his personal ego instead of recognizing what's best for the party. Every day Tory hung onto his failed leadership, was one less day that the party had to begin its' renewal and set out to fight the next election.

Finally, after losing a bye-election in a "safe" Conservative seat, even Tory realized he was a dud. A pleasant, sincere dud. But a dud nonetheless.

And now many of those voices who have consistently wished ill upon conservatives at all levels of government, are cautioning the Ontario delegates against going back to a winning formula, i.e. one which actually offers a real alternative to the current government.

Hudak will likely face competition from Whitby-Ajax MPP Christine Elliott, wife of federal finance minister Jim Flaherty, and Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addinton MPP Randy Hillier, who should show strong appeal to rural conservatives, and perhaps former contender Frank Klees and others.

Some of the remnants of the red Tory brigade, of course, wanted the leadership convention to be delayed until the fall - thus giving McGuinty and his gang even more time without an effective opposition - because they think Hudak, who is being endorsed quietly by Harris, has too big of a headstart for them to overcome.

Let us hope so.

For despite the disaster of the last election - most of which can be placed squarely on John Tory's shoulders - the party certainly has a chance at future success.

Hudak argued recently that McGuinty has run Ontario on "auto pilot" for five years. On McGuinty's watch, Ontario has become a "have-not province," something which should embarrass every Ontarian. Hudak says McGuinty has raked in $27 billion in increased revenues - a 41 per cent increase since 2003 - (not to mention an additional $3.4 billion in federal transfers from the Harper government) - yet plans to run a deficit which will break the $12.4 billion record set by - wait for it - Bob Rae's disastrous 1992 NDP government, all the while continuing to spend your money like drunken sailors.

Thomas Edison once said that, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

It won't come easily. But the Tories should bury their internal disputes, re-embrace their true ideology, and get on with the job of saving the economy while there is still one left to save.