Now, we'll find out. For several years, ever since "Common Sense" Conservative premier Mike Harris left Queen's Park, the political-academic-media elite(ists) have been telling us that Ontario just isn't ready for the Harris brand of right-of-centre politics.

Mind you, they said that before he won his first majority. They said it - only more often and with considerably more volume - during his first term as premier and he ended up winning an even larger majority the second time around. But oh no, we're told. What Ontario Conservatives really need to get themselves out of the current political wilderness is a middle-of-the road, squishy conservative, a Bill Davis (or John Tory) clone who apparently wouldn't frighten away all those voters who are not committed to hard-edged conservatism. Obviously, the Tory membership was sick of hearing this, and instead of opting for Conservative-lite, i.e. third-place finisher Christine Elliott, they chose 41-year-old Tim Hudak, who brazenly campaigned as being "Right for Ontario," and made much of the fact that the aforementioned Harris was helping him out.

Indeed, it took Hudak until the third ballot to beat out veteran Tory MPP Frank Klees, a social conservative who is essentially on the same side of the ledger as Hudak et al.

The Tories understood - or at least the majority of them did - that given a choice between a Liberal and a Liberal-lite, i.e. John Tory, voters opted for a real Liberal, i.e. Dalton McGuinty, whose style of mushy-middle politics is closer to Davis (premier from 1971 to 1985) than to anybody else, including most of his own caucus.

Davis - who never met a lobby group he wasn't prepared to cut a government cheque for (and never once managed to balance a budget even though he governed through some of the most prosperous years in Ontario history) - is nothing if not persistent. A strong supporter of John Tory - who embarrassed himself and his party in the last election by promoting the unpopular notion of public funding for all private schools - Davis wasn't exactly gracious after Hudak's victory, quipping that, "This party will not succeed unless (Hudak) sits down with the other candidates, with people like John Tory and others, and finds some form of consensus." For Davis and his ilk, the idea of a "consensus" is abandoning real conservative ideas and being prepared to stand for anything and everything. This was the same man with the same message when Harris came on the scene. Indeed, he actually openly gave speeches criticizing Harris, yet Harris did something Davis never did, winning two consecutive majorities.

The usual suspects - which includes our overwhelmingly left-leaning media, along with the Liberals and NDP - will attempt to demonize Hudak, just as they tried to turn Harris into the reincarnation of Satan.

But Hudak, it says here, will be an even more difficult target than Harris. Why? Because Harris was prickly, less concerned with getting along with people, even those who disagreed with them, than he was in relentlessly pursuing his successful agenda.

Hudak has much the same agenda, but he's smoother, more amiable, and much harder to disklike.

But there is no question where he wants to take his party and ultimately the province.

"We must take Ontario down an entirely different path than the one we're on," he says. "Our party will be clearly on the side of middle-class families, speaking to their hopes and dreams and as tough as today's challenges are, I know that Ontario's best days are yet to come."

Under McGuinty, alas, Ontario has suffered the ignomy for the first time in its' proud and noble history of being on the dole, of sinking to the rank of a "have-not" province, an embarrassment almost beyond belief just a few short years ago. McGuinty seems also ready to hand Hudak a glorious opportunity to bring voters to their senses, with his insistence that he will harmonize provincial and federal taxes next year, thereby increasing consumption taxes on just about everything at a time when Ontarians are among the hardest hit consumers in the country because of the ongoing recession.

Even if harmonization was a good idea - and that's highly debatable - it hardly seems appropriate to impose hundreds of millions in new taxes during the worst of economic times.

If Hudak can't take advantage of that - and if, like Harris, he stays on his message and isn't cowed into backing and filling by the inevitable criticisms from the left - well, he doesn't deserve to win.

Even if all goes his way, he may not win next time out. But then again, he may. One thing is for sure, he'll do an awful lot better than the Tory-Davis brand. You can take that to the bank.