At last, some of the media are paying attention to the Tory leadership race. The war in Iraq and SARS have completely eclipsed a rather humdrum and uninspiring leadership race. The party, with its tiny parliamentary caucus, is far more in search of a redeemer than the NDP, who has now chosen for its leader the bright and effective Jack Layton.

The NDP can also boast of two provincial governments on the Prairies and a presence in the cities of Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Vancouver. In Toronto, the NDP federal base is more powerful than the federal Tory base.

Still, looking at the Tories and the media attention they are now getting, chaos and wild judgment seems to be the order of the day. The Toronto Star calls the Tory candidates, seven of them, the Seven Dwarfs. In the Star terminology, Peter MacKay is classified as a dwarf.

The Tories have some interesting candidates. There's Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison who is the first openly gay candidate for the Tory leadership race ever. There's André Bachand, the Quebec Tory MP and the only francophone in the race. Bachand has been a Quebec MP since 1997. His Quebec strength is in very sharp contrast to the two powerful Quebecers, Claude Wagner and Brian Mulroney, who lost to Joe Clark in the 1976 leadership race. Bachand's hold on Quebec as a single MP is certainly not the hold Wagner and Mulroney had on the Conservative party.

The Tories look like they are about to be as extinct as the dodo. Bizarrely, the media have David Orchard of the ultra left, ultra anti-American stance as a real star in the upcoming leadership convention. Media pundits suggest that Orchard is a possible winner on the second ballot. An Orchard victory is out of the question. An Orchard victory would finish the Tory party completely.

Clearly the Tories need a redeemer. That redeemer seems to be at hand. That redeemer is Peter MacKay, the Nova Scotia MP and son of Elmer MacKay, the curmudgeonly Clark and Mulroney cabinet minister. Peter MacKay has been a Red Tory at Joe Clark's side all the way and will inherit much of Clark's team and organization. Indeed the far right in the Tory party think MacKay has been too close to Joe Clark in the first place.

A long time ago I suggested to the fifth estate a TV piece on MacKay as a Tory redeemer, the new Tory leader. That fifth estate piece helped make MacKay the national figure he is today. I have not changed my mind on MacKay.

MP sources on the Hill tell me MacKay will win the Tory leadership by a margin of 3 to 1. My Tory sources tell me MacKay is very, very close to the 50 per cent mark he needs for victory now, right now. All the ex officio votes, the votes of people who can vote by virtue of their office in the party, i.e. the backbone of the party, are all for MacKay.

MacKay will carry the Maritime vote handily and will be reaping many more Quebec votes than Bachand. Orchard is nowhere to be seen in these two key areas of the Conservative party. Orchard's strength in Ontario and the West is of a peripheral variety.

Orchard is really neither a Mulroney Tory nor a Diefenbaker Tory. He simply is bitterly against free trade and American foreign policy. Orchard is to the left of the NDP on many issues.

My encounters with Orchard are memorable enough. I first heard him speak at a very left gathering in Toronto many years ago. On the Danforth in Toronto, we sometimes exchange odd pleasantries.

If Orchard is a serious candidate, then the Tories need serious surgery right now. That surgery, that redemption, can be provided by Peter MacKay. MacKay's views are basic law and order and patriotism. He called for Canadian military participation in the Iraq war long ago.

He is centre and right of centre in his views. Opposing MPs talk of MacKay as one of the nicest, sweetest politicians in the land, a man of substance, a man with a heart.

MacKay will please the Canadian electorate far more than the cool arrogant Stephen Harper. Harper, say Hill observers, is a man with no heart à la the Wizard of Oz. They know that Harper does not seem to be looking for a heart and is a loner in politics all the way.

MacKay has heart enough to cover all conservatives and for the struggle ahead. MacKay will threaten from his NDP base the glamorous Jack Layton, who has no seat. Layton's flashiness contrasts sharply with MacKay's solidity and warmth.

If MacKay wins, the Tories will take many votes away from the NDP all over the country. MacKay is far more a future prime minister than the seatless Layton and far more prime minister than the ice cold Stephen Harper. MacKay may be centre right in the Tory party but he certainly does not frighten Red Tories like Joe Clark, like John Tory, like Robert Stanfield, like Bill Davis. MacKay's loyalty to Red Tory Joe Clark has paid off in spades for MacKay.

Here, too, it has to be said that MacKay is the perfect McLuhan candidate. Like Trudeau, MacKay is cool. He knows and understands media and keeps his necessary distance from them. MacKay has a media following on Parliament Hill that Layton would give his eye teeth for.

Choosing MacKay means redeeming the Grand Old Party, the Conservative party that brought you Sir John A., Robert Borden, John Diefenbaker, Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney. MacKay also loves policy and on that front he'll shine as well.

The media's role in all this is already silly. They're already talking two ballots with Orchard walking down the middle like Joe Clark did in the 1976 leadership convention. To this I say many in the media thought Paul Martin could stop Trudeau in the 1968 leadership convention.

I'll stick by my early prediction about MacKay. He will be the Tory redeemer. MacKay is here to stay and that could be a Tory slogan.

Peter MacKay is no dwarf. Peter MacKay could be the Tory redeemer. At this moment Peter MacKay is a Tory roadrunner, toot-toot-tooting all the way to a grand old victory for the leadership of the Grand Old Party. As for the other six dwarfs, they're in search for a Snow White that simply isn't there.