The following was posted on the Together with Tory website under the title of "Reality Check".

Reality: Our Party is in a strong financial position now because John Tory worked tirelessly with the Party to bring us back from near bankruptcy. We were $10.5 million in debt after 2003, which hurt our ability to devote necessary resources to preparing for the election.

No one is discounting the work John Tory put into fundraising for the party. By the same token, let's not discount the generous contributions made by all those who actually donated the funds, including the $2.6 million that was raised during the election campaign. The federal Conservative party has drawn the roadmap for successful fundraising in Canadian politics - small donations from many supporters. The fundamental basis for their highly successful system ($16.9 million in 2007) is CIMS, the cousin to Trackright - you know - the one we tried to turn back on the month before the election.

Reality: John Tory has taken full responsibility for the election. More importantly, he has made changes to address problems, and he continues to do so. Mr. Devlin is correct that factors other than faith-based education contributed to our loss, but he fails to include the strong economy at election-time and the absence of a strong desire for change among Ontario voters.

John Tory on Don Newman's politics, just last week - ""The campaign wasn't what it should be and I have to accept ultimate accountablity for that, even though I was out on the bus, making speeches and doing what leaders do"

Reality: Going backwards would be spending the next year on a divisive and costly leadership race and then starting all over again with a leader who hasn’t had the experience of a provincial election campaign. Thanks to John Tory we are now in a much better financial position than we were in 2003. We had a strong and diverse group of candidates in the election, many of whom want to run again. We have a higher percentage of women in Caucus than ever before. The Party is already making changes to be better prepared for 2011 – a leadership would halt that and hinder the other progress we’ve been making together.

Why is it that the only people who consider a leadership race costly and divisive also happen to be John Tory supporters? Do they believe that the last race, won by John Tory, was a "divisive and costly leadership race" ? That would seem strange when one leadership contender, Frank Klees, is currently a staunch Tory supporter, the other contender is the federal Finance Minister and his spouse now sits in John Tory's caucus, a formidable force of her own. Costly? If a conservative party can't set rules and run a leadership race in a fiscally prudent manner, what would lead them to believe that anyone in this Province should trust them with the strings of the public purse?

At the end of the day, a party is much more than just it's leader, whether the subject be fundraising, answering emails or planning strategy.

PS. At least one mystery over at Together with Tory has now been solved. We now know where Mr. Ratchford was during his brief hiatus from the team.