THE ELUSIVE U-WORD —Take it with a grain of salt. Calls for unity follow every leadership campaign in every political party. It'd be weird not to remind members, politicians and operatives that the battle is over and they should put away their knives. And yet. Unity was a rhetorical guest of honor at Saturday's leadership event, where PIERRE POILIEVRE ran away with the party's leadership. — Emcee DEB GRAY: "Left wing, center ice or right wing, we're all on the same team." — Former leader ERIN O'TOOLE, in a pre-taped video: "Where there is unity, there is always victory." — Interim leader CANDICE BERGEN, in her farewell: "Live, talk and walk unity." — New leader, Poilievre: "To supporters of all of these fine candidates, I open my arms to you. Now, today, we are one party serving one country." That rhetoric might be a reflex, but the scale of Poilievre's victory is unlike anything Conservatives have seen in their modern form. The Shaw Centre floor was clear about its preferences. O'Toole's unity call received a tepid ovation. It was like a typical show at the National Arts Centre — the first rows eventually stood, then everyone else slowly took their cue. Not an elegant exit for a leader the room wanted to forget. Bergen was received as an interim hero. Another pre-taped video featured dozens of caucus members thanking her for her service in the interregnum between O'Toole's exit and whatever was about to happen next. Translation: She saved caucus from self-destruction. Thank god. Poilievre's brief appearance in that video tribute prompted the evening's first roar, but not the last. The mood was electric when leadership vote organizer IAN BRODIE announced Poilievre the winner. Mission accomplished, for now. — What's next: Everybody is spoiling for a fight — in 2025, if not before. “This is the battle that Conservatives want, and it’s the battle that Liberals want,” GARY KELLER, a vice-president at StrategyCorp and seasoned vet of Tory politics, tells POLITICO. First up for Poilievre is a national caucus meeting scheduled for today at 10 a.m. at the Sir John A Macdonald Building on Wellington Street. Sixty-two MPs and seven senators in the room endorsed the new leader. Thirty-eight people did not. The caucus will need a shadow Cabinet before Sept. 20 when the House returns for the fall. Poilievre's picks for that team — from deputy leader to the least consequential critic portfolio — will be his first test of caucus management. A happy caucus is a unified caucus. Just ask Erin O'Toole. — Related listening: On CBC's Front Burner this morning: Understanding Pierre Poilievre, Part 1. MENDING FENCES — Just weeks before the result, some strident operatives insisted to Playbook that they’d never campaign for a party led by Poilievre. By Saturday, they’d changed their tune. And the scale of the victory appears to have dictated the scale of contrition from Poilievre's top rival. On Sunday morning, JEAN CHAREST urged supporters to get behind the winner — almost as if the relentless personal attacks had never occurred. "Let's move on, unite the party, and form the next government," he said in a video. Charest's campaign co-chair MIKE COATES also timed a National Post op-ed for the morning after. He credited Poilievre with tapping into a zeitgeist of anxiety. "There is an anger in the land, and half of Canadian society is looking for a clean break from the way politics is conducted," he wrote. "Mr. Poilievre’s policies may have seemed at times provocative, but he captured an increasingly popular sentiment that is looking for the clearest break from the Liberals." — It's not like there aren't caveats: In her own morning-after thread, Charest press secretary LAURENCE TÔTH hoped "harmful and toxic behaviours will be denounced more and that they will not occupy the place they do in the (Conservative Party)'s offices." Only Harper has ever kept most of the party happy most of the time. Every leader since has left some members pining for the good old days. On Saturday night, no one on the convention floor, or in the pubs later on, was talking about Harper. HE REALLY WON BIG, GUYS — CPC godfather STEPHEN HARPER won the leadership convincingly in 2004 over BELINDA STRONACH. But he racked up only 56.2 percent of the available points, and finished second in most Atlantic and Quebec ridings. Poilievre won 68.15 percent of points, and carried the vote in a staggering 330 ridings. Charest won the remaining eight, six in Quebec and two in Ontario. Charest barely won a majority of votes in his hometown of Sherbrooke, Que. He came out on top in Toronto's University–Rosedale and Ottawa Centre — domains of professors and public servants, not anti-establishment rabble rousers. Still, Poilievre nearly outpaced Charest in CHRYSTIA FREELAND's University–Rosedale. The final vote tally there was 44.8 percent to 41 percent. His supporters live everywhere. LESLYN LEWIS managed second-place finishes across the Prairies, but she didn't repeat the 2020 feat of winning in Saskatchewan. She swung that year's vote to O'Toole. But this race needed no kingmaker. — Further reading: The Writ's ÉRIC GRENIER crunched riding-by-riding numbers in record time. Check out his detailed analysis. | 
