DCHP-2

Big Blue Machine DCHP-2 (March 2016)

• 1 n. — Politics, informal, predominantly Ontario

  nickname for Ontario's Progressive Conservative Party under William Davis (1971-85).

  Type: 4. Culturally Significant — This term is said to have been coined by Johnathan Manthorpe in the early 1970s (see the 2010 quotation) due to the party's power and conservative political position. The nickname originally referred to William Davis's core campaign team throughout four consecutive election terms. It appears to have been generalized to refer to the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party as a whole (see the 2002 quotation). Its cultural significance is made evident by cultural adaptations of the term and the coinage of "Baby Blue Machine" in reference to a subsequent party.
  See also COD-2, s.v. "Big Blue Machine", which is marked "Cdn".

  • The term has other senses in the US (as a nickname for various sports teams), but this sense is specific to Ontario.

• 2 n. — Politics, informal

  a nickname for the Conservative Party.

  Type: 3. Semantic Change — Although the term was first coined in relation to the Ontario PC Party under William Davis (see meaning 1), Big Blue Machine has generalized, first to refer to the now dissolved Progressive Conservative Party, and then to the Conservative Party that succeeded it. By the late 1980s, the term was being used to refer to the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney (see the 1988 quotation), and more currently, to the Harper government (see the second 2015 quotation).
  In some readings, the term suggests the strategists behind election campaigns, and not necessarily the party itself (see the 1994 and the first 2015 quotations).