Just days after losing the Toronto mayor’s race to former Ontario PC Leader John Tory, Doug Ford is considering entering the race to become the next provincial Conservative leader.

Ford says the Tories need to reach out to union members, people in public housing and other ”common people that are fiscally conservative, but you have to have a social conscience.”

Some party insiders say he could be a serious contender because of the one-member, one-vote system.

Tim Hudak, who stepped down after the June election, says Ford ”displayed a lot of formidable, political talent in the (mayoral) campaign.  Doug ran a helluva campaign.  He’s a talent.  We’ll see what he wants to do next.”

Leadership hopeful Monte McNaughton says he trusts ”the wisdom of the grassroots to make the right decision in May on who they want to be their leader.  But I think anything that we can do as a party to raise the profile of the race to attract new members, just over ten years ago we had 100,000 members, today we’re down to 10,000 members.  So anything we can do to raise the profile I think is a good thing for the party.”