The revolution was over long ago. Mr. Eves's accession simply marks the point when even the pretense of revolution was abandoned.

This is what political parties do when they have lost all confidence in themselves or their beliefs, but not quite all hope of staying in power. Mr. Eves is to Ontario's politics as Egon Krenz was to East Germany's, the softer face of the same regime, thrust into office in the last hours in a desperate attempt to mollify its critics. It does nothing of the kind, of course, but only serves to confirm the essential justice of their critique. The stolid, consensus-seeking Mr. Eves will satisfy no one who now wishes to see the Tories gone: not those who are implacably opposed to its policies, certainly, but neither those centrist voters who have generally supported Mr. Harris's agenda until now, wish to preserve its achievements, but merely pine after an end to all that unpleasantness on the nightly news.

For they can get all that with Dalton McGuinty's Liberals.

It would be one thing if Mr. Eves faced a Liberal party in the grip of its left wing, led by a Gerard Kennedy (the former food bank director whom Mr. McGuinty defeated for the leadership) or some similar figure. A centrist Tory might then seem the safer bet. But Mr.

McGuinty has moved his party smartly to the centre, to the point where it must seem a largely risk-free option. Voters are now presented with two parties, occupying much the same ideological ground: The one, led by the 55-year-old Mr. Eves, with all the baggage that inevitably accumulates after seven years in power; the other, led by the 46-year-old Mr. McGuinty, offering both the promise of renewal and the reassurance of continuity.

Even then, Mr. Eves might have been a sensible choice, viewed purely in mercenary terms -- were he vastly popular in himself, or were he a skilled campaigner. He is neither.

His image as a sort of antique dandy has already made him a figure of Liberal fun, his oiled-back hair and gelatinous politics neatly linked in a single word: ''slick.'' He is a dull speaker, an awkward debater, with a temper that may prove a liability under fire. His selection was entirely a defensive one. He was chosen not for what he is, but for what he is not -- not ideological, not radical, not much of anything really, but a competent, inoffensive manager.

The irony is that Mr. Eves's election does represent a revolution of sorts, or rather a counter-revolution. It is the revenge of the old Big Blue Machine, the Bill Davis Tories, the Red Tories who ran the party before Mr. Harris -- the very people the Common Sense Revolution was supposed to have purged from positions of influence. It turns out they never really went away, but simply lay dormant all these years (like ''spores,'' an embittered Harrisite remarked) waiting for their moment to revive.

But who knew -- irony upon irony -- that it would be Tony Clement who would deliver it to them? Mr. Clement was the original Common Sense Revolutionary, the campus ideologue, the early acolyte of Mr. Harris, the keeper of the flame since his improbable rise to power. Yet it was Mr. Clement who, after Saturday's first ballot, with Mr. Eves stalled short of a majority, crossed over to his side, adding crucial momentum.

How many of Mr. Clement's voters actually went with him is unclear: This was not a delegated convention, but a direct vote of the membership. What is clear is that several of Mr. Clement's closest supporters went instead to Jim Flaherty, the pugnacious Finance Minister. The significance of this cannot be overstated. Like Mr. Clement, these were the architects of the Common Sense Revolution, people such as Tom Long, Mr. Harris's campaign director in both elections; Alister Campbell, who drafted the original platform; Nigel Wright, a top adviser and strategist; and others. These were people whose association with Mr. Clement in some cases stretches back more than two decades.

That they broke with Mr. Clement, choosing to stand not with the winner, but the losing candidate, shows not only the depth of their disaffection with Mr. Eves: It marks the end of Mr. Clement's career as the standard-bearer of the party's right wing. Divided at the outset of the campaign, it is now entirely and devotedly at the service of Mr. Flaherty.

Having tried to position himself as the compromise candidate between the two front- runners, Mr. Clement soon found he was caught in a vise, squeezed from both sides, which his own vacillating campaign did nothing to reverse. By jumping to Mr. Eves, he may have saved a spot in cabinet, but at the cost of alienating his support base.

Indeed, the same may be said of the party. The 40% of the party who now support Mr.

Flaherty -- the ideologues, the true believers, the people who do the legwork in any campaign -- will probably still turn out for Mr. Eves in the next election. But their hearts won't be in it. They will not stuff that extra envelope, knock on that last door, put off family and work commitments in the cause of a candidate they believe in. Mr. Eves is not the sort of candidate one believes in, but rather settles for. Caught between the fickle centre and the apathetic right, he may lead the party back to where it was when Mr.

Harris found it: electoral oblivion.

Coda: Yesterday came word that Mr. Eves had appointed Elizabeth ("the revolution is over") Witmer as his deputy. This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang but a Witmer.