MONTREAL — A gaggle of beaming Conservative operatives waited mere minutes after Bob Rae was knocked out of the Liberal leadership race before boasting about the role they played in the former Ontario premier's defeat.

Just seconds after Rae was knocked out, a prominent Tory MP wandering the convention floor pulled out a handful of buttons mocking Rae and winked mischievously.

"There's a reason we handed out so many of these,'' said B.C. MP James Moore, pointing to buttons that ridiculed Rae's track record as Ontario premier.

"They (Liberals) don't know how to play poker ... The NDP is also feeling happy right now.''

In recent months some leading Tories admitted privately that Rae was the Liberal candidate they feared the most.

Their admissions became public the instant Rae was eliminated from the race.

One Tory operative described how a handful of government supporters proliferated at Liberal parties throughout Montreal on Friday evening and handed out anti-Rae buttons.

"Make Bob the first NDP prime minister,'' one button said.

Another button aimed at underlining Rae's tumultuous time in Ontario said: "Vote Bob. Who needs Ontario?''

The party made similar buttons for all the other candidates -- but it was mainly for show. Rae was their main target, said a government official.

"There were hundreds of Liberals wearing those (Rae) buttons when they went to vote today,'' he said.

"It was great to watch.''

One Conservative aide took pride in pointing out that his party fabricated an internal party memo suggesting their troops were most afraid of Michael Ignatieff -- and most anxious to face Rae.

The ersatz memo was leaked to a pair of English- and French-language newspapers and ran under headlines that cast it as a behind-the-scenes peek at Tory strategy.

The name of Tory campaign chair Doug Finley, the supposed author of the memo, was stamped on the document as an afterthought.

The Tories then made arrangements to get the memo leaked through a third party to English and French newspapers, Tory sources said.