Horwath, Failure, And Out-Driving The Car
On The ONDP's Failures
I finally figured out why Andrea Horwath irritates me so much.
It’s not her gender – the fact I eagerly await Freeland’s ascension to the throne Federally and my complete contempt for Jagmeet Singh should dispel that attack – nor is it her party, since I voted for it in 2018 and voted for their federal cousins in September. It is the fact that she will never lead her party, or her province, further than they deserve to go, and that’s what frustrates me so much. She will never outsing the song, she will never outdrive the car. And that’s her sin.
I’ve gotten really into F1 in the last 3 months, and one of the things that my F1 fandom has introduced me to is the tiered world of F1, where there are 10 teams, 20 drivers, and really only 3 teams who are true contenders. This year, it’s been a Ferrari-Red Bull duel, with Mercedes lagging in 3rd in the Constructors Championship, well ahead of 4th and not particularly close to 2nd. Mercedes is having seemingly never ending car issues, which is leading to them having disasters like Lewis Hamilton’s P14 in Imola and George Russell qualifying in 12th for Miami. For any other non-Ferrari or Red Bull team, a 5th and a 6th, which Mercedes pulled off in Miami, would be an amazing weekend. For them, it’s a borderline disaster, even if they’re all publicly trying to say all the right things.
Hamilton’s season has been dreadful, sitting 6th in the Driver’s Championship with only two Top 5 finishes this season and only one podium – a third in the season opener they only managed because both Red Bulls failed to finish the race. His new teammate (and the one I am pledging my fandom to), the aforementioned Russell? He’s been the breakout star of the season, in some senses – Mercedes’ prodigal son who came home after a few years with Williams has actually just been very good, with two 5th places, two 4ths, and a 3rd. George is consistently outdriving the car, getting a 4th and a 5th the last two weeks despite starting the races in 11th and 12th, respectively. He is getting the most out of a car that just isn’t good enough, and he is consistently ensuring that no matter how bad the weekend gets for Mercedes, they at least stay in theoretical touching distance of the Constructors Championship.
And as I just finish catching up on the final 20 laps of Miami, I finally understood why Horwath makes me so fucking angry.
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The reason I picked Russell to be my driver of choice before the season, is admittedly shallow – he’s a damn good looking lad, what do you want from me? – but his driving has impressed me so much so far this season. His ability to get a better result than the fundamentals point to – to take some risks that can pay off in big ways, like he did in Miami to wait out a potential Safety Car – is truly Scrimshawian in mentality. It’s the exact sort of gamble I love, and the exact sort that Horwath has never had in her.
When, exactly, has Andrea Horwath put in a set of results that were inarguably great? In 2011, she got the corpse of Dalton McGuinty’s government and made some gains, and then she won a few byelections when longtime Liberal incumbents retired, and then she basically stood still in aggregate numbers in 2014. In 2018, she did great – kinda. She gained a bunch of seats, but in terms of trying to stop the Tory advances, her NDP got swept out of Mississauga and Halton, and couldn’t even get anywhere close to winning in any of them, really. They couldn’t win either of the outer Kitchener seats that elected Liberal MPs in 2019 and 2021, they couldn’t win an Etobicoke and only won 1 Scarborough, and that is why the PCs are in office. Hell, they couldn’t even stop the Tories from winning Sault Ste. Marie, the exact kind of result the NDP should be tailor made to keep from flipping blue.
Now? Horwath is in third place again, enough that her party will be necessary to form some form of minority or cooperative government but without her party calling the shots – a status the last four years really should have made impossible, especially considering Horwath has the Mulcair playbook of mistakes to avoid, but I digress.
I don’t think it’s news that Rob – who in addition to being one of the best fantasy baseball players in the world is also Mr. Katie Telford – and I are a little friendly, but even still, I thought he was fucking mental when he tweeted this on election night 2018, and now I’m 1000% with him on this. The NDP have no ambition, no drive, and it comes because their leader has no ambition beyond doing just as well as is expected.
Someone tried to explain to me once that Jagmeet Singh going to Kingston in the final four days to try and build up NDP support for the long term was okay despite the fact he couldn’t fucking win Davenport, and it fits so well with the ambition – or more accurately, the lack of it – from both Horwath and Singh. This is a party conditioned to accept fucking patheticness as success, because they stand for some principles – despite the fact, of course, Jagmeet makes an ass out of himself by calling the Liberals he is propping up the same as the Tories he supposedly despises. It’s a party conditioned to accept failure as success, to defend the indefensible, and to expect nothing, so nobody can ever slip below the bar.
Andrea Horwath will never outdrive the car, and that is her grave political sin. She will never take a chance, she will never take a risk, and she will never make the moves required to lead this province or save it from another four years of Ford. And for that sin, she will be known as the leader who was gifted an empty net and somehow blew the whole fucking thing.
For a party that supposedly wants to radically change the province, they’re terribly willing to accept a shit fucking leader and a shit status quo – and Horwath’s legacy of failure is damn well earned.