Memo To The OLP: Ignore Horwath

The NDP Are A Joke. Treat Them As Such

“I feel bad for you.”
“I don’t think about you at all.”

For those who don’t know the reference that leads this piece, it’s one of Mad Men’s most famous scenes, where Jon Hamm and some other dude are in an elevator, the other guy expresses his feelings, and Hamm destroys him. (Don’t ask me for more, I never watched the show.)

It’s the ultimate dig because Hamm’s Don Draper is saying that this other person is not worth his time, his energy, or his effort. To not care, to not think of someone at all, is to truly hurt them. What is worse than being yelled at by someone you love or care about? Knowing they don’t even care enough about you to be mad anymore.

It’s part of why I am as indifferent to most things as I am – the one thing I seem to be able to stick to is the notion that I have a limited amount of energy these days and that that energy is better used on issues, and people, worthy of the respect of my attention. It’s a bit of high-concept bullshit, but not getting outraged over things and people not worth your time is worthwhile.

And all of this explains why Steven Del Duca needs to ignore Andrea Horwath and make this campaign a straight 1 on 1 versus Doug Ford.

…

Andrea Horwath is not going to be the Premier of Ontario after the next election.

She just isn’t.

I say this not as someone who has an ax to grind with her – having voted for her party last time, I get to be this blunt. Her tenure as leader of this province’s opposition has been an act of cowardice and an act of betrayal to the voters who listened when she said she was the right person to oppose Doug Ford. She hasn’t been, and she won’t become that in 8 weeks, having faded down the stretch of every campaign she’s ever run.

Yes, yes, she walked into the 2018 writ period around 25% and she got 33%, but that wasn’t because of her usefulness, it was because the Liberals tanked – and let’s not forget that she completely and utterly botched the last ten days of the campaign. She got destroyed in the 2018 Leaders Debate and then she got beaten around some more by Ford telegraphing his line – the NDP are full of nutters you can’t trust – and having no answer. And now, she needs to be treated like the irrelevance she is.

The best way for the Liberals to win this election is not to spend weeks and weeks attacking her, it’s to ignore her and her party of incompetents and non-entities, which is what Horwath’s legacy needs to be. How can someone lead her party for so long and leave no successor, no transition, no people around her ready to take the baton? Oh, I know how – she treats the entire idea of partybuilding with the same contempt she has for the idea of Opposition to a dangerous government.

If the Liberals want to win, the door’s wide open for them to do it, and their path is simple – don’t do stupid shit. Don’t get into a pissing contest on your left flank, wait out Ford, and play your game, because we are about to run into the political opening the Liberals need.

What happens in a month when 10% of teachers are out with (overwhelmingly mild cases of) COVID? What happens when there’s rising cases, rising hospitalizations, and the government is in caretaker mode? What happens when the very obvious and cynical political bet Doug Ford made collapses on itself, as seems overwhelmingly likely? Ford’s numbers, artificially high right now because people are free of restrictions, will crash back to the low 30s, and the Liberals will be there to pick up the slack.

No, the Liberals should not be hammering away at a COVID message, they need to be drawing all of this back to a central message about Ford – they’re incompetent maniacs who don’t know shit from a hole in the ground. What’s school chaos, the 413, the Trucker Convoy, and closing Ontario off from Daily Fantasy Sports have in common? This government aren’t good at governing, and they’re making a hash out of literally everything they do. Far from a Midas Touch, you could call this government as having the Ford Touch – everything it touches crumbles to dogshit.

The Ontario Liberals have answers to the current problems, or at least some of them – and I have faith climate and housing offers are coming, in time. The OLP have earned my trust that they know what they’re doing, with a good start to the year, tactically (at least, once they shut the fuck about COVID), and now they’ve got to finish the deal. Can they? Yes. Will they? I think so, but there’s always ways to do better from here.

Ignoring the NDP and pushing a very clear message about Ford every day is the answer, and making sure that every weird, random, story of the day Ford fuckup gets run back through the same message, as opposed to looking like you’re jumping from ship to ship, story to story, will substantially raise the chances of a Liberal government. Dignify the NDP with a response and they’re at the grownup table. McGuinty, Wynne, and Trudeau all won by fundamentally ignoring the NDP. This remains the right path.

At the end of the day, two people can plausibly be Premier of Ontario by the end of 2022 – Doug Ford and Steven Del Duca. If that’s the choice, then, Del Duca will win that battle, take NDP votes to stop a vote split, and slingshot himself and the OLP to the mid 30s, right around Ford. If they spend all their time focusing on a stupid war with a joke of a party to their left that can’t win, Ford gets to skate and he might stay at 40%.

There’s two people who can become Premier, Ford or Del Duca. That’s it, that’s all, that’s the ballgame. Ignore Horwath at all costs, and treat her like the irrelevance she is.