Memo To The Ontario Left: Stop Focusing On Dumb Shit

For The Love Of God, Stop

If you believe Abacus from this morning, 37% of Ontarians would vote to re-elect Doug Ford if an election was held today, and Doug Ford would be a coinflip away from majority government. I posted an update to my Ontario forecast this morning after that poll and the EKOS one – PCs 55, Libs 40, NDP 28, and the Greens keep Guelph – and the overwhelming response was about the need for strategic voting. My response to that? Stop focusing on stupid shit.

If you plug that Abacus poll – and only that Abacus poll - into my model, you would get the PCs on 64 seats, one more than the line for majority government. If you were to take 3% off the NDP vote share, and add it to the Liberal votes, that number would fall to 55, 8 short of a majority. So, by that metric, strategic voting is a necessary thing that can get rid of the Ford government, right? Sure, if you can pull it off, and tweeting at me about how we need to do a thing isn’t going to accomplish it. You know what would be a lot better, and more efficient? Stopping the Conservatives from getting to 37% by the time the election’s called, but nobody seems quite so eager to do that.

Focusing on the vote splitting on the left is a convenient, but useless, way to avoid having to figure out how so many people that you would, under other circumstances, consider smart and reasonable – that is, until you find out Doug Ford is the leader they’re about to vote for. That fact is a shocking fact for so many, because for so many the utter uselessness and incompetence of the Ford government is a self-evident truth to so many Liberals and New Democrats. You can spend as much time as you want believing it, but the path to beating Ford isn’t just rearranging the deck chairs of the progressive majority, but in stopping people who say they’re voting for Ford now from following through from that on election day.

You want to actually accomplish anything? You actually want to get somewhere with this campaign? Make a real fucking argument for what progressive ideas will do and not just go around assuming Ford’s failures will be enough to elect the other side. Competence versus chaos isn’t a selling point when people don’t blame the government for chaos, because nobody thinks it’s reasonable to blame Doug Ford for a Global Fucking Pandemic. Has he fucked things up related to it? Sure, nobody’s arguing he hasn’t, but voters do not think it’s reasonable to hold politicians in a crisis to the standard of perfection, and people don’t get that.

Now, because complaining about the damn useless left without giving any constructive advice is the political consultant equivalent of old men yelling at kids to get off their lawns, let’s go. Three things the variegated left need to do to win in 2022 that are more effective than yelling at me about vote splitting.

Articulate A Vision For 2025

A good portion of the reason Joe Biden’s in the mud right now is his administration had a lot of lofty ambitions that are stuck because of Joe Manchin, but freed from the uselessness of the Senior Senator of West Virginia, the left should articulate what the province will look like post-restrictions and as the world gets back to normal, or at least the new normal. I have my own policy preferences (provincially owned telco, baby!), but articulate a vision beyond “you won’t have to wear a mask to go see a Leafs game”, for the love of God.

Focus On Climate

Ontario voters have routinely shown themselves to be in favour of carbon pricing and the Trudeau-Ford voters in Ontario are definitely pro-action on climate. Ford’s record is shit on this topic, and you can build a strong narrative – around the lack of transit action, Highway 413, lack of any interest in Ottawa to Toronto rapid transit – of a government unconcerned with its citizens. Also, given there are 3 federally-Liberal PCPO seats in Ottawa, promises around making our LRT actually work, and getting Ottawa residents to Toronto faster and cheaper, would go a long way to flipping seats the opposition will need.

Don’t Make A Moral Argument

We all hate Doug Ford.

Every person reading this hates Doug Ford for one reason or another, and that hatred is generally valid. But what won’t move a goddamn mind is pointing out the corruption or the shady deals or the fact that he seems to only respond “how high” when big business tells him to jump. None of that will move any votes. What will is cold hard calculation – how much money the alternative offer will save voters.

Frame the entire economic message around cost savings – on child care, on carbon rebates, on transit, everything needs to be about the amount of money that will be saved with a left wing government. I know we like to think that people will vote for the good of the community, but pointing out that university costs more now for the kids of the middle class because of Ford’s tuition changes is a better argument than he’s in bed with the Westons. Whether it’s true or not, it’s the kind of accusation which gets ignored for being hyperbolic, even if it’s true.

Focus on the agenda that can actually persuade voters – that they’re spending more than they need to because Doug Ford isn’t willing to invest in people – and you can actually start to flip those voters who worry about the record of McGuinty and Wynne on spending. If it’s spending on tangible savings for voters, then voters will reward you for it. Don’t promise the moon, but make clear that Conservative government isn’t cheaper.

Ford’s an underdog to win again, and I’d still very clearly like to be Steven Del Duca if I’m trying to predict who will be the next Premier, but the left is making stupid mistakes they shouldn’t. If they want to win, here’s the actual path.