Hey Evan, I have been enjoying following along with your writing throughout this Ontario Election. It is interesting quite how this consolidation on the left hasn't happened. Let me wildly speculate why that might be
1. Del Duca- I'm sure he is a very intelligent man but he has the charisma of day old fries in the fridge. I don't think you'd find many who would follow him to a pot of gold never mind to the Premier office.
2. Money/ Ground Game- Liberals don't have the cash to splash like the Cons do, and I don't know how good their 'ground game' is. I live in a seat they are projected (338 of course) to gain from the NDP but I've only seen NDP knocking on my door, and they visited twice! To be fair, this is only my own experience so far.
3. Teflon Doug - Comparison is the theft of joy they say, it's also the theft of better here. I think he is viewed as less of a societal threat than his federal counterparts, as he doesn't indulge (much) in right-wing nut baggery. This is also a vote on how he handled covid. I think it's viewed that Ontario did okay. People look to the states with countless death toll, to Quebec with their curfews and to the UK with partygate. Compared to that, Doug did fine on the surface.
Trying to scare people into strategic voting is a harder ask here. He also has a Boris like ability to pass the buck successfully, opposition haven't put a glove on him
4. No punches given - Doug was a big fan of Trump until the pandemic. Their are clips of him praising trump. That should be everywhere, repeatedly. Housing has gone up extremely during his time in office. He has cut education, the nurses in this province are on their knees, he fucked up our renewable energy strategy, he cut the minimum wage and he sat on Billions from the fed whilst small businesses suffered through covid. Yet I'm not really hearing impactful criticism on this.
5. Liberal fatigue - People have voted strategically for the Liberals twice now in the past few years for Fed elections. That was Trudeau asking for that, who ...y'know has a bit more going for him than SDD in terms of speaking to an electorate.
6. NDP are mid - I don't think AH was going to rally the public to the NDP's side and that's not a bold view to have.
7. NDP are mid - Sure AH is a dud, but I'd say she has more of a connection to voters than SDD. Sure NDP campaign approach has been mostly unremarkable from a central perspective (which is...a theme these past few years). However I speculate that their ground game is far better than the Liberals. The limp effort by OLP hasn't been enough to drag Dipper voters back. AH was never going to improve from 2018 but perhaps the NDP voter is a lot firmer provincially, especially with plenty of incumbents. If the NDP take places like St Catharines again, what do we put that down to?
8. Headline polices - I think trying to outdo DoFo in Gimmickary was a mistake by SDD, and has given a bit of ground to the NDP, real brand choices. Combination of Fed and Provincial NDP push has made them the party that champions Dentalcare and Pharamacare. Whilst the OLP are pushing $1 transit. Eh.
That's my lot, Ford more years will happen, and it looks like it has been an absolute cake walk. Honestly his campaign and overall PR game is above everything else. Knows when to disappear, very successful in framing debates, rhetoric which although not always bright, does punch through. Even in Coalition, OLP and the ONDP don't have that.
Having said that. one wonders, if Doug was on a boat in Lake Ontario this entire time doing nothing, would we have that much of a difference in the result we will see next week?
My feeling is that it's the Liberal's choice for leader. A rather dull personality, too much baggage, and the gnawing memory of the McGuinty-Wynne years still fresh in people's minds, despite the prospect of another 4 years of Ford. Some people simply cannot think crtically to overlook those things and instead think with their emotions. It's unfortunate because the best we can hope for is to hold Ford to a minority to limit the destruction he can wield.
What is wrong is the stupidity of the three progressive political parties, who could not agree on a common platform three months prior to the election. They could have run as a coalition with only one candidate under a red green and orange banner in each riding against the Tories and cleaned up.
Trying to get people to vote strategically in a riding is about as successful as herding cats. When Ford gets a larger majority, the blame is not on the voters but on the political parties.
By the way your bitching about Andrea Horwath over the last weeks, shows how little you know about the way political parties work internally.
Both Horwath and Del Duca are run by party insiders who want plum jobs if their team, I mean party gets elected.
I think it totally made sense to expect the left to compromise because it happens every federal election, at least recently. So there's a lot of precedent to suggest Canadians are usually willing to do it. Do you think this means that's going to change going forward (thinking of the next election with Poilievre as Tory leader) or is it just a one off because they don't like Del Duca?
Hey Evan, I have been enjoying following along with your writing throughout this Ontario Election. It is interesting quite how this consolidation on the left hasn't happened. Let me wildly speculate why that might be
1. Del Duca- I'm sure he is a very intelligent man but he has the charisma of day old fries in the fridge. I don't think you'd find many who would follow him to a pot of gold never mind to the Premier office.
2. Money/ Ground Game- Liberals don't have the cash to splash like the Cons do, and I don't know how good their 'ground game' is. I live in a seat they are projected (338 of course) to gain from the NDP but I've only seen NDP knocking on my door, and they visited twice! To be fair, this is only my own experience so far.
3. Teflon Doug - Comparison is the theft of joy they say, it's also the theft of better here. I think he is viewed as less of a societal threat than his federal counterparts, as he doesn't indulge (much) in right-wing nut baggery. This is also a vote on how he handled covid. I think it's viewed that Ontario did okay. People look to the states with countless death toll, to Quebec with their curfews and to the UK with partygate. Compared to that, Doug did fine on the surface.
Trying to scare people into strategic voting is a harder ask here. He also has a Boris like ability to pass the buck successfully, opposition haven't put a glove on him
4. No punches given - Doug was a big fan of Trump until the pandemic. Their are clips of him praising trump. That should be everywhere, repeatedly. Housing has gone up extremely during his time in office. He has cut education, the nurses in this province are on their knees, he fucked up our renewable energy strategy, he cut the minimum wage and he sat on Billions from the fed whilst small businesses suffered through covid. Yet I'm not really hearing impactful criticism on this.
5. Liberal fatigue - People have voted strategically for the Liberals twice now in the past few years for Fed elections. That was Trudeau asking for that, who ...y'know has a bit more going for him than SDD in terms of speaking to an electorate.
6. NDP are mid - I don't think AH was going to rally the public to the NDP's side and that's not a bold view to have.
7. NDP are mid - Sure AH is a dud, but I'd say she has more of a connection to voters than SDD. Sure NDP campaign approach has been mostly unremarkable from a central perspective (which is...a theme these past few years). However I speculate that their ground game is far better than the Liberals. The limp effort by OLP hasn't been enough to drag Dipper voters back. AH was never going to improve from 2018 but perhaps the NDP voter is a lot firmer provincially, especially with plenty of incumbents. If the NDP take places like St Catharines again, what do we put that down to?
8. Headline polices - I think trying to outdo DoFo in Gimmickary was a mistake by SDD, and has given a bit of ground to the NDP, real brand choices. Combination of Fed and Provincial NDP push has made them the party that champions Dentalcare and Pharamacare. Whilst the OLP are pushing $1 transit. Eh.
That's my lot, Ford more years will happen, and it looks like it has been an absolute cake walk. Honestly his campaign and overall PR game is above everything else. Knows when to disappear, very successful in framing debates, rhetoric which although not always bright, does punch through. Even in Coalition, OLP and the ONDP don't have that.
Having said that. one wonders, if Doug was on a boat in Lake Ontario this entire time doing nothing, would we have that much of a difference in the result we will see next week?
Cheers.
My feeling is that it's the Liberal's choice for leader. A rather dull personality, too much baggage, and the gnawing memory of the McGuinty-Wynne years still fresh in people's minds, despite the prospect of another 4 years of Ford. Some people simply cannot think crtically to overlook those things and instead think with their emotions. It's unfortunate because the best we can hope for is to hold Ford to a minority to limit the destruction he can wield.
Nothing is wrong with the people of Ontario.
What is wrong is the stupidity of the three progressive political parties, who could not agree on a common platform three months prior to the election. They could have run as a coalition with only one candidate under a red green and orange banner in each riding against the Tories and cleaned up.
Trying to get people to vote strategically in a riding is about as successful as herding cats. When Ford gets a larger majority, the blame is not on the voters but on the political parties.
By the way your bitching about Andrea Horwath over the last weeks, shows how little you know about the way political parties work internally.
Both Horwath and Del Duca are run by party insiders who want plum jobs if their team, I mean party gets elected.
It is party before the people of Ontario.
Ford more years
I think it totally made sense to expect the left to compromise because it happens every federal election, at least recently. So there's a lot of precedent to suggest Canadians are usually willing to do it. Do you think this means that's going to change going forward (thinking of the next election with Poilievre as Tory leader) or is it just a one off because they don't like Del Duca?