Is Ontario headed for another Wynne win?

[Luce NDs]

My question is how long these last if things go badly. He made these promises to both lock up the right wing vote and ensure Granic Allan would back him after the first ballot. If the Tories start doing badly and the lean to right is identified as an issue, will he pull a Brown and slide to centre or stay the course? After all, they have been doing very well in the polls with a moderate, centre-right platform that even nicked some items (carbon tax) from the Liberals. Is swinging right really going to improve on that?

Tis very poli ticky ... and the corruption moves along .. unknown and unseen be cause we didn't wish to goog it ... resembles a Lear ... from those probing the dark ...

 

[chansen]

Ex.

No matter what happens, what is inescapable is the hypocrisy in evangelical Christian ranks. Never again should people care if evangelicals disapprove of someone. They've lost all credibility. Evangelical Christians will vote for anyone who promises to advance their agenda, no matter how terrible of a person they are. In Canada and the United States, even when they win elections now, they will lose in the long run.

 

[Luce NDs]

No matter what happens, what is inescapable is the hypocrisy in evangelical Christian ranks. Never again should people care if evangelicals disapprove of someone. They've lost all credibility. Evangelical Christians will vote for anyone who promises to advance their agenda, no matter how terrible of a person they are. In Canada and the United States, even when they win elections now, they will lose in the long run.

Agreed ... Eve Angels are dark as that Pan Black ... a deep point in the night sky pointed out by Hawking as where the warm drop out ... producing Hawking Radiance that too ... is unseen ... resembles Jae ... unseeing of that witch hints of alteration ...

Disturbing to the institution? Perhaps a dervish or bunny dusting along ... Oestrous?

 

[chansen]

Beyond hopping in bed with evangelical Christians, Doug Ford attacked Christine Elliott during this campaign for accepting an appointment from Kathleen Wynne, as the Patients Ombudsman for Ontario.

Now, some background. Elliott and her late husband Jim Flaherty are well respected in the community of parents of disabled children. Their own son has a mental disability, and she has been a fantastic supporter of disabled children. From Wikipedia:

Elliott received Whitby's Peter Perry Award, an annual recognition of Whitby's outstanding citizen. Prior to that she became a Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow in recognition of her pro bono legal work. She is the co-founder and director of the Abilities Centre (a facility for those with special needs),[6] a director and past chair of Grandview Children’s Centre and a director of the Lakeridge Health Whitby Foundation. She was board president of the Durham Mental Health Services (DMHS) and was recognized when it named one of their group homes in her honour (Elliott House). She is a director of Legacy Private Trust and has been a director of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.[7]

She accepted an appointment from Kathleen Wynne to advocate for patients.

Plus, the Flaherty and Ford families are old friends. Every time Christine Elliott was given the chance to attack Doug Ford, she declined and focused on Kathleen Wynne. Doug Ford attacked Christine Elliott for agreeing to advocate for patients, which is something she is uniquely qualified to do.

Doug Ford is just a bully, a con artist, and will say whatever you want him to say to get elected. This is working with uber-religious types of multiple faiths, who are looking gullible and stupid as a result.

 

[Luce NDs]

Everybody needs a bully in politics ... Taurus ... even Moses had his Golden Calves ... a melting issue ...?

 

[revjohn]

Which is exactly why you nominate an ex-drug dealer.

Come on, we both know it wasn't the ex-drug dealing that put him over the top in the leadership convention.

It was the ballsy way he can look you in the face and lie without breaking a sweat.

All those years running around after his mess of a brother the Mayor claiming that none of what was being alleged was even remotely true. Possibly it was the way he called all the city hall beat reporters a bunch of pricks and then claimed he didn't mean to offend anyone because we all know how Doug is fond of pricks right? And his calling the media pathological liars? Surely that is more, "it takes one to know one" than anybody really needs.

Who needs attack ads to run against Ford.

Any headline he has been part of should be enough. And by the way, all those threats to sue for defamation over all of that pathological lying about brother Rob being publicly intoxicated and the like. Not one threat came to fruition.

Doug Ford is honesty deprived.

I wonder if Evan Carter has some marketting ideas for Doug that might help him connect with special interest groups like, you know, families with members on the Autism Spectrum of Disabilities.

Maybe Daniel Dale has some ideas for Doug about reaching out to park lovers or those who have had to eat crow when responding to libel notices.

Clearly, ONPC's need a leader who has faced the spotlight with respect to criminal investigations and is able to keep his story straight if not honest.

Because who else can you turn to when you are up against a tired government that is this unpopular?

When you look at Ontario and the mess it is currently in and you ask, rhetorically, "can it get any worse?" Doug Ford is the equivalent of some jack-ass saying, "hold my beer a minute."

How could he not make it worse?

Half the stupidity that his brother wound up in was because Doug said it would be a good idea.

The man cannot govern himself and that is why he never got a chance to govern the city. Will he get a chance to govern Ontario? Sure he will. Not because he offers anything approaching merit but rather because the incumbents have been so long without a genuine opposition that they have atrophied into uselessness.

 

[ninj]

I feel like I'm wandering in some dystopic miasma. I shudder to ask anyone's opinion anymore...too many nasty surprises.

 

[Delightful Life]

I feel like I'm wandering in some dystopic miasma. I shudder to ask anyone's opinion anymore...too many nasty surprises.

cheer up
the worst is yet to come
--Philander Johnson

(isnt a dystopic miasma what typical Toronto summers r like? so dystopically miasmic that one could cut it with a knife?) *waggles eyebrows*

 

[Luce NDs]

Real life is a dark chaos ... the stormy effects and affiliation of the soul at distance ... snuggle up to a thought and you may be enlightened !!

 

[revsdd]

The turmoil surrounding the Ontario PC Party continues. The same party that not long ago forced Patrick Brown OUT as leader, then decided that Patrick Brown WAS eligible to run for the PC leadership yesterday decided that Patrick Brown was NOT eligible to run as a PC candidate in the June election. I know Brown said he wasn't going to run, but this is still weird. The PC Party's position is "You weren't worthy to be our leader, but yes, you could have been our leader, but no you can't be a candidate for us." It makes no sense and continues to raise lots and lots of questions for me about their fitness to govern.

 

[Mendalla]

The turmoil surrounding the Ontario PC Party continues. The same party that not long ago forced Patrick Brown OUT as leader, then decided that Patrick Brown WAS eligible to run for the PC leadership yesterday decided that Patrick Brown was NOT eligible to run as a PC candidate in the June election. I know Brown said he wasn't going to run, but this is still weird. The PC Party's position is "You weren't worthy to be our leader, but yes, you could have been our leader, but no you can't be a candidate for us." It makes no sense and continues to raise lots and lots of questions for me about their fitness to govern.

But Doug Ford is going to save us from the evil Libruls. And expand availability of pot to the private sector. Personally, I'd have to be high to vote for a party led by Doug Ford, but that's another issue.

 

[revsdd]

But Doug Ford is going to save us from the evil Libruls. And expand availability of pot to the private sector. Personally, I'd have to be high to vote for a party led by Doug Ford, but that's another issue.

Three months ago I was voting PC. Now it's at least a possibility that they could drive me (holding my nose really, really hard) to the Liberals, although I think I'm starting to trend toward the Greens.

And in our local newspaper, my own PC MPP (who, as I've said, I think has done a decent job and generally comes across as pretty reasonable) was featured in an article where she was virtually frothing at the mouth saying how no party leader in Ontario history has ever been as hated as Kathleen Wynne. That kind of over the top rhetoric just completely turns me off. It should be possible to disagree with Kathleen Wynne, and to say that she hasn't been a good premier and that she should be voted out without resorting to the word "hate." But Laurie Scott says she's met Doug Ford a couple of times, and he's a businessman and he'll know how to straighten things out in Ontario. Sorry. She'll have to do better than that to convince me.

 

[Mendalla]

But Laurie Scott says she's met Doug Ford a couple of times, and he's a businessman and he'll know how to straighten things out in Ontario.

The Americans elected a right-wing populist businessman. The rest of us are living with the consequences. Let's just say "no".

 

[Redbaron]

Isn't there a "businessman" trying to straighten things out in a country somewhere south of here? Have we learned nothing from observing that example?
The only reason the PCO hasn't lost my vote is that I've never voted for them before. I would have considered doing so, had they found themselves a real leader, but if the best they can come up with is ....HIM, I'll pass, thanks.

 

[Mendalla]

The only reason the PCO hasn't lost my vote is that I've never voted for them before.

Ditto. They really can't "lose" my vote, only fail to get it. And they've been succeeding at failing for a very long time.

 

[revjohn]

The PC Party's position is "You weren't worthy to be our leader, but yes, you could have been our leader, but no you can't be a candidate for us." It makes no sense and continues to raise lots and lots of questions for me about their fitness to govern.

Paying close attention to this kind of nonsense never pays off in the end.

I mean, Doug Ford got plenty of spotlight time when he was enabling his chemically dependent brother as Mayor.

One of the biggest proponents of PPP's who never managed to make one come together.

The guy who wanted to seize the portlands for a giant ferris wheel.

The architect of the Cut the Waist challenge which humiliated his brother week after week after week.

The guy who railed against a group home for individuals on the Autism Spectrum of Disorders because he wasn't aware that they would let the kids outside and made everything better by telling the father of a student on the Autism Spectrum of Disorders to go to hell for filing a complaint against him.

Constantly lied about Rob not doing drugs, nor drinking and the media constantly lying about that.

The guy who is a bully and a thug who wandered around handing out $20 dollar bills in the poorest neighbourhoods of the city and personally donating $50, 000.00 to key parks needing attention.

The city of Toronto wouldn't even give him much sympathy vote when Rob pulled out of the Mayor's race and Doug stepped in with Rob's endorsement.

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth he rails against elites. Confusing only those who think that money buys class and since he is such a crude tool he must be grassroots.

Yeah, he represents a better alternative alright.

 

[ninj]

I see Doug Ford as a craven barker, attempting to play both sides -- the religious fundamentalists by smashing sex ed in schools AND the liberal/green voters by promising the GREENS policy of privatization of cannabis distribution -- a good idea imho, but I digress. As I have mentioned before, Kathleen Wynne is a victim of sexism and homophobia at it's vilest. Her considerable accomplishments are almost invisible and her energy policies are reviled. I didn't like that she squelched the tolls on the Gardiner (which urban Torontonians seem to favour), but would still vote for her in a heartbeat.

 

[Mendalla]

Kathleen Wynne is a victim of sexism and homophobia at it's vilest

Disagree. I am neither sexist nor homophobic and was quite proud to live in the first province with a lesbian head of government. However, Wynne chose to continue the policies of her predecessor in a number of areas and to defend that predecessor's dubious record. She could have tossed McGuinty under a bus and pursued her own agenda, but she did not. She is not a victim of sexism and homophobia (well, maybe some oppose her for that reason but I imagine most of them were core PC voters in the first place) but of bad decisions and scandals. Not all of those were her own, but she chose to own and defend them so they are now hers.

However, at this point, I am not sure what is the alternative. The PCs are in a meltdown as far as I can tell and their apparent swing to the right as evidenced by Ford's election as leader puts them off my radar in any case. The NDP really don't seem viable though I like Horwath and she actually has the highest approval rating of the provincial leaders. Green just doesn't seem to be catching on here the way they did in BC.

 

[revsdd]

I see Doug Ford as a craven barker, attempting to play both sides -- the religious fundamentalists by smashing sex ed in schools AND the liberal/green voters by promising the GREENS policy of privatization of cannabis distribution -- a good idea imho, but I digress.

Agree with you on this.

As I have mentioned before, Kathleen Wynne is a victim of sexism and homophobia at it's vilest.

Not that such sentiments aren't present, but this is the same Kathleen Wynne who only four years ago won a majority government. So unless the people who gave her that majority four years ago either swallowed their sexism and homophobia at that time or have been mysteriously converted to sexism and homophobia since then, I can't see that your argument holds any weight. Although that will probably be a part of the Liberal spin.

Her considerable accomplishments are almost invisible

She's had some. I would argue the word "considerable."

and her energy policies are reviled.

With reason. Skyrocketing Hydro rates. A massive surplus of electricity caused by bad contracts, and cheap electricity exports to the US while Ontarians are paying through the nose. The sell-off of hydro assets in a thinly veiled attempt to make the provinical deficit seem better.

I didn't like that she squelched the tolls on the Gardiner (which urban Torontonians seem to favour)

I would have no objection to highway tolls, but as you say she hasn't done that.

but would still vote for her in a heartbeat.

There may be some (such as me) who will consider holding their noses very, very hard to vote Liberal simply to keep Ford away from the Premier's office, but I think there are very few Ontarians aside from uber-partisan Liberals who would "vote for her in a heartbeat."

I will, however, carefully consider both the Greens (my current leaning) and the NDP before thinking about the Liberals.

All else aside, 15 years is too long for one party to hold power. The Liberals are tired and out of ideas and increasingly corrupt. Normal things for a party that's been in power too long - but it is time for a change. I simply don't want the change to be Ford.

 

[ninj]

Agree with you on this.


Not that such sentiments aren't present, but this is the same Kathleen Wynne who only four years ago won a majority government. So unless the people who gave her that majority four years ago either swallowed their sexism and homophobia at that time or have been mysteriously converted to sexism and homophobia since then, I can't see that your argument holds any weight. Although that will probably be a part of the Liberal spin.

'm not sure that I agree with that. I believe that she has become a focus for hatred over time and with repetition of that talking point. It's contagious. I'm not sure most people even care. They hear her name and the knee-jerk reaction happens. Her name has just become emblematic as shorthand for what libruls all stand for