The morning Hudak round-up: stellar, as always

Didn’t see some of these over the weekend. Here they are, as a public service:

• Christina Blizzard, Sun Media: “The important point for PC Leader Tim Hudak to remember is he won’t become premier because it’s his turn.  Voters have a refreshing habit of cutting to the chase and rejecting anyone who appears complacent…If we’ve learned anything from the recent federal election and last fall’s municipal elections it is this: Don’t take the electorate for granted. Do not think for one minute that all you have to do is drop a platform and cruise to a coronation…Hudak said in his platform he’d keep all-day kindergarten. McGuinty came out swinging, suggesting the Tories will renege. It’s all a question of heart, McGuinty told reporters Wednesday. He has heart. The Tories don’t.”
• Martin Regg Cohn, Star: “Here’s a hot issue that Tim Hudak thinks will bring down the Ontario government: Higher hydro bills. And here’s the Tory leader’s bizarre pitch to bring those bills down: Stop collecting for our hydro debt, by brazenly declaring it paid in full — even though it’s still there. Ignoring our debts is a strange notion coming from Ontario’s once-proud Progressive Conservatives. But Hudak has calculated that by profiting from voter frustration, and banking on voter folly, he can cash in on voting day, Oct. 6. His plan is a scam — a classic tale of buying votes with taxpayers’ money. And a parable of how elections are won in an era of short attention spans. A warning to readers: The PCs are counting on you tuning out the details.”
• Angelo Persichilli, Toronto Star: “In Ontario, provincial Conservatives were in favour of the HST until the day that the McGuinty Liberals adopted it…Hudak is no Mike Harris. You could disagree with Harris, but he had a vision, he had the Common Sense Revolution. The Hudak Conservatives have nothing revolutionary — their Changebook sounds more like another tablet competing with the BlackBerry Playbook and the iPad 2. Another similarity between the Ontario Conservatives and the federal Liberals is the issue of party unity. Even if the wound is not as open and deep as the one still affecting the federal Liberals, Ontario Conservatives are still discreetly dealing with the way former leader John Tory was treated by his party. How much this lingering resentment will impact the October vote is hard to say, but it cannot be ignored.”
• Ken Gray, Ottawa Citizen: “Former U.S. President George W. Bush had a disconcerting view about debt. Don’t pay it. Let the next guy cover it. And with Tory Leader Tim Hudak’s Changebook platform, Ontarians could get a taste of that U.S. fiscal and economic solution….Hudak’s election platform is the kind of document that made Greece the model of fiscal prudence it is today.”
• Phil McNichol, Owen Sound Sun Times: “Tim Hudak is starting to use the same populist, tough-on- crime tactics that seem, sadly, to have worked for the Harper campaign. It has nothing to do with espousing an intelligent response to crime and the “correction” of people convicted of crimes. Rather, it’s all about the cynical view that a lot of voters are stupid, that they will have a thoughtless, knee-jerk reaction to dubious policies that exploit their fears, suspicions and prejudices.”