— Musings —09.16.2011 07:39 AM
Cartoon in today’s Star
For those of you outside Toronto, that’s Rob Ford behind the wheel of the car. He should have had Stephen Harper in the passenger seat.
— Musings —09.16.2011 07:39 AM
For those of you outside Toronto, that’s Rob Ford behind the wheel of the car. He should have had Stephen Harper in the passenger seat.
The most recent polls have the PC`s and Liberals tied in the race.I expect the next poll will show the PC`s with a 3 to 4 point lead leading up to a 10 point lead on Election Day.
That’s nice. Your important contributions are always welcome here.
Actually, you`re even nicer to accept my humble contribution.
Seriously, I can see there`s not much to get excited about in Hudak`s campaign but considering his record and general lack of charisma, I think even you would be shocked to see McGuinty win a third term.
“but considering his record and general lack of charisma”
You’re talking about Hudak, right? Don’t forget to add lack of character or conviction.
Liberal minority is my prediction, and honestly that would be a good thing for Ontario. We’d still get some of the good that McG has actually been doing, but reel in some of his more egregious abuses (smart meters/time-of-use pricing scam, jumping the gun on “green” boondoggles, feed-in tariff, HST on fuel and energy, etc.)
Are you sure you want a Liberal Minority propped up by a ” free spending, unaccountable, NDP ” ?
Since when are smart meters or time of use pricing a ‘scam’? Do you have a clue when it comes to the economics of electricity generation? Methinks not…
When I saw the latest polls, that’s what I was thinking — Liberal minority propped up by the NDP. Personally, I have a negative reaction to that, because I lived through the Liberal minority propped up by NDP in the late 1980s. That was not a fiscally responsible regime — basically David Peterson bought the NDP off with taxpayers’ money, and that had a lot to do with why the subsequent Rae government was so deeply in the hole fiscally. I’d much prefer a Liberal majority to that scenario.
But the PC regime in the 1990s-2000s wasn’t responsible in any way – socially or fiscally… sometimes it seems like you can’t win.
Your’re reading Tea Party leaves through rose coloured glasses.
Attended a local all-candidates debate last night and was happy to hear an older gentleman stand up and question the PC candidate as to why we should trust the PC “Mike Harris Party” to not destroy the province again.
The people have not forgotten how bad the Harris years were.
LOL… Harper must be counting his blessings that WK doesn’t work for the Fed Libs anymore!
I respect and admire WK’s political wizardry as much as anyone, but those are two very different situations. In the last federal campaign, Harper was the incumbent, the Liberals were the opposition. In this Ontario campaign, McGuinty is the incumbent, Hudak is the guy trying to knock him off. A complete reversal of roles there.
So far, McGuinty is running a very good incumbent’s campaign, the essence of which is to appear confident, calm, statesmanlike and not to make mistakes. Hudak is basically imploding, making virtually every mistake in the book. He’s letting his opponent define the agenda and narrative (via that immigration tax credit proposal), and spending way too much time explaining and defending. Plus he’s exhibiting precious little control over loose wheel nutbars in his caucus, who keep saying stupid things.
Jeffrey Simpson wrote an excellent article in the Globe & Mail today about the relationship between the federal Liberals and the Ontario provincial Liberals in the context of this campaign. I agree with his analysis:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/ontario-gains-will-shrink-federal-pains/article2167441/
I recall that WK was a little incredulous that the LPC would force an election in the first place.
Me too. Just think, if the world economy truly goes into double-dip recession territory (or worse) in the near future, as many are predicting — the LPC could have been going into an election campaign with that political gift in hand, as they did back in 1993. Instead, they triggered an election when the economy was seen to doing fine. And Harper now has a full 4 years to ride things out. That bunch of LPC senior advisors deserved every bit of criticism WK hurled their way.
Every bit of criticism and then some. Yet some of them are still on the job.
It’s missing the fire hydrant.
It’s actually under the bus … along with Randy Hillier’s wife.
Full disclosure: I am social and fiscal conservative at heart. Yet, I am not surprised to see these polls trending down on the PCs. Hudak and co. are running a terrible campaign. It’s only two weeks in, and already the stench of death is starting to surround this campaign… I really didn’t think it should have been too hard to defeat the Liberals in this election.
Shouldn’t Ford be giving Hudak the finger? Oh I forgot, that’s his wave to women and children
Even with Timmy’s plunders, I predict a PC Minority.
now that’s an accident waiting to happen
Since the end of August, we have been receiving phone calls from the PC party of Ontario, some are recorded polls, some actual people. They are now happening on a daily basis. At first, I told them we should be hearing from the local candidate not headquarters, have told them we are not PC supporters, have hung up on them and finally told the last caller, we do not want to hear from them. She said we could go on DNC list but still could get calls for 30 days which would be after the election. We are still receiving them as of last night. The numbers are all different. We do have call display but our children’s cell phones show up as unknown. Where are they getting our phone number and who do I complain to about this? It seems that this is some form of harrassment. The last Federal NDP candidate has stated, he is getting them every half hour. He just lost his job at a factory here and does not need the grief, as we do not. This is unacceptable. Do they think they are going to wear us down and we will vote for them.
What are the calls about? The anti-immigrant stuff?
They mostly tell us what a great Family man Tim Hudak is and if we are going to vote for him. My husband answered a poll that was push button intentions on issues that never really completed. Sometimes, there is dead air. Some have been pick party to vote for. They are coming from Toronto exchange but some I understand are from an American company that does polling. We are in SW Ontario and I understand polling is close here but it is very annoying.
Abacus Data released a poll today showing a nine point advantage for the PC’s, which I find a bit dubious since a poll released a couple of days ago had the Libs in a seven point advantage. I guess the old saying “the only poll that counts is a election day” applies. But supporters should wait for the ballots to be counted before claiming victory.
Abacus has said they intend to run the numbers next week using traditional methodology. I expect they will come up with a result in line with everyone else is finding – namely, that Tea Party Tim is turning voters off in droves.
Frank Graves is the latest entrant to the Pollster Fight! that brand spankin’ new “innovative method” Abacus used in an election poll engendered, defending his use of IVR, here:
http://www.ekos.com/admin/articles/FG-2011-09-16.pdf
h/t TVO’s The Agenda’s Daniel Kitts: http://t.co/7XEXkWfB which discusses and links to the previous salvos
I sure hope the question do you accept Evolution as a fact? is in the debates. Love to watch the Tea Bags Boil.
I got four calls (yes, 4) today from the PC’s, all from different numbers. One of the calls was from the PC candidate, Mandel-Campbell but I was so fed up, I hung up. They were all recorded calls. Here they are Warren:
905-818-1097-Mandel-Campbell
1-800-903-6453 x2 (PC Party headquarters giving me different options such as how to find my MPP (there aren’t any, they are all candidates!!!!, policy questions, how to make a donation-really? etc)
1-905-977-2813 PC Ontario Party Campaign office saying if I don’t want to be called to leave my name and number. I don’t believe them. They will probably call me back and try to get me to vote for them
Awesome. Phone banks run amok. Perhaps the machines are taking over and SkyNet has become self-aware. 🙂
can’t wait for the Governator robo-calls:
Get owt … and vote
Actually we just dodged the Skynet bullet. Skynet becomes self aware August 4, 0214 EST, immediately after it comes online for the first time.
I’ll get my coat.