08.02.2013 05:28 PM

Martin vs. Chrétien, redux?

Quote:

At a Friday news conference, Ms. Wynne blamed her party’s poor showing on Mr. McGuinty…”Some of the political management of that issue was not what I would have wanted it to be, and in fact was the opposite of what my approach would be.”

I cannot believe what I just read.

Is this accurate?

17 Comments

  1. Simon Says says:

    Isn’t the first rule of politics to point blame elsewhere?

  2. SharonS says:

    Sounds like a death knell for the Wynne Liberals. Horwath had better strike early with her hot poker instead of waiting and watching her momentum drain away. Ontario election later this year.. bet on it.

    • Iris Mclean says:

      I’m thinking that she will at least consider striking early.
      Most people hate the Libs. Everybody hates Hudak, and Horwath is a popular leader.

      • SharonS says:

        I can see an election fight with the Wynne Liberals getting massacred based on their scandalous record while Hudak and Horwath duke it out.

        Hudak will try to link the Horwath NDP with the Bob Rae NDP disaster, while Horwath will skewer Hudak on hidden Conservative agenda.

        The big issues will be Ontario’s economy and it’s recovery; and who is best able to turn things around — Horwath or Hudak, NDP or PCs.

  3. patrick says:

    You don’t think there was a conversation that went:
    Wynne: “I’m going to have to distance myself from you so be prepared.”
    McGinty: Duh!

    I really don’t know why this is a surprise? I must be missing something.

    Again!

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Patrick,
      Warren,

      Sure, Wynne needs to distance herself from Dalton but it has to be both surgical in nature and infrequent.

      The big No No in my book is criticizing McGuinty on matters where you yourself were sitting around the same cabinet table. That should be unthinkable.

      • Sean says:

        “Sure, Wynne needs to distance herself from Dalton but it has to be both surgical in nature and infrequent.”

        – NAILED IT!

  4. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    Some get cancelled out because of the leader. Others, because of the party they happen to lead.

    Try and call it for Ontario.

  5. Sean says:

    Big difference… As far as I can tell she is not completely controlled by a gaggle of incompetent, faceless, slimeball hangers on, as Martin was. She seems…. AHEM… capable of making a decision on her own.

    Also, she came in with very low expectations.

    She’ll be OK, I think.

  6. Spencer says:

    Kind of doubt it Warren. There isn’t anything resembling the same kind of rivalry as what was between the Chretien and Martin camps in the federal party. I was also out there on the ground in Ottawa South and the McGuinty family minus Dalton himself were out in force.

  7. e.a.f. says:

    duu, like what was she saying?????? if this is what we can expect from the prem. maybe she has been spending too much time with c.c. in B.C. and the B.C. lieberals.

  8. SharonS says:

    If Pupatello was elected the new Liberal leader, she would now be the MPP for Windsor-Tecumseh and representing a clean break with the past McGuinty gang. Horwath wouldn’t be riding high and Hudak would still be scraping. If…

    • Warren says:

      Yep. And we would have had an election during the honeymoon, and we would have won a majority.

      • SharonS says:

        So now we are faced with a devastating loss in an election coming soon and dropping to third place while we watch an incompetent Horwath NDP government or an equally incompetent Hudak PC government trying to govern.

        It will be minority governments unable to enact the unpopular legislation needed to recover from the economic decline until another majority emerges. Either NDP or PC governments will tank and another election will be needed.

        Do you think that as next leader Pupatello could rescue the Liberals by say 2015? If not her, who?

      • Michael says:

        If she could not convince her party to vote for her, how could she have convinced the electorate?

        • M5SLIB says:

          My opinion is just my opinion, so it’s obviously worth very little. That being said, I don’t think anyone who won the Liberal leadership could have won a majority. I’m a McGuinty guy big time, but the brand was damaged during the latter part of his tenure. When I speak to anyone non-political about Kathleen Wynne, it’s always positive. I think the brand is holding her back as it would have with Pupatello. My thing with Pupatello why she might not have connected with people as much as Wynne is that there’s something about her that’s too professional. She’s almost too good of a politician, so it kinda disengages her little bit.

          Currently, I think Wynne is in an ok position. Hudak seems to be in trouble, so he can’t be too hawkish on an election (unless he tries to pull a year 2000 Chretien). Still, it wouldn’t be completely up to him. Horwath and Wynne have worked together, and despite the NDP fortunes improving, I wonder how much Horwath likes her chances especially if she partners with Hudak to take the government down. The other part is that the opposition pulled out one of their big guns to try to win the byelections. It was moderately successful only because the Liberals lost three seats. Apart from that, the Liberals could have very well lost those three seats without the “bombshell,” and now they’ve wasted traction when pretty much no one was paying attention. Wynne will have good opportunity to reset the agenda in the fall. If she can be successful of making it her government instead of the McGuinty government or even a Liberal government, she’ll be fine. As a previous poster said, however, she’d have to be quite surgical in her re-branding.

          • SharonS says:

            I agree with much of what you say, but the whole thing hinges on your “Wynne will have good opportunity to reset the agenda in the fall.”

            That is what Horwath must contemplate; should she give Wynne the chance to “reset”, or should she terminate Wynne?

            If Horwath works with Wynne to deny Hudak his last kick at the election can, you can bet that PC attack ads will paint both of them as a couple of “sister” in bed politically, and a threesome with the big public service and teachers unions all to the detriment of the average Ontarian.

            I suspect there is much debate within NDP circles whether to vote no-confidence or yes-confidence in the Wynne Liberal government. The political price of getting it wrong will be costly to the NDP.

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