Kinsella says that McGuinty was a “winner.”
“He had many, many policy achievements,” he said.
“Politically, however, his greatest achievement was to be the winningest leader in Ontario’s recent history.”
After working/volunteering for the guy for more than a decade, I still respect and admire him. However, I was heartbroken over what happened late last week – as I said to some equally-shocked Liberal friends, “Chretien would have never, ever done that to any of us, even if we deserved it.”
My relationship with Chretien was different – basically, I had one. Lots of words are often used to describe McGuinty: friendly, gregarious, funny, and so on. They’re all true. But another description is also true: “aloof.” He was, for most of us, impossible to know well.
I don’t know if it was a case of people around him keeping him away from others. I don’t know if it was him, and that he favoured privacy. Whatever the reason, he was (and is) an enigma wrapped in a mystery.
He made mistakes, as we all do. Personally, I thought it was a big mistake to not immediately resign when a new leader was selected. I thought prorogation was probably unnecessary. I thought that damned press release – which I cannot get over – was a mistake.
Most of all, I thought it was a mistake not to do what Chretien always taught us: fight back. Fight, fight, fight: never give any quarter. Never give up. Admit that you’ve lost battles, sure, but never the war.
I will have more to say about this in Sunday’s Sun. But, in the meantime, I wish him and his family well. As no less than this guy showed us, on the same day, people eventually forgive and forget.
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