Toronto Star, January 17:

Liberal leadership front-runner Kathleen Wynne is rejecting Tory speculation that she would formally join forces to govern with the New Democrats if chosen premier at a party convention this month.

“I have not talked about a coalition,” Wynne said after a luncheon speech to the Toronto Board of Trade…

Toronto Star, January 16:

Kathleen Wynne, a front-runner to succeed Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath are willing to work together to avert an election.

Wynne, who is in a tight leadership race with former Windsor West MPP Sandra Pupatello, said she would co-operate with Horwath or Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak.

Toronto Star, January 15:

Star: NDP leader Andrea Horwath said Tuesday that she would be open to collaboration with the next Liberal leader. Would you entertain a formalcoalition with the NDP?

Wynne: I will be reaching out to both Tim (Hudak) and Andrea (Horwath). I want the opportunity to talk to both of them. And not in a one-off, take-it-or-leave-it way, but I want to figure out how we’re going to do this, how we’re going to establish a relationship. Whichever or both of them are willing to have that conversation, I’m willing to work with them. I don’t know the level of formality. That has to come out of those conversations.

 

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Here.

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A must-read, as they say.

Sandra Pupatello (6 to 5): She surprised even her own campaign team by finishing first in last weekend’s election to pick delegates to the convention. She won 504, or about 27 per cent, of the delegates. She likely will lead on the first ballot and has lots of room to grow on subsequent ballots. She’s smart, feisty, a favourite of party veterans.

Watch for Pupatello to stress the party’s traditions. Over the past 100 years, the Liberals have chosen only two leaders from the Toronto area and have almost always picked a centre-right leader. That’s exactly how Pupatello is promoting herself: as fiscally conservative and as being from outside the GTA. Taken together with her cabinet experience, she claims these attributes make her the lone candidate with the “electability” factor needed to fight the Tories and NDP in a provincial election.

Kathleen Wynne (3 to 1): She came a disappointing second last weekend when she won just 25 per cent of the elected delegates. Her chances of winning the leadership would have improved dramatically if she had been ahead of Pupatello at this stage. A favourite of the left-wing downtown Toronto crowd, her growth potential on second and third ballots is seen as limited outside of Toronto.

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The dinosaur will emerge victorious.

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It’s funny, but I was coincidentally in rural Ontario, today, with about 100 Ontarians (and clients) who happily live in rural Ontario. So I didn’t see any coverage of a certain Toronto-based leadership contender’s speech, wherein she declared that it was “ridiculous” and “nonsensical” for anyone to wonder if Toronto-centric candidates are a liability elsewhere in the province.

I asked these rural folks what they thought.

“She is too Toronto,” one guy said. “Sorry, but you’ll lose if you pick her.”

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About this.

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Doping, and now this!  Is there no end to his shame?

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Quote:

Former CAW president Buzz Hargrove isn’t a Liberal, but if he had a vote in the current Ontario Liberal leadership race, it would go to Sandra Pupatello.

“She’s the one with experience and she knows how to work with people,” Hargrove said Tuesday of the former Windsor West MPP and Liberal cabinet minister.

“She’s not a left politician,” Hargrove said Tuesday, referring to Pupatello’s reputation as a centrist in the race compared to more left-leaning candidates such as her main rival Kathleen Wynne.

“But (Pupatello) also knows in order to make a province like Ontario work you have to be working with the labour movement, not slapping it in the face as Mr. (Conservative Leader Tim) Hudak is guaranteed  to, or as Mr. (Premier Dalton) McGuinty did to the teachers,” said Hargrove, who retired as CAW president in 2008. “She’s smarter than that.”

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A lot of Ontario Liberal minds are being blown over this story – which confirms what many of us have been hearing about the “Operation Snowball” stuff.

As a principle, I favour working with other progressives, as many folks know, to serve the greater good.  Out in the open, with everyone participating.

I don’t favour it to serve one person’s personal ambition, and one person’s craving for power.  And particularly not when it’s being done in the shadows, in a sneaky backroom deal.

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