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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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I’m not going to link to it.  But one of the central criticisms in the piece, to my understanding, is flat-out wrong.

I know for a fact that Harinder Takhar came to Canada in 1974 – and, yes, he did live with his uncle.  But he earned only the princely sum of $1.85 an hour, working at Consumers Distributing.  And, with that money, he paid room and board.  And he saved up to pay for his CMA courses, and he saved for his family’s future.  Any suggestion otherwise is wrong and unfair to the man.

Meanwhile, his campaigner manager is Omar Khan, who is one of the most honest and decent kids I’ve ever met in politics.  In all my dealings with Omar, his central preoccupation has always been decision-making (usually concerning justice matters) in which ethics and probity are paramount.  He loves the law, and he has a dim view of those who stray from it.

I don’t know where the Star piece came from.  But any campaign pushing that kind of stuff – and I think I know which one it is – is doing itself, and the party, no favours.

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By Greg Crone, who has forgotten more about the Ontario Liberal Party than I’ll ever know.  The definitive take on the OLP leadership race so far.  I’ve added bolding on the stuff I think is important.

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The results of the local delegate selection meetings are now known. What are the main takeaways? Here are seven:

First, Sandra Pupatello elected more delegates than any other candidate, and is therefore the frontrunner. Prior to last weekend, pundits were talking about Kathleen Wynne coming out of the delegate selection meetings as the frontrunner, and the main question to be settled was by how much. That equation is now flipped. Pupatello is ahead of Wynne, 504 to 463. News reports Monday referred to Pupatello and the “two frontrunners.” But the fact is it is now Wynne who is chasing Pupatello and playing catch-up. Lesson learned: There is only one frontrunner and we know who that is. 

Second, Wynne has to be surprised she came in second. The Wynne campaign went to some lengths to persuade the news media that it was the most organized. If that is still true, how does it account for the second-place showing? Now the Pupatello campaign must be seen to be equally as well-organized. Lesson learned: Don’t talk about how well you are doing. Just keep your head down and keep working.

Third, Wynne might have made a mistake doing a press conference with Glen Murray last Thursday as he exited the leadership race. The purpose was to telegraph momentum for the Wynne campaign, but the results of the weekend delegate selection vote do not indicate that any delegates went to her as a result of Murray’s endorsement. He simply had few to give, otherwise he would not have pulled out of the race. The endorsement might have had the opposite effect, spurring both Pupatello and her campaign to work even harder. Lesson learned: Momentum is great, but it has to be real. People will know it when they see it.

Fourth, commentary in the news media that many of the 67 independent delegates who were elected would have been Murray supporters who can be added to the Wynne column is simply not credible. Those independents were elected for a host of individual, very local reasons that are as varied as the number of the delegates. For example, Steve Del Duca ran a slate of independent delegates in his Vaughan riding and eight were elected. Why? Because Del Duca is co-chair of the convention, he is officially neutral, and wanted independent delegates coming from his riding. Yet some media commentators have seemingly labelled them as Murray delegates who now belong to Wynne. That’s simply not happening. Lesson learned: They call them “independents” for a reason. No one owns them, and their support has to be earned. 

Fifth, Gerard Kennedy came in third, but he elected about half as many delegates –  257 – as frontrunning Pupatello (504). He is therefore a weak third. Is there a path to victory for him? Maybe, but it is hard to imagine what it is. Why wouldHarinder Takhar or Charles Sousa roll the dice and go to Kennedy rather than go to either Pupatello or Wynne to crown the winner? Lesson learned: In order to come from behind, your starting point can’t be too far back. 

Sixth, Takhar must be elated that he came in fourth and Sousa disappointed that he came in fifth. The reason for Takhar’s strong result is that his campaign simply made a coolly rational calculation as to what it could and could not do, and concentrated its efforts in a well-organized and effective way. For example, Takhar was competing in only a little more than 50 ridings compared to the more than 90 ridings in which Sousa compete. As a result, Takhar won dozens of delegates far afield from his Mississauga base, in places like Guelph and Windsor, while Sousa came up short. If Takhar is in this to win respect, after this weekend he has more than earned it. He has put together an organization that delivers.  Lesson learned: The ground game is everything.

Seventh, Eric Hoskins must also be very disappointed, coming in sixth and last place with 104 delegates. It is difficult to see how he cannot be the first candidate to drop off the ballot. Hoskins is in many ways an attractive candidate, with a picture-perfect family, and he spoke thoughtfully about policies. But he ran an outsider campaign, labelling himself a “dark horse” and underlining his gold-plated resumé and international humanitarian work – which are impressive, but have little to do with provincial politics. Lesson learned: It is hard to be successful in politics if you position yourself as being above politics. You can win in politics only by doing politics better than anyone else.

So what’s next? Three main things.

First, you have to believe that there is a lot of effort being made to reach out and talk to the 67 independent delegates and the 420 or so ex officio delegates. Who are they? What are they thinking? Which way are they leaning? Can their support be won? Each campaign will be finding out.

Second, the campaigns and the candidates themselves are talking to one another about second-ballot support. It is a delicate business, and must be done in a respectful way. If you are Pupatello or Wynne or their campaigns, you don’t want to presume anything or take anything for granted. You don’t want to insult lower-tier candidates by assuming they can’t win, because they and their supporters are likely going to go into the convention keeping the flame of hope alive. Yet the conversations have to happen. Wynne likely did not help herself with comments over the weekend that Ontario might soon have its first female premier. Maybe so, but the other candidates, all men, are perhaps not yet ready to concede they cannot win the leadership. Why alienate those whose support you will soon need? 

Third, it doesn’t matter how many delegates you elect if they don’t actually attend the convention to vote. People get sick, get into accidents, and sometimes just don’t show up. A huge effort is being made to talk to these delegates, make sure they pay their delegate fee, make their hotel and travel arrangements, and do everything else necessary to ensure they present themselves at the convention to vote. This is all the more important for delegates coming from outside Toronto. It is all about numbers, and the ability to count. It only takes one vote to win.

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Son One took my keys. I’m locked out of our Yorkville offices. So I’m walking Roxy, waiting for a staffer to show up. (They don’t get in as early as I do, but they work harder than I do.)

Saw this on the side of a building as I walked the dog. “Conditional about happiness,” I said to the dog. “How quintessentially Canadian.”

 

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Whether you agree with Andrew’s points or not, I sensed that he was trying to be positive, which readers often say they want from writers.

So, he’s being positive: thank him for it.

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TORONTO – Is this place cursed?

Politically, it sure seems that way.  If you’re a politician, natch, you always make sure to come to seat-rich Toronto.  But God help you if you come from seat-rich Toronto.

Case in point: the ongoing Ontario Liberal leadership race. The governing party’s exceedingly civil contest to replace Dalton McGuinty has been moving along briskly for a few weeks, and will conclude at Maple Leaf Gardens at month’s end. The race features a half-dozen candidates from the Toronto area and one who isn’t.  Delegate-selection meetings took place over the weekend, and – surprise, surprise – the contestant who isn’t from Toronto won big.

She’s the Grit warrior princess, Sandra Pupatello, and (full disclosure, etc.) she’s the one I personally favour to become Premier.

Pupatello’s got all kinds of things going for her: she’s been a successful cabinet minister, she’s a formidable campaigner, she’s an inspired speaker, she’s feared by New Democrats and Conservatives alike, she’s been out of politics and far from the controversies that have raged at Queen’s Park for the past year and a bit.

But one of her biggest assets? She isn’t from Toronto. She’s from Windsor, and she’s damn proud of it.  If you run into her in an elevator, in fact, she’d likely tell you she’s from Windsor a half-dozen times before you disembark.

At the start of the Liberal leadership race, Pupatello also told anyone who’d listen that she expected no more than to “in the middle of the pack” when delegate-selection stuff had concluded. She wasn’t alone.  Media and political hacks anticipated the same thing.

Over the weekend, however, something very unexpected happened. The front-runner, Kathleen Wynne, dropped to second place.  And Pupatello surged into first, and is now the candidate to beat.  

So what happened?  Simple.  The Curse of Toronto.

Being from Calgary – and having lived in B.C. and Quebec – I can personally testify to the fact that the rest of the country loves to hate Toronto.  That may be mean, that be unfair, but they mostly do.

Now, Wynne is a thoughtful, smart, decent person.  She’s terrific.  She had loads of money, she had a well-organized campaign, she hadn’t made a lot of mistakes.

But she is also from deepest Toronto, and she literally embodies the place.  As the Sun’s Jonathan Jenkins and Antonella Artuso wrote yesterday, Wynne is seen as being “too Toronto…Wynne’s the urban, left-leaning Torontonian poster child they talk about. She was a card-carrying member of the ultimate flake club — the Toronto District School Board — which one auditor described as ‘misguided and dysfunctional’ during her term as trustee. She even joined a legal battle to fight a provincial law which required the board to balance its books.”

Ouch.

Now, being from Toronto really shouldn’t matter, but it does.  Every card-carrying Grit is aware of the fact that, in all of Ontario’s rich history, there has really been only one Premier from downtown Toronto (George Drew, look it up).

That’s not a fluke; there’s a reason for it.  In the rest of the province – and in the rest of the country, since the beginning of time – folks have had quite enough of downtown Toronto telling them how to live their lives.  

Ontarians, thusly, want someone to be their representative in Toronto.

Not someone who simply represents Toronto to them.
 

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Here’s Radwanski in the Globe:

“Either Sandra Pupatello exceeded her own expectations, or she did a good job of lowering everyone else’s.

The Ontario Liberal leadership candidate who came into the weekend saying she would be happy to place second in preliminary voting instead emerged with the lead, claiming 27 per cent of the more than 1,800 delegates elected to attend their party’s convention later this month. That puts her two percentage points above Kathleen Wynne, who conversely raised expectations last week by enticing erstwhile candidate Glen Murray to drop out of the race and endorse her.

The effect, particularly given her strong support among the 400-plus party elites who will automatically be granted delegate status, is to establish Ms. Pupatello as the frontrunner in the race to replace Premier Dalton McGuinty. How much that means depends largely on the judgment of a clump of candidates, running well behind her and Ms. Wynne, who seem destined to be also-rans.

Gerard Kennedy, in third with 14 per cent of delegates, probably does not have the broad appeal that could make him a real contender on the convention floor. The same is even more true of Harinder Takhar, despite a head-turning performance this weekend which left him narrowly trailing Mr. Kennedy with 13 per cent. Meanwhile, disappointing returns have made the prospects extremely dim for Charles Sousa (11 per cent) and non-existent for Eric Hoskins (6 per cent).”

What really happened? Well, nothing’s official, as there is still some counting and re-counting to do. But, bottom line, Pupatello won, and she won big.

She had said at the start of the race that, once the delegates were selected, she expected no more than to be in the middle of the pack. She was telling the truth. That’s what she, and we, expected.  None of us expected her to be at the front of the pack after the so-called LEMs.

Something happened, however. Lots of Ontario Liberals are speculating what that might be. Personally, I think it’s this:

The Curse of Toronto.

Being from Calgary – and having lived in B.C. and Quebec – I can personally testify to the fact that the rest of the country loves to hate Toronto.  That may be mean, that be unfair, but they mostly do.

But so, too, does the rest of Ontario.  I’ve lived in Ottawa and Kingston, and the only parcel of land I own on this Earth is a rocky patch in rural Ontario.  It has no cell phone coverage, no wireless, no garbage pickup, no nothing.  Thus, you’re forced to talk to your neighbours.  And, to a one, they all say that Toronto is a nice place to visit.  But they’d hate to live here.  And, if you get a couple beers in them, they’ll say they hate Toronto.  Too crowded, too busy, too noisy, too dangerous, they say. (They’re wrong, but that’s what they think.)

Until last night, the OLP leadership frontrunner was Kathleen Wynne.  She is a thoughtful, smart, decent person.  She’s terrific.

But she is also from deepest Toronto, and – clearly, to many OLP members – she embodies Toronto.  Now, that really shouldn’t matter, but it does.  Every card-carrying Grit is aware of the fact that, in all of Ontario’s history, there has really been only one Premier from downtown Toronto.

That’s not a fluke; there’s a reason for it.  In the rest of the province – and in the rest of the country, since the beginning of time – folks have had quite enough of downtown Toronto telling them how to live their lives.  They want someone to be their representative in Toronto, not someone who simply represents Toronto to them.

I’ve been wrong many times before, but I think that’s what happened this weekend.  What’s your take?

(Oh, and congrats, Pupatello!)

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Son One and I are Pupatello delegates to the OLP convention. He’s now worried he’s going to have to give a bunch of speeches.

“Only 20 or so,” Lala told him.

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