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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After yesterday, it’s pretty clear that the next 10 years of Ontario’s future will be determined by today.

The question is clear, too. Do you select someone who can get support in every part of the province, from Left and Right – or do you pick someone who will lose votes to the NDP (because city voters will always pick the real New Democrat over the pretend one), and who will lose votes to the PCs (because the countryside has had quite enough of downtown Toronto telling them what to do)?

Today sets the next decade. Win again. Or spend a decade in opposition, saying, over and over: “We made a mistake.”

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Saw it tonight.  Some days, surveying the landscape, it’s hard to believe a leader as extraordinary as him actually existed.

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Oh my Lord, this is the best story ever. And I can’t believe the Post used that word in a headline!

It all reminds me of that old adage of James V.: “Every guy loves the smell of his own farts.”

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…apparently the post below left a few folks, well, confused and hurt. My sincerest apologies to everyone I have ever offended, everywhere, at any time.

So:

1. I remain a supporter of the Ontario Liberal Party.

2. I remain a supporter of Sandra Pupatello.

All I said was I won’t be in the next OLP war room, for Chrissakes. Everyone take a Valium.

Over and out.

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As all of the OLP delegate-selection stuff begins today, I figured I would be uncharitably nice. Just this once.

The Eric Hoskins folks have run a creative, fun campaign, with “dark horse” and whatnot. They have made him a bigger name than he was going into this. In a campaign as short as this one, that’s no small achievement. Congrats to Bruce et al.

The Harinder Takhar people have also done a great job – at debates and elsewhere – transforming Harinder into a player. At the start, I ran into a member of the frontrunner’s campaign, and he was nasty and dismissive about Harinder. They’re not that way anymore. Harinder’s a significant factor.

Team Kennedy, too, have taken a guy who has been on the federal scene for quite a few years, and put him at the front of the pack in a very crowded race. In 2006, Kennedy was the guy I wanted to win the LPC race, because of his position on Québeçois as a “nation.” I would’ve liked to see more of that guy this time. But his team have served him very, very well.

Charles Sousa is equally very, very lucky to have had people like my friends Bob Richardson and Fahim Kaderdina and James Bowie helping him out. The opposition’s shorthand put down of Sousa is now utterly and completely gone. He is seen as the fiscal smart guy, and he can thank his troops for no small part of that.

Glen Murray is out, but he should’ve stayed in the race to give his supporters a chance to run as delegates. That said, his organizers – Mraz, Espie, Duffy et al. – did, truly, an amazing job making Murray a big name and a bigger presence. But I feel he should’ve stayed in the race.

Team Wynne were considered to be the most-organized from the start – and they are. They have been a well-disciplined machine. They are a formidable opponent.

There, I’ve stopped being nice.

Anyone who reads this web site at all knows where I stand. But I figured I would tip my hat to my adversaries in what has been a pretty good race.

Will I be involved in the OLP, going forward? Beyond the convention, no. No way. I am out, full stop.

It’s time for others to step up. I have other plans, and they don’t include the OLP war room or campaign, no matter who wins.

There’s a lot of smart folks, as noted above, to run the coming campaign. They’ll do just fine without old farts like me around.

Good luck to them.

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The usual, in other words.

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