The coming battle between Ontario Liberals and the Ontario PCs and NDP will not be governed by the Marquess of Queensbury rules. It’s going to be down and dirty. It’s going to be ugly. And those who prefer to spout jargon, bureaucratese and the like are going to be chewed up and spit out.

To win, we need a fighter, not someone who recites bland talking points.

To wit, Pupatello in the Star:

“Our next election will not be like this, where all of us are sitting and getting along,” said Sandra Pupatello, the former MPP for Windsor West, as the event dubbed a “love-in” by one party stalwart wrapped up in this small town near London…Pupatello, 50, who sat out the last election to work on Bay Street, said the 2,500 delegates to the convention must size up candidates based on how they would play against Hudak and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath in a provincial election widely expected for next spring.

She touted her experience as McGuinty’s scrappy deputy leader before the Liberals came to power in 2003, suggesting it would help her run a smoother minority government than most of her rivals, who never served in opposition.

“I want you to have a leader with opposition experience to know how they think – and respect opposition because I was there,” she told 150 party members gathered in an old school gym.

It wasn’t a debate; it was a discussion. It was a friendly chit-chat. Every Ontario Liberal needs to heed what Sandra is saying. Delegates must consider who can win in circumstances that will be decidedly less genteel.

Ontario Liberals are in for the fight of their lives. They need a leader who knows how to get elbows up in the corners, and fight like Hell.

During Saturday’s debate, that’s what I saw: a scrapper with a winning record, onstage with some nice folks from Toronto.

Only one of them can win what lies ahead.

Comments (7)

Left to, um, right: Big City Lib, Brian Shiller, Adam Chalef-Freudenthaler and David Shiller.

Got a government or politician you want toppled? These are your guys.  Assembled at SFH’s gig at the Bovine Saturday night,  these gunslingers shared a pint or two, and toasted the notion that municipal officials shouldn’t be, you know, lawbreakers.

There was also a playing of ‘Rob Ford Must Go,’ to the tune of the Ramones’ ‘Blitzkrieg Bop.’  The band was clueless and tuneless, but these guys aren’t.

You mess with them at your peril, “Ford Nation.”

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I find it a tad ironic that the newspaper that regularly trumpets the results of a polling agency like this, then publishes a piece like this.

Delacourt’s piece was timely.  I wish her bosses would heed what she had to say.

They won’t.

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The Rob Ford bit, below, has resulted in a fair bit of mail from my admirers. Here’s a good one, from josie.erent@talented-minds.com ( I kid you not):

—–Original Message—–
From: josie.erent@talented-minds.com
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2012 17:36:43
To:
Subject: i will vote for Rob Ford  2nd term.l

I will never vote the Liberal crooks and scumbags that you associate with.
 
They are the parasites and leeches of Ontario Society… McGuinty should
leave Ontario. HE IS NOT WELCOME

Nice, eh? So I responded as I always do, with this:

—–Original Message—–
From: Warren Kinsella [mailto:wkinsella@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2012 12:41 PM
To: josie.erent@talented-minds.com
Subject: Re: i will vote for Rob Ford 2nd term.l

Thanks Josie. Best to you and yours, W

Then Josie came back:

—–Original Message—–
From: josie.erent@talented-minds.com
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2012 20:24:38
To:
Cc: ;
Subject: RE: i will vote for Rob Ford  2nd term.l

YOU WELCOME

Josie Erent
Canadian US Employment Recruiter
Resident of the affluent St. Pauls Riding.

Unwashed Unkept hick who grew in Etobicoke and presently
living in Affluent st pauls in liberal horrible representation
that accomplishes nothing in the riding except to remind us
how stupid voters are.

The voice of Ford Nation, right there.

Holy God Almighty, I love the Internet.

 

Comments (25)

In politics, when one becomes radioactive, friends rapidly become few and far between.

Scandal and controversy are usually the cause. A politico gets enmeshed in some sort of mess, and people who previously returned his or her phone calls become elusive. Invitations to events and get-togethers start to dry up. Encounters in public places get awkward. And former colleagues and friends start to drift away.

It’s sometimes unfair, and it’s often painful. But, in politics, that’s just the way it is. As the late Elizabeth Taylor once observed: “You find out who your real friends are when you’re involved in a scandal.”

Rob Ford, the soon-to-be-former mayor of Toronto, is a walking, talking scandal. He is a human shrapnel machine. He is also a disgrace of biblical proportions. When the politics of this era are reviewed, learned people will be bewildered as to how so many people came to cast a ballot for such a colossal idiot.

Because, whether we progressives like or not, many did. When Ford was elected Toronto’s mayor in October 2010, more than 380,000 people voted for him. He beat his main rival, a rebarbative former Liberal politician, by a substantial margin — nearly 100,000 votes. No one considered Ford too radioactive back then.

He’d been controversial, to be sure. He’d been charged with drunk driving and marijuana possession in Florida, the latter charge dismissed.
He had a long and well-chronicled record of bigoted remarks and idiotic behaviour.
But plenty of folks voted for him just the same.

Comments (13)

Tonight at the Bovine, 542 Queen Street West!

Comments (12)

Some of the folks who helped, pro bono, to get Rob Ford removed from office – I won’t reveal who they are – intend to come to SFH’s gig tomorrow at the Bovine Sex Club on Queen Street West.  It will therefore be a celebration of sorts.

If you want to join in, and meet some of these heretofore unknown people, c’mon by.  This political pestilence will soon be gone – because (a) he is not going to win his appeal and (b) if there is somehow a by-election, he’s going to lose that, too – and that is cause to be happy.

UPDATE: And if you want to know why ridding ourselves of the Ford pestilence is so important, you must read this.

Comments (18)

Even though there is some stuff in it that I should like, I don’t believe any of it.

We have work to do.  And: always work like you are way, way behind.  Take nothing for granted.

Comments (4)

Whether there’s a by-election or not – and whether she actually runs or not – she’s the candidate for me.  Looks like she is for the whole city, too:

Comments (28)

I don’t ever like her stuff – she always needs an editor, her stuff could always be tighter, and she is always predictable in her conservative politics – but quite a few folks have brought her latest effort to my attention.

I’m biased, of course: I know all of the people in the complaint against Rob Ford, and I like them a lot.  Clay is one of my lawyers and an old friend.  Without getting into a lot of boring detail, I know quite a bit about the case.

That said, even if I didn’t know and like everyone involved in Magder v. Ford, I’d consider Blatchford’s use of flying quotes, her insinuations, and her swipes at Paul Magder’s wife, pretty despicable.  Fern wasn’t part of the action, at all.  Dragging her into this imagined Vast Left Wing Conspiracy – and her employment, and every petition she’s ever signed – is also despicable.

But like I say, not really surprising.  It’s what she does.

 

Comments (8)