Charisma Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be

Dalton McGuinty won a third mandate yesterday. Six months ago he was a dead man walking. He will need support from the NDP  to keep him upright. But the truth is that the uncharismatic McGuinty will join Oliver Mowat in the history books as only the second Liberal Premier of Ontario to win three elections. And he did it by using what used to be a Progressive Conservative template: Ontario premiers are bland.

Tom Walkom writes in The Toronto Star that the real progressive conservative has one a third term:

Sometimes the governing party refers to itself as Progressive Conservative. Sometimes it uses the name Liberal. But no matter what it calls itself, the ruling party usually — usually — follows a standard pattern.

It intervenes in the economy to encourage business. It pays some attention to social needs (although it’s rarely accused of over-generosity). It doesn’t rock the boat. And, without being doctrinaire, it prides itself on being a competent manager of the province’s finances.

Very, very occasionally an outrider wins power at Queen’s Park: the United Farmers of Ontario in 1919, Bob Rae’s New Democrats in 1990, Mike Harris’s Common Sense Revolutionaries in 1995.

But even in the rare case where this occurs, the new maverick government comes under intense pressure to fall into line with Ontario’s robustly bland traditions.

When McGuinty took on the Harris conservatives for the first time, they tried to paint him as Norman Bates. The strategy didn't work. Even though McGuinty bore some resemblance to Anthony Perkins, he simply was not scary.

Then they tried to paint him as incompetent. He may have reversed himself more than once on taxes. And there was the E health scandal. But Ontarians knew that, despite his mistakes, he was looking forward. And, most importantly, he wasn't Mike Harris. For the truth is that Mike Harris' ghost still haunts this province, as he now haunts Ottawa. Tim Hudak sounded too much like Mike Harris. Voters did not want to go back there .

Andrea Horvath will push McGuinty to the left. There will be some rejigging of the tax system. But the Green Energy Act will stay in place. And -- because Dalton McGuinty does not use his elbows the way Mike Harris did and Stephen Harper does -- the Liberals have achieved an historic third mandate.

This Is An Economist?

Like Stephen Harper, Tim Hudak has as Master's degree in economics. But, as Jim Stanford points out in his latest publication from The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Hudak's economics don't pass the sniff test:

This detailed statistical review of the 13 statistical graphs contained in the Conservative changebook platform document finds that not one of them conforms to the normal requirements of academic or professional practice.

At least three of the graphs (which illustrate various statistical arguments related to the Conservative platform) present data that is clearly false. All of the others contain major errors in the labeling of variables or axes; internally inconsistent or manipulative scaling of bars and data; and misleading or incomplete references to source data.

Martin Regg Cohn writes that Hudak is clearly selling snake oil. Take his pledge to get rid of the debt reduction charge on Hydro bills:

 This sham promise boils down to pretending we’ve already retired the debt, merely because we’ve collected the principal amount — overlooking the minor matter of interest payments still outstanding (as anyone with a mortgage well knows).
The debt remains on the books, but the Tories (who dreamed up the DRC) would magically transfer the burden from ratepayers to taxpayers. I call it the “forgive and forget” approach to debt — a blatant shell game.

Mr. Hudak is in a war against math. The end result will be that he will blow a massive hole in the province's budget. We've seen this bait and switch political campaigning for thirty years. Those thirty years came to a climax with The Great Recession. Does Mr. Hudak seriously believe that people will buy this claptrap?

Them!

The paranoia of the 1950's is perhaps best captured in the 1954 film, Them!, a ninety-four minute saga which turned on two common themes of the day -- nuclear Holocaust and Communist subversion. In the film, a species of gigantic irradiated ants threatens the United States. Of course, the Americans throw everything they have at the monstrous enemy; and the film ends in the sewers of Los Angeles.

Tim Hudak began his quest for the premiership of Ontario by heading straight for the sewers. He immediately attacked Dalton McGuinty's plan to offer a $10,000 tax credit to companies which hire new Canadians -- the kind of professionals who need to be certified in Ontario before they can  hang up a shingle.

Hudak, who likes to portray himself as just an ordinary guy, attacked the plan with feigned outrage:

"Basically, Dalton McGuinty wants to pay companies $10,000 to hire foreign workers while we have half a million people in Ontario today who are looking for jobs," the Tory leader said.

"He is going to pay companies $10,000 to hire anyone but you."

Mr. Hudak is no Mike Harris. But he is pulling a page from the Harris playbook. Harris became premier by turning the province's welfare recipients into straw men and women. Hudak now proposes to turn recent immigrants into the new enemy. And, like the ants, they are easy to identify, because most of them have brown skins.

The fact that this strategy directly undermines his federal cousins' pursuit of votes in the same community -- and indeed, contradicts his own recently introduced bill to help new Canadians -- is of no import. What matters is that these "aliens" can be used to scare Ontarians into a righteous fury -- just as Stephen Harper intends to use "Islamiciism"  to frighten Canadians into accepting recently sunseted terror legislation.

Yesterday should have reminded us that politicians on both sides of the border have won power -- and feathered their nests -- by stoking paranoia. But, like the movie, their vision is a fantasy, a shadow on the screen.

The Battle for the Middle Class

In today's Toronto Star, Tom Walkom writes that the winner of the Ontario election will be the party which best calms the fears of the middle class: "The battleground in this Ontario election," he writes, "is a middle class unnerved by the recession."

Thus, the party which allowed  tuitions to rise an average of five percent a year  now wants to give university students a yearly grant, except if they come from high income families.

The Conservatives. also playing to the middle class, have attacked the Liberal plan to subsidize the wages of new Canadians as "affirmative action for foreign workers" -- even though Tim Hudak has already proposed similar legislation.

So we now know the basic dynamic of this election. It will be a contest between hope and fear. In that sense, the issues are classically middle class:

When times are tough, the middle classes fight fiercely for their kids. They want to ensure they have a shot at higher education — which McGuinty, belatedly, has come to understand. Yet they also want them to have a fair shot at jobs.

The Conservatives may be monstrously hypocritical. With their attacks on foreigners, they may be dabbling in xenophobia. But they get it.

It might be comforting to think that hope will trump fear. But Michael Ignatieff ran on that proposition the last time around; and, in Ontario, it didn't sell. It will be interesting to see what happens this time around.

Math Matters

If there has been one consistent criticism of Tim  Hudak -- from both the left and the right -- it is that his numbers don't add up. He's not the first politician to face that criticism. But, after three decades of neo conservative policies  -- which have been nothing if not math challenged -- one would think Mr. Hudak would follow the old carpenter's rule: measure twice and cut once.

One suspects that Mr. Hudak is neither a good mathematician  nor a good carpenter. John Robson,  in today's Ottawa Sun -- who you would think would be on Mr. Hudak's side -- gives the Tory leader no quarter:

Hudak promises "change to put more money in the pockets of hardworking Ontario families" and it is not hard, in principle, to see how taxes could be cut. But he also pledges "change that guarantees the service Ontarians need, like health and education." That sounds like more spending and certainly can't mean cuts. But now let's do some math he won't be performing in public.

Between them, health, education - including post-secondary and job training - consume $77.9 billion, or 68.5%, of Ontario's $113.7 billion in program spending. So what gets the chop? Children's and social services? Boooooooo! But then over 80% of spending is untouchable and, Tories being tough on crime, justice isn't a promising target either. So is it all coming out of other? (You can't cut interest and there's a very real danger rates will rise, putting the squeeze on better plans than Hudak has.)

When those on the right have serious doubts about what Mr. Hudak is selling, you know he's in trouble. And the campaign hasn't started yet.