I don’t think so Tim

With another provincial election in the books many people are waking up today asking “What happened?”  After 8 years of being lied to by a Liberal government how on earth did they get reelected.

The answer to that question is simpler than one might think.

When the campaign started, unofficially, back in the summer it looked like it would be a clear knock-out by Tim Hudak’s Ontario PC party.  The people of Ontario were tired of the lies and tired of their cost of living getting more and more expensive by the day.  Once the campaign ads started it was clear that the Ontario PC party wanted to remind people how badly the McGuinty Government treated them.  I’ve been following politics since I was very young, working on campaigns long before I could vote.  I don’t hold a degree in political science and nor am I an advisor for any major political party.  2 weeks into the campaign I wrote a blog saying that if the Hudak campaign doesn’t stop with the attack ads they will turn around and bite them.  Guess what? That’s exactly what happened.

See the people of Ontario are smarter than that and I think that many may have felt a bit belittled by the ads.  They knew how bad they had been treated and after two previous elections in the previous year they were tired of the politics of another election.  What Ontario needed was someone to stand up and show them an alternative.  Having done my homework I know that Tim Hudak is and was that alternative.  He’s a family man, well educated and represents positive change for the province of Ontario.  The problem is Ontarians were never presented with that Tim Hudak.  They only saw the finger pointing Tim Hudak and missed the ads that talked about the man himself, mainly because they got a fraction of the airtime than the others.

So let’s look at the campaign that was run by the Liberal party.  I saw many ads where it was just Dalton standing in front of a white screen talking about his achievements over the past 8 years.  No promises, no attacks.  He came across calm, poised and reassuring.  And as I had predicted slowly it helped his numbers rebound enough to give him a large minority government.

So what needs to happen now?

Well the Liberals have a minority.  If the Ontario PCs are smart they won’t force Tim Hudak to resign, he did manage to pull in 37 seats in his first attempt which is not a bad haul.  Forcing Tim to resign would mean a leadership convention in the New Year and then at least a year to groom a new leader before they could even attempt to take on Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals in an election.  That election would almost certainly be lost unless the candidate that squares off against Dalton has a lot of political experience.

My advice, Tim Hudak needs to stay on as party leader.  I don’t think the loss should rest on Tim’s shoulders.  I believe that it was the pundits at the Ontario PC party that failed Tim.  They failed to read the mood of Ontario voters, had they paid attention to social media, rather than using it as a broadcast medium, they would have noticed that they need to change course and soften their stance. 

To the candidates that didn’t get elected, don’t disappear.  In this election the people made it about their local candidates and chose the candidate(s) they knew best to represent them, I don’t believe they intentionally voted for Dalton McGuinty as a leader.  If unsuccessful candidates would actually show an interest in their ridings after an unsuccessful election, rather than disappear into the night after the polls close, they might have a better chance in the next election because people would know them and people vote for people they trust and are familiar with.

So how long will it last?  It all depends on what card the Ontario PC party plays next.  If they keep Tim Hudak on board as leader then I figure within a year or two they could challenge Dalton again, I’d be trying to avoid another election in 4 years because then you’ll end up in the same boat as this year where Ontario will have a municipal election, a federal election and a provincial election all in the same 12 month period.   But right now image is most important for the PCs.  

After all Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals successfully turned him from a man with a target on his back into premier dad.