Andrea Horwath: I'm Going Nowhere

No remose.  No regrets. No plan.  No future.   No clue.

Dear NDPers: The Time Has Come To Do The Right Thing And Abandon Your Party

Because it has already abandoned you.  I mean, Jack Layton carefully prepared your federal counterparts for his "move to claim the center".  And some of the changes he made, to your constitution for example, where he removed the stuff about property ownership being inherently evil because it suppressed revolutionary fervor, and that clause about castrating all the bosses and hanging them in a public square with their balls in their mouths...well I think we can all admit that they were kind of fringe-y policy elements that are best gone, can't we?  But Andrea Horwath...she just said "excuse the fuck me" and took off to a political place near where Atilla the Hun settled after he plundered the Balkans.  You don't owe her.  You owe it to yourself to stop Tim Hudak from implementing what we might call a "Maximum Horwath" approach to firing Ontario civil servernts.  Vote OLP and afterwards give Andrea her retirement presents. 

A longer version of this Op-Ed by OLP leader Kathleen Wynne appeared today in the Toronto Star.

Victory Or Valhalla!

Is The NDP set to force a provincial election? Maybe.  The evidence cited is:

An e-mail has gone out to riding associations offering them insurance for their campaign offices - a routine election procedure that is not usually done until a party has decided it is definitely going to the polls.

I'm not sure I buy it.  As ONW goes on to note:

While pressure from labour (which is worried about consequences for working Ontarians and the unions themselves from a Tim Hudak government) and unforeseen events could still have an effect, there are other signs the NDP is full-up preparing for a spring election.

Unforseen events like persistantly crappy poll numbers, for example.  But whatever.  I get bored when there aren't elections going on.

New Ontario Poll

From Innovative Research.  Looks like the gas plant fiasco has run out of steam.  And its hard to suggest with numbers like these that Andrea Horwath's NDP has any kind of "momentum". Therefore: a budget deal in the works?  A Spring election averted?  That's how I'm starting to lean.

Ontario Election...Or No? Which is it?

The Star is bullish on an election call:

The minority Liberal government doesn’t intend to negotiate with the New Democrats in order to get their support for the spring budget, a senior Liberal insider says.

That could set the stage for a provincial election in June and also puts the spotlight on NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who has seemed far less bullish about joining the eager Tories in pulling the plug on the Liberals’ 10-year-plus reign.

Mind you, Sun-Ann Levy over at The Sun reports that:

“The most likely scenario right now is that they (the Liberals) hold the NDP at bay, they go for a year and there’s a spring [2015] election...

The fact that the NDPers still need more money in their election campaign kitty and aren’t exactly a “shoo-in” based on the latest Nanos poll, will likely lend credence to their decision to wait another year, [retired PCPO MPP Peter Shurma]says.

That Nanos poll, based on a telephone survey of 500 Ontarians between Feb. 28 and March 3, shows the Liberals leading with 36% support, the PCs at 33% and the NDP at 25%.

As for me, how the hell should I know?  I'm just a lowly blogger without any inside connections whatsoever.  But if you must ask I'm leaning towards the latter view.  The upcoming Wynne budget will be more clearly branded OLP, but contain enough measures that Andrea Horwath--and, as importantly, folks behind the scene like Sid Ryan who fear a 2nd War On Labour if Tim Hudak comes to power--can sign-off on it, albeit with much grumbling.  I wouldn't bet the farm on this outcome, but the idea of starting an election campaign 11% out of first place can't be particularly appetizing to the provincial NDP.  As to retiring PCPO MPP Frank Klees idea that, should the NDP and OLP come to a budget deal, they should officially declare themselves a "coalition government".  Yeah.  Good luck with that, idiot stick.

By-Election Analysis And A Look Ahead

Let the NDP crow for a day.  They've earned it.  As for a Spring election, its about as likely/unlikely as it was yesterday morning, which means we'll probably have one.  And as to the likely result, well, Kathleen will be dogged by anti-wind  protesters at her rural events.  Our wild and crazy Ombudsman is launching a new and possibly embarrassing investigation into Hydro One billing.   (Not that that's an unworthy target, but check out the man's twitter-feed from last night:

@Ont_Ombudsman @RobSilver Don't drink and tweet.  Seriously.
— Bigcitylib (@Bigcitylib2) February 14, 2014

...His behavior is, let us just say, unseemly.)  But on the other hand, Tim Hudak still resembles a constipated weasal; his own party hates him and challenges his leadership at every juncture (google "Richard Ciano" and "Tim Hudak"); and his policies are so barbaric as to be judged appalling by a focus group of  cannibal rednecks.

So, for an OLP partisan, you have to be thinking that any Spring election is eminently winnable.

PS. What about Andrea Howath's NDP?  Some folks think they see a wave building.  Maybe.  I'm not noticing anything yet.

Andrea Horwath Will Scream Coverup

...but not bring down the OLP government over the discovery of more gas-plant cancellation related docs, because, she claims, she's so damn straight.  Her party has also fallen into 3rd place in the polls. Make of all this what you will.

Ontario Budget 2012: Winners, Losers, And Mega-Losers

 1) Let's start with the mega-loser in all of this: Tim Hudak and the PCPO.  Tim could have got something from  the government in exchange for seeing this budget through.  Instead he removed himself from the process 39 minutes in and got nothing.  The other two parties walked  away with tangibles.  Tim walked away with dick.

2) Let's move on to the second biggest loser: Tim Hudak and the 1%.  Are you of the 1%: rich, indigent, a follower of Ayn Rand that thinks the proles should go fuck themselves?  Tim Hudak and the PCPO betrayed you.  Tim was off in the corner somewhere wanking it two-fisted while the NDP and McGuinty Liberals did the hard work of compromise to make this province work.  No reason to blame McGuinty; he's trying to govern.  No reason to blame Horwath; the NDP is about what the NDP is about.  Yo rich dude, its Hudak that let you down!  That 2% surtax could have been 1% if Tim had just been in the room, negotiating on your behalf.  Hate the dorky capitalist before you hate the clever socialist.

3) Let's move on to the smallest winner:  Andrea Horwath.  She got  compromises.  Yada yada yada.

4) But let's conclude with the biggest, most awesome winner:  Dalton McGuinty.  He buys himself a year of free governing.  The economy continues to improve.  His position solidifies.  Hudak and co. go from opposing him on the basis of grand economic philosophies to stalling anti-bullying legislation so as to pander to Catholic radicals and homophobes from their own back-bench.  Tim tried winning on that issue last time, and it flopped.  McGuinty, should he choose to run again at the head of the Ontario Liberals, can probably start looking to rent another hall for his victory banquet.

Go For It, Andrea Horwath

Conducted by Public Polling Inc., the survey found that "over two thirds of respondents would like to see corporations pay their fair share to help reduce the provincial deficit, with 19% opposed and 13% uncertain. Almost as strongly, 58% of Ontarians supported returning corporate tax rates to 14% and 74% said they support raising taxes for individuals earning over $250,000 a year."


 It also showed that 58% of Ontarians "support taking the issue of fair taxation to a provincial election.

Any support you might have would  disappear in a day as the people of Ontario came to realize they would have to go through all this bullshit again.  Although I suspect Ms. Horwath knows this.

The Incredible Lightness Of Being The Ontario NDP

They reject their green candidate and embrace the smelly shop floor. They give 7/9 votes to Unionists for every non-union vote. The Ontario NDP: a party, or a cult nostalgic for Woody Guthrie and the distant past?