When did we get this rule that says a person can publicly announce their sexual preference and then the rest of us do not talk about it? Just imagine how Conservative leader Tiny Tim Hudak and the Ontario Landowners Association are chortling at the prospect of having MPP Kathleen Wynne as Premier. If you think they have built a wall of ignorance across rural Central Ontario, what do you think will happen when they get to attack a Liberal lesbian grandmother? They could potentially move that wall of ignorance south to the GTA.
Dalton McGuinty’s job is up for grabs and it is up to Liberals to decide which person out of a limited field of seven they will select. Each candidate has positives and negatives to consider. In the case of Kathleen Wynne, you can weigh the experience she brings to the job and her skill set against the negatives of bigotry. What people see wrong with being a grandmother, we do not know. It is possible though that, at 60 this year, MPP Kathleen Wynne is just too old to be a legitimate candidate for leader of the Liberal Party in Ontario. With the party facing four to eight years in opposition, age is a consideration.
But with morning line odds of 6 to 1, you do not write off Kathleen Wynne. She has some strong support and needs to be taken seriously on the first ballot. She took first place in signing up new members of the Liberal Party but it will be difficult to translate those numbers into convention delegates when electoral districts choose them on January 12 and 13. Her problem is that on the first ballot, she needs to come within 200 or 300 votes of a majority and we do not see that happening.
If she has less than 500 votes on the first ballot, Wynne can pack it in. Her problem is that she cannot grow. Unless she is close to that magic 50 per cent, her vote is more likely to drop than grow on the second ballot. This will be a reflection of some of the strong arm tactics used to get her delegates. Her campaign was much too aggressive in the beginning and she has had to soften her campaign approach.
Wynne’s most serious strategic error so far is the promise to assume the agriculture portfolio as well as the Premier’s office. The agriculture job is fulltime and while you do not have to be a farmer, you do have to know which end of a cow to admire and you have to have lots of empathy for farmers. She is a negotiator, not an empathizer.
Wynne can probably settle the pain quickly for the party. She has the votes to hang in until the fourth ballot but if she moves to Sandra Pupatello after the second ballot, the whole thing could be settled in time for the six o’clock news.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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