It is sure getting tough for a person to accurately forecast election results. Watching Tom Clark during the excellent election night coverage by Global Television, he asked a lovely looking communications consultant on Ms. Wynne’s team if she was surprised at the strong showing of the Liberals. As a long time insider in election campaigns, we were amazed when the young apparatchik confessed that she had no idea that the Liberals would get a majority. That was unbelievable.
It has always been easy to be wrong by two or three per cent, but a person in that position should have been fully prepared for the results. Hell, she could have been a regular reader of Babel-on-the-Bay and she would have been right on top of things. Babel-on-the-Bay has never been wrong in its forecasting. Sure we lost a loonie to a péquiste in the recent Quebec election because we forecast that the CAQ would not get more than 20 per cent of the vote. We paid the loonie begrudgingly when the CAQ came in at 22 per cent.
But what puzzled us in the preliminary figures last night was the relative strength of the Ontario New Democrats. They won seats in the Windsor area that showed more dissatisfaction in that part of the Province than expected. The Liberals need to take a hard look at that area and address some of the concerns more thoroughly.
It is also obvious that the NDP are in for tough times in Toronto. Without their strong union support across the downtown, the Liberals are going to continue to eat their lunch. The preliminary results showed the Liberal squeaker in Thornhill. We will hope that holds so that we can enjoy putting the screws to a poker buddy who lives in Thornhill and insisted on voting for the Conservative.
While it has never been a secret how we felt about Kathleen Wynne, we thought her speech last night was warm and to the point. It was hardly great as speeches go but why waste rhetoric when it is not needed.
Conversely, the Pillsbury Dough Girl, Andrea Horwath was too long and she forgot to resign. We will have to be patient for that. Timmy Hudak was surprisingly gracious in his swan song but why should he not?
But the Liberals have earned congratulations. We will put their feet to the fire on being progressive tomorrow,
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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