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Saturday, February 22, 2014

Tim Hudak explains his right-to-work retreat

8 comments:

Unknown said...

So does Dave Brister get his nomination back in Essex now?

I thought the right-to-work platform was terrible general election politics, yet Timmy managed to make it even more of a disaster through the power of his awesome stupidity and breathtaking cowardice. Were I holding a class for candidates, I would post a huge picture of Hudak and say "Don't be this guy."

This wasn't something that policy staff brought to him and leaked to the friggin' media. He introduced and endorsed it, passed it through the policy convention, and had candidates in close ridings defend. And then ... this.

Now Timmy's in the position where the base hates him for walking away from the policy and the left and the middle still hate him for having started it in the first fucking place.

And this isn't the first time he's done this, either. Remember his promises to the base about repealing the speech codes in the Ontario HRCs? You know, the deal with Hillier that made him leader in the first place?

Because we're so close to a writ being dropped, his candidates are going to be spooked about backing anything the leader says in public because there's a better than even chance that he'll walk away from it.

I suspect this is the end for Hudak. I can't imagine that the party activists on the ground are going to do anything other than sit on their hands, which means Timmy has no GOTV effort. He's now fucked them twice on issues that are important to them and he couldn't even win an election in the process.

Christ, if I was Kathleen Wynne, i'd pull the plug myself next week and watch the Tories eat themselves alive for six weeks. She should send Tim flowers because he may very well have saved her career.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this stupid stunt cost the party ten or fifteen seats.

Richard K said...

I suspect you're right about this. although I think a lot of the middle is sympathetic to right-to-work legislation. Giving people the right not to have to be compelled to fund Sid Ryan's bloated salary or Occupy crazies or boats to Gaza and union junkets to Cuba is something a lot of union members themselves would like to see.

The PC's need to take a serious look at themselves and rebuilding the party - without Hudak as leader.

Unknown said...

I dunno, Richard. If there was even an inkling that there was the potential for broad centrist support on the issue, I very much doubt that Timmy would have been so quick to dump it. Even though Hudak is an idiot and a coward, I'm pretty sure that the party has some internal polling about to work that wasn't pretty, especially after Niagara Falls.

There's a deeper problem here. The base, rightly or wrongly, wants action on complicated issues that are exceptionally difficult to defend in a 30 second ad.

As an example of this, we'll pretend for a moment that I'm writing ads for Wynne or Horwath.

"If Tim Hudak is elected premier, he'll roll back 80 years of worker protections. The institutions that built Ontario's middle class will vanish overnight.

Om (insert election date here) tell Tim Hudak that you stand with the middle class and not the business elite."

Is that incredibly dishonest? Sure it is. But you face the challenge of explaining why it's dishonest and what you REALLY mean, all in 30 seconds. Have fun with that.

As for the party, they have an interesting combination of problems. They're part federal Liberals and part US Republicans.

With the exception of Mike Harris, the PCO hasn't been able to stop playing "kill the leader" since Frank Miller ... when I was in high school. Worse, they demand that their leaders run on issues that are almost impossible to explain or defend in a media-centric culture.

I'm just thrilled that they haven't started comparing birth control with rape yet. I thought they would have by now.

Richard K said...

I don't think most people would be fooled by the labor campaign to paint Hudak as the guy who is going to vivisect workers' rights in Ontario. And most people aren't in unions anyway.

The conventional thinking on this is that Hudak wimped out because he didn't want to antagonize the more than otherwise and have to fight massive labor money buying 3rd party anti-PC ads.

Which will probably happen anyway, in spite of his gutless retreat..

Richard K said...

I don't think most people would be fooled by the labor campaign to paint Hudak as the guy who is going to vivisect workers' rights in Ontario. And most people aren't in unions anyway.

The conventional thinking on this is that Hudak wimped out because he didn't want to antagonize the unions more than otherwise and have to fight massive labor money buying 3rd party anti-PC ads.

Which will probably happen anyway, in spite of his gutless retreat..

And I don't think you have to worry the Ontario PC's are as off the rails as the looney Republican fringe. These guys aren't hard core social conservatives. They may even get a social liberal in charge when Doug Ford takes over the party after Hudak blows the election ;-)

Unknown said...

Don't tease me, Richard. You know how randy I get.

As much as I would love it with all of my heart, Dougie isn't leading anything, particularly not in the near future.

Although your point about his social liberalism is well taken (his main objection to Pride seemed to be that the naked dudes weren't hot enough), the party's leadership doesn't work that way.

Since 1985 or so, the trend has been to alternate between the conservative and moderate wings (Miller to Grossman, Harris to Eves, Tory to Hudak.) That makes the most likely next leader Christine Elliot or someone like her.

But watching Doug would be fun, sine he only has one campaign mode - attack and lie. Doing that with other Conservatives might be seen as counter-productive by sane people.

Although I certainly don't have any proof of this, I suspect that he decided not to run provincially this year because he got a message from Timmy's office indicating that it would make his nomination as difficult as possible.

Richard K said...

Yeah, I heard it was a flat out "over my dead body" from Hudak, which would actually be a pretty good incentive (disclaimer -just kidding, this is in no way meant to condone any threat of violence towards Tim Hudak or anyone else - you have to be so careful what you write these days...).

And that is the big problem with Pride. I support Pride, I just don't think it should get government funding if it's going to have some of the crazies who use it as a platform. And really, there should be some sort of entry standard if you're going to publicly parade around naked. There should be grounds for some sort of class action suit against Pride and the beer companies for anyone who wakes up next to one of those gross slobs who feel compelled to put every square millimeter of their epidermis on display.

Unknown said...

My position on ALL parades is move them out to Downsview where they don't fuck up traffic.

That should address most of your concerns. Looka me, bringing folks together!