Doug Ford is not Trump on the Stump.
And if you think so you are an idiot and the sloppiest of thinkers. The only valid comparison which can be made
between Donald Trump and Doug Ford; is how both men intuit just how out of
touch traditional mainstream candidates are within the body politic they seek
to lead. Unlike Trump, Ford will not be running on a platform centered on
immigration control and anti-globalization. Go to a Ford rally, and you will bask in a sea
of colour and ethnicity. The only classes
missing are the Laurentian liberals and the dipper progs.
For the last 20 years, I have dumbfounded and left dazed at the PC
Ontario party for consistently choosing the most publically unpalatable party
leaders imaginable. After each leadership convention, I would shake my head and
think – what were they thinking? After
Patrick Brown’s election, I was busy trying to decide if I could convince
myself to hold my nose and vote NDP or just not vote. After all, why vote for a
Liberal in Conservative clothing when, there was a real liberal running? If the
best you can offer the people of Ontario is more of the same, that isn’t
sufficient motivation, to vote PC. Or even a motivation for voting. Period.
I admit, as of today, in my ‘perfect’
world, Doug Ford is Premier with Andrea Horwath as a strong leader of the
opposition. She’ll keep the Laurentian Tory
political class honest and minding the Doug. Those are the same Tories who have
done their best to keep the PC party a closed club and are in the process of being
caught mired in all manner of nefarious activities recently. Let’s be real, there is a great deal wrong
with the Ontario PC party, and that disaster of a party convention yesterday
showed up their incompetence up – big time. I was busy watching Rosemary Barton on the CBC
and was almost feeling sorry for her. Or I would have been if only she would
stop playing with her hair.
Unlike Mike Crawley (who has done a superb job of covering the
convention and the aftermath) I don’t have any ‘sources’ but I suspect that it
was known by 3pm that Doug Ford was the elected leader and Elliott was doing
her best to suck and blow the vote. I
admit it’s too rich for my blood to read Elliott’s claim of too many voting ‘irregularities’
when she was the only candidate to object to extending the vote when it came to
light how many members did not get their pins so they could vote. Nothing says your time is up and passed like
Mike Harris telling the CBC his daughter didn’t get her pin so she could not vote.
And Frank Klees, jezus, who knew he wear outrage so righteously! And here I thought he was just another
blowhard…
As for the Tories, whose idea was it to think now is the hour for Caroline
Mulroney’s first foray into the political life as a potential candidate for Premier
of one of the largest provinces? This, at the time - when Mr. Dress up is
playing Prime Minister. This is the ultimate
in the hubris of stupidity - words fail me. But that’s the type of thinking which shines
as the best idea in the provincial Big Brain Tory Trust Box.
Although, I would concede a slight similarity to Trump’s election since Christine
Elliott is on the fast track to being the candidate most likely to be become
the Hillary Clinton of Canadian politics.
Doug Ford is not his brother, and it’s a grave mistake to confuse
them. But at a time when Ontario is about to legalize and
control the selling of marijuana, I’d rather have a Ford at the provincial helm
of a pot business than Kathleen Wynne, a premier who is on-track to be the
premier most likely to run a loss selling drugs. At least Doug Ford is rumoured
to have knowledge of the market and an understanding of the clientele.
A lot of people misunderstand the so-called rise of popularism. It only rises when there is entrenched
political elite who are grossly out of touch with the people they seek to
lead. Let’s talk sex education in the
province. Dalton McGuinty tried, saw the
outrage, and wisely backed off. Wynne,
saw the outraged, and gave the giant middle finger to the parents of Ontario
since she had her majority in the provincial parliament. Her justification was that the sex ed curriculum
had not been updated in 20 years but the problem with this line of thinking is;
neither biology, sex or parents wanting the final say when it comes to the
introduction of sexual behaviour to their children had changed since the 90’s.
The electorate is telling you that they aren’t on board with politics as
usual. They are tired of having their elected bettors attempt to use ‘nudge
theory’ or ‘economic carrot/sticks’ to engineer us into their ideal of being
better people. No one in government is
wise enough to tell me how to live my life or at least any life I want to live.
In 1978, instead of going to my
high school prom, I came to Toronto to join a protest against housing discrimination towards
Gays and Lesbians. I am the one who had
an elderly white woman with a walker spit on me in a public washroom for being
on a lunch date with a black man. I am
the one who had ‘Kill the Jew’ craved into her door in the middle of downtown
Toronto in early 2000’s. And I am a
blue, not a red, Tory.
For all those so called Tories who claim moral smugness and claim they
won’t vote for Doug Ford, I tell you truly;
your Laurentian is showing and that is just so déclassé in 2018.
We do know that the Liberals have already spent $650,000 for the new logo and branding/marketing strategy. Although, why the Wynne government
believes they need an officially branding/marketing strategy for a product that
is already widely consumed illicitly and the government will have an absolute
monopoly on the legal retail trade once legalization happens this July - providing
the Liberals win the election …but hey, it’s Wynne and another Liberal spending
cluster fuck…so Bob's your uncle.