Like most Ontarians, I hate Premier Dalton McGuinty, who has governed for eight years with approval ratings slightly below those of the guy everybody in your neighbourhood suspects of being a pedophile. Virtually every sentient human in the province would beat McGuinty to death with a fucking shovel if given the chance.
The only thing that they wouldn't do to be rid of ol' Dalton is vote for Tim Hudak. To understand this, you need to understand that Canadians are different than Americans in that we're willing to governed by evil people if the alternative is being governed by stupid people. We collectively decided yesterday that we'd rather tolerate the stench of McGuinty's brimstone than the sight of Hudak drooling on himself and struggling to breathe with his mouth closed.
If you paid any attention to the campaign at all, you should immediately understand what I mean. This was Tim's race to lose and, well, he did it! A couple of months ago, Hudak's Progressive Conservatives were a not-at-all surprising fifteen points ahead of McGuinty's Liberals and poised to win a majority of testicle-shattering proportions. Yet I instinctively knew that he'd piss it all away. I tried explaining it to my pal, the Tiger on Politics, but he was having none of it.
I knew this was going to happen two years ago, when Hudak first won the Tory leadership, and I said so publicly. This is because I understand how populism and leadership races (or American primaries) work.
In leadership contests (or primaries), you try to appeal only to the people who actually pay attention to such useless exercises, the party's base, which is almost always unusually superstitutous, uncommonly ignorant and crazy in ways that remain uncharted by modern science. Once you win, you then "run to the middle" to win over the moderates and independents that really decide elections. It's a subtle art and, when properly performed, a beautiful thing to see.
Which brings me to populism, which is physically repulsed by subtlety; along with common sense, proportionality and history. Historically, as populism rises, politicians get dumber until that era of populism ultimately recedes back into its sea of stupidity. Populism actually punishes subtlety, which is why so few populists have ever actually been elected as chief executives of anything.
Tim Hudak's leadership campaign went beyond even populism. He was running to be the prom king of the idiot fucking blogosphere and Randy Hillier's Ontario Landowner's Association, which is more like the Branch Davidians than anyone cares to admit in public. None of this should surprise anyone, given that even Hudak's best friends wouldn't accuse him of being especially bright. He's an intellectual lot lizard, and he actually seems oddly happy that way.
As a leadership candidate, and as Leader of the Opposition, Hudak took positions that were so implausible that they couldn't survive even ten minutes of scrutiny under the harsh light of a campaign. Timmy swore up and down for a goddamned year that he'd get rid of the new Harmonized Sales Tax. When the press got around to asking "really?", his only reply was "okay, not really."
During the leadership campaign, he promised to abolish Ontario's version of Section 13 (a) of the Human Rights Code, which is intellectually laudable, but politically disastrous, since there is no way to respond to the inevitable dishonest attacks against that position in a 30 second TV spot. You might not like that tragic reality of politics, but it doesn't change the fact that it is the reality.
Hudak's long walk away from those promises infuriated even those dumb enough to love him, and doubled the resolve of everyone who already hated him. It was at that moment that his polling started to collapse and the horrid stink of desperation overtook the Tory campaign. The Tories were hoping for Toronto mayor Rob Ford to ride in and save the day for them, but Ford subsequently collapsed under his own considerable weight and lack of accounting and political skills. At the same time, Stephen Harper stopped returning Tim's calls.
At that point - which was the week the writ was dropped - Hudak went down the only path left to him, yokelism. He berated McGuinty for "giving Ontarians jobs to foreigners", thereby falling into a deeply cynical and effective trap that the Liberals planted in their platform.
The McGuinty plan called for helping new citizens that were professionals in their native lands - like, say, doctors - get accredited in Ontario, so that they wouldn't be driving fucking taxis or running 7-11s. But, as the great Andrew Coyne pointed out in Macleans, the plan was structured in such a way that almost no one would be able participate, therefore meaning that it would cost next to nothing. As an added bonus, the Grits were then able to paint the Tories as xenophobic, Nazi shitheels, which they did with relish.
And that was the first week of the campaign. The last week was downright bizarre in blatantly sexual way. Several Tory candidates started putting out pamphlets - seemingly authorized by the Provincial Progressive Conservative Party - that said that the McGuinty Liberals were forcing public schools to teach first graders how to be transvestites.
The Tory campaign had effectively become the second verse of "One in a Million" by Guns N' Roses. And, at this point, Axl Rose is hard enough to defend as a bloated rock star, let alone as a policy position. On the rare occasions that anyone cared to talk to Hudak at all, all they wanted to ask him about was "immigrants and faggots." And at that point, his Song of the Doomed had become an aria. Serious people everywhere had already abandoned him,
Sure, Timmy ultimately won 12 new seats and - with the considerable help of the NDP - reduced the inhumanly unpopular McGuinty Liberals to a minority, which is a lot like sentencing a serial rapist to an unsupervised curfew. And Conservatives everywhere seem to be fucking proud of this, ignoring entirely the fact that just 11 weeks ago, they were poised to actually drown McGuinty.
Last night and then again this morning, Hudak went before the cameras and demonstrated his almost precious brand of obliviousness, thereby reinforcing why he blew such a majestic lead in the first fucking place. He bloviated endlessly about "a tight leash" and "not allowing" this, that, or the other. It was almost as if Tim Hudak was utterly ignorant of the fact that he's now the most irrelevant person in Ontario.
McGuinty is one seat shy of a majority. If he wants to cut a deal, he can do it with the much more accomodating NDP, making Hudak about as influential in the legislative process as the pantless pervert in your local park. Nobody is Queen's Park is going to give a shit what comes out of the Tory caucus for the foreeable future.
And, bluster aside, the last thing Hudak should want is another election anytime soon. Given the fact that he threw away a perfectly good election in record time, he's lucky to still have a fucking job this morning. As a betting man, I'd wager that Tim rolls over like a good pussy for any confidence motion that McGuinty introduces that the Dippers find even mildly objectionable. Ol' Dalt is Little Timmy's Big Daddy for the next few years. Deal with it, boy.
I voted for the Freedom Party yesterday, and I couldn't be more pleased with myself. That's because I suspect everyone who voted for the Hudak Tories of fucking a kid, if only because well-adjusted adults don't devote that much time, money or energy to cross-dressing six-year-olds.
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