Ontario Voted 2007: Leadership Matters Apparently…
October 2, 2007 · By Matthew
It amazed me to watch the comments flow in today, not only in my own post, but in those of the authors who dared to call John Tory’s flip flop for what it was yesterday. OUTRAGE!!! screamed many of the PC supporters who read our words; how dare we even infer that John Tory is anything like Dalton McGuinty. Say what you will about McGuinty, but at least he had the guts to stick with his plan, no matter how wrongheaded and foolish class size limits, extra spending through deficit budgeting and a health tax was. Having John Tory as Premier would be like having a perpetual minority government for four years, wherein the idea wheels would always be spinning, but we’d only be burning rubber as Tory would veer left, right, up, down, backwards, forwards, explode and implode as new opinion polls suggested that his ill-explained policy notions weren’t exactly what the public wanted. I thought LEADERSHIP MATTERS TM here, but apparently I’m going to have to follow John Tory’s lead only in that I too am mistaken and must now remove what little respect I had for the man up until yesterday. Commentator Dalton, who I have disagreed with but is quite respectful in his comments on this site from what I’ve seen, nailed it the best yesterday:
When WE do it, it’s a courageous recognition of the need to to better meet the evolving needs of the electorate, and a frank and honest reappraisal and adjustment of our policy position.
When THEY do it, it’s a flip flop, shamelessly pandering for votes.
(on a side note, I hope Greg is offering Dalton tenureship here at ThePolitic!)
As one who definitely does NOT support the Conservatives, and who often rails against the hypocrisy of the hyper-partisans on the Blogging Tories generally (and their counters at Lib central)I give you kudos for not surrendering to the hypocrisy and taking a stand.
Watching the contortions the blind partisans go through to justify virtually anything their chosen party does, even when it is clearly antithetical to everything they stand for and represents crass retail politics, makes me ill.
Congrats for not being one of those. I suspect the koolaid-drinkers that are the majority of the BT community will not take kindly to your honesty.
Now, if only you would call out your federal pals for spending like drunken sailors and raising the Lib practice of special interest tiny targeted tax cuts and politically expedient but economically inane consumption tax cuts like the gst cut rather than meaningful income tax cuts, we’d be in business.
Anyways, good for you, and wear a protective vest.