Wynne could hand Hudak majority trying to out-NDP the NDP

In 2011, the Ontario Liberals missed a coveted fake majority by one seat. So Wynne’s 2014 campaign strategy — which she rolled out in attack ads before delivering her 2014 budget that triggered the election — is to muscle out the NDP to win a majority.

Jockeying for power

With our broken voting system, First-Past-the-Post, parties would rather jockey for power than cooperate and govern.

Liberals are hypocrites for accusing the NDP of this. Wynne had every intention of forcing this election.

If Wynne was interested in working with the NDP, she wouldn’t have abandoned all three NDP policies legislated in her 2013 budget. If she was interested in NDP support, she wouldn’t have run attack ads while pretending to seek it.

Strategy

So the Liberal strategy for this election appears to be two fold:

1. The NDP are to blame for the election and must be punished: This kind of sniveling is prevalent in the Toronto Star especially. Martin Regg Cohn goes so far as to blame the NDP for the Tories’ hard-right turn.

   This is obvious propaganda. Hudak has been ultra-conservative from day one.

2. The Liberals are the real progressive party: Wynne has an attack add that says the Andrea Horwath is not for real. Rick Salutin ridiculously asserts Andrea is a “right-wing populist, full out” — Rob Ford, Mitt Romney, Margaret Thatcher and Mike Harris all rolled into one.

   All nonsense aside, CBC’s Vote Compass places Horwath to the left of Wynne.

Oblivious

But while the Liberals break out the heavy artillery against the NDP, they are leaving their right-flank exposed.

Like Ignatieff in the 2011 federal election — who handed Harper the economy on a silver platter — Wynne appears to be oblivious that the Liberal party has to win over moderate right-leaning voters to prevent a conservative majority.

The Liberal party straddles the center. That means it has to reach out both leftwards and rightwards. Historically, reaching out rightwards has been more important because the conservative party is the greater threat than the NDP.

Folly

Given our primitive voting system awards absolute power on 40% of the vote, it’s the Liberal party’s job to split the moderate conservative vote and keep the conservative party out of majority territory.

But Wynne’s election strategy is doing the opposite. By trying to out-NDP the NDP she is alienating right-leaning voters.

Like left-leaning voters believe neo-cons are destroying the country, right-leaning voters feel an NDP government is the equivalent of Armageddon.

So by pretending to be the real NDP, Wynne is becoming the actual Hudak enabler.

Conclusion

Instead of playing the blame game, the Liberals must get off their asses and do something to stop Hudak.

He’s the one within striking distance of a majority government, not the NDP. Only the Liberal party can offer right-leaning voters an alternative to Hudak, not the NDP.