Does any of this sound familiar?
On one side, a businessman who inherited serious money from his father, with minimal political experience, embracing a right-wing populist policy agenda and vowing to clean up a "corrupt" government.
On the other, a woman with a lifetime of political experience in increasingly senior roles, embracing a moderately progressive policy agenda, but seen for better or worse as very much part of the political establishment.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton? Well, yes, but as of last evening that's also what we have here in Ontario. After a thoroughly chaotic selection process, the Progressive Conservative Party chose Doug Ford to lead the party into June's election against incumbent Premier Kathleen Wynne of the Liberal Party.
Beset by dubious dealings and incompetence, and burdened by the fact that the electorate may simply be tired of the Liberals after more than a decade in power, Wynne saw her approval ratings sink to unprecedented levels last year -- scarcely more than 10 percent of voters gave her a positive mark at one point. She has responded with a blizzard of progressive policy measures, not least a big hike in the Provincial minimum wage, which seems to have turned things around a little. Still, she remains personally unpopular: her party might well fare better with another leader.
As for the PC party, the last two months have been a giant dumpster fire. The party's creepy leader, Patrick Brown, was accused of sexual harassment. He resigned. The party looked set to appoint a new leader without consulting the membership, given the imminence of the election, but Doug Ford (brother of the late Rob, erstwhile Mayor of Toronto) threw his hat into the ring, so a formal ballot was hastily set up. Three female candidates (including Caroline Mulroney, daughter of a former Prime Minister of Canada) also declared their candidacy.
And then, so did Patrick Brown, declaring himself "fully vindicated" of the sexual harassment charges, despite zero evidence to that effect. And then Brown dropped out again. And then there were problems with the complex system set up to select the new leader, with many party members claiming to have been disenfranchised. And then, this past Saturday, the announcement of the winner at a special party convention had to be repeatedly delayed because of a dispute between two of the candidates. Only after all the poor saps who had paid $50 to attend the convention had been sent home was the party finally able to announce Ford as the winner. The second place finisher, Christine Elliott, initially cried foul and threatened to take the whole matter to court, but has since conceded defeat.
These people couldn't organize a two-car funeral, but pundits are already warning that come election day, you can't rule Ford out. This is, after all, the age of populism, and Doug Ford fits the bill perfectly. His ambitions have never been hidden, and you have to think he has figured out that this is his moment.
Look at it this way. Ford (Trump) only entered the race because he perceived that his opponent Wynne (Clinton) is irredeemably unpopular with the electorate. She is the only opponent he could possibly hope to beat. With much of her party's platform well-received by the voters, the unpopular Wynne (Clinton) is probably the only leader who could possibly fail to defeat Ford (Trump).
Scary, no? Rural ridings across much of Ontario vote Tory regardless of who the leader or local candidate is, and "Ford Nation" in Toronto will stand by its man. Will that be enough? It's going to be close.
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