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B.C. Election Lesson: Nice Guys Don't Win

Instead of hammering Clark and the Liberals with attack ads, reminding the voters why they were sick and tired of the Clark Liberals, due to their myriad of scandals, blunders, HST tax, costly government programs and arrogance, Dix tried to be Mr. Nice Guy.
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Guess what, Attack ads work.

NDP BC Leader Adrian Dix tried to take the high road in this week's BC provincial election.

And he crashed and burned. In one of the greatest upsets in BC and Canadian political history.

Adrian Dix was hoping to cruise to victory on the basis that BC voters were sick and tired of the Liberals after 12 years in power. And they wanted to kick the bums out and have a new government, for a change.

Dix had Liberal leader Christy Clark and the Liberals on the ropes.

BC voters had not forgotten that former Liberal leader Campbell had brought in the hated HST tax.

And the Liberals, like most parties in power for too many years, inevitably succumb to scandals and bungling.

And hence were extremely vulnerable.

Instead of hammering Clark and the Liberals with attack ads, reminding the voters why they were sick and tired of the Clark Liberals, due to their myriad of scandals, blunders, HST tax, costly government programs and arrogance, Dix tried to be Mr. Nice Guy.

Dix tried to moderate the NDP image. Make them more user friendly. Sort of government-ready to prudently manage the economy. Sort of what Horwath is doing in Ontario, while she does the two-step with Wynne.

That was a serious election blunder.

Then to make matters worse.

The old leftist crazy anti- business, anti-profits, anti-economy, anti-prosperity NDP monster also raised its ugly head, when Dix promised to kibosh the expansion of a crucial Kinder Morgan pipeline that moves heavy oil from Alberta to the Vancouver port.

In effect, Dix was threatening to bring BC's economy and its prosperity to a halt.

Even before the environmental studies had been completed.

Will the Loony Left in BC, ever learn?

And the rest became political history.

So what are the lessons for Andrea Horwath?

As I have stated in numerous Huffington Post articles, Horwath, like NDP Adrian Dix, had Wynne and the Liberals on the ropes.

The Ontario electorate is sick and tired of the Liberals after 9 years of Dalton McGuinty.

There have been numerous scandals, OLG, eHealth, Ornge and the cancellation of the two gas plants at a cost of over $500 million and still counting. There is a scandal brewing at OLG again.

Senior executives at OLG are earning bonuses and income in contravention of the government's own guidelines for wage freezes on senior government officials.

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

More appropriately, the OLG "House" seems to be always winning.

And the poor Ontario electorate are being taken as suckers to the cleaners once again.

There are probably other OLG, Ornge, eHealth scandals, hidden inside the Liberal Government.

The only way to uncover these government abuses, is a change of administration.

If Andrea Horwath truly wants to clean up the Ontario government and make the Ontario government accountable, put your money where your mouth is.

Oppose the budget, and force an election.

Then unlike the limp Dix,

Attack. Attack. Attack.

You have 12 years of Liberal arrogance and incompetence to go after.

I think Horwath can still pull a victory off.

At worse, Horwath will be the leader of the major opposition party.

And Horwath together with Hudak, can then go through the former Liberal government books and expose the Liberal government's past 12 years of mismanagement.

The future of Horwath and the Ontario NDP lay in marginalizing the Liberals. Not in jumping in bed with them for inconsequential short term progressive public policy gains.

Hudak and Tories are not the devils.

The NDP and Tories can together make Ontario more accountable, more transparent and less incompetent.

It is to Hudak's interests long term interests to work with the NDP.

Which includes economic policies that work for the majority of working men and women in Ontario.

I know that seems counterintuitive.

But the Tories are not the natural enemy of the NDP in Ontario. The Liberals are.

The Liberals are putting the very existence and survival of the NDP at risk.

Read my lips. The Liberals are going after your NDP base and soft left support.

Weeks ago I warned Horwath, that the more you negotiate with the Wynne Liberals, the more the NDP will drop into the toilet.

My prediction has proven correct.

You may not like my politics, but my predictions about your fate are correct.

If Horwath and the NDP support the Wynne government this time around, Horwath will be toast in about a year and the NDP will have fallen off the political map.

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