Is Patrick Brown’s election plan smart or dumb?
Patrick Brown is running either the smartest election campaign in recent Ontario political history — or the dumbest.
It might also be most cynical campaign in years, fuelled by the belief that voters really don’t need to know — or deserve to know — details about what the Progressive Conservative leader would do if he becomes the province’s next premier.
But it could also be the best strategy for Brown, a policy-light campaign that relies almost solely on voter dislike of Premier Kathleen Wynne to drive the Liberals out of office after 15 years in power.
With just over eight months to go until the June 7, 2018, election, the campaigns of all three major parties are in full swing, even though the official race won’t start until early spring.
Already the election game plan for each party is obvious:
The Liberals will campaign as the party that represents real change in the belief that every election these days is a “change election.” The party will focus on its progressive agenda of championing such issues as free post-secondary tuition, free pharmacare, a higher minimum wage, guarantee annual incomes and increased daycare subsidies.
The NDP will portray itself as the only alternative for voters fed up with the “failed” Liberals and worried about the “destructive” Tories.
And the Conservatives under Brown will run as the party of, well, the status quo.
More than two years since becoming Tory leader, Brown still has no bold agenda, no innovative ideas, no plan to move Ontario forward, no serious proposals to deal with hydro rates or to dramatically improve health care, education, affordable housing or the environment.
What’s more, voters expecting to see anything different emerge from the Conservatives’ policy conference on Nov. 25 and 26 in Toronto are certain to be disappointed.
All that’s likely to come from the all-day meeting are shopworn pledges to cut taxes and end government waste.
Brown’s real strategy is to say nothing, do little and promise less, all the while portraying Wynne as corrupt, incompetent and out of touch with average voters.
The first sign of that came earlier this month when the Conservatives started airing a Trump-style TV attack ad labelling Wynne as untrustworthy and her government as corrupt.
To the background sound of slamming prison cell doors, an announcer intones: “Kathleen Wynne is untrustworthy,” adding “the Liberal party is politically corrupt. From the gas-plant rip-off and eHealth billions to their cash-for-access fundraising scheme.”
What’s next? Brown loyalists screaming at campaign rallies: “Corrupt Kathleen” and “Lock her up,” as happened at Trump rallies when it came to Hillary Clinton?
Cheering on Brown in all this are far-right groups such as the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which has the gall to brand itself as “non-partisan” although it seems to have never found a Liberal tax proposal it liked and constantly attacks Wynne on everything from minimum-wage hikes to hydro rates.
But as cynical as it is, a no-policy, go-negative campaign may be the best strategy for Brown given the level of dissatisfaction with Wynne. A survey released this week by the Angus Reid Institute puts Wynne’s approval rating among Ontario voters at just 17 per cent, the lowest of all premiers. While still pitifully low, the rate is up for the second straight quarter, from an all-time low of 12 per cent recorded in March.
Still, the play-it-safe strategy could also backfire, especially when Ontario voters know so little about Brown and where he wants to take the province.
That’s doubly true given Brown’s consistent record of bad judgment on key issues, such as flip-flopping on sex-ed curriculum, refusing to apologize to Wynne for mistakenly suggesting she’s on trial for corruption and letting his party bosses run roughshod over numerous riding nomination meetings in bids to ensure his favoured candidates are selected.
Still, David Herle, campaign co-chair for the Liberals, concedes the Liberals are in for a tough fight.
“Any government that’s been in office for 15 years is going to have made probably everybody mad at one point or another, and maybe several times over,” he said last week in an interview with QP Briefing, a Queen’s Park newsletter owned by the Toronto Star.
But Herle believes the Tories are vulnerable because of Brown’s strategy of delaying the release of detailed policy proposals.
“The longer they don’t say anything, the more it is that people will think that they’re simply inadequate,” he said.
If that happens, Brown’s strategy will not be seen as smart, but as dumb, cynical and an utter failure.