Organization, appeal Wynne the day
She has won over her party; now for the opposition, voters
ITORONTO n the end, there’s no great mystery behind Kathleen Wynne’s victory.
Sure, political pundits and talking heads love to pontificate on the back-room deals and secret strategic alliances that fuel so much of the chatter that surrounds a political convention.
And those things do matter to some extent.
But the key factors responsible for vaulting Wynne into the Ontario Liberal party’s top spot — and the premiership sometime in the next week or two — can be boiled down to two simple truths: a superbly run campaign and a genuinely appealing candidate.
Persuading the party faithful is one thing. Making the same virtues of organization and persona click with opposition parties and the whole, unruly voting population is quite another.
Still, the practical details of Wynne’s successful leadership run suggest wider potential.
She was pretty much first out a the gate with her bid, a mere two weeks after Dalton McGuinty’s sudden resignation. Her people worked the phones, handled challenging campaign logistics and reached out to the media better than any of her competitors.
(She was outmatched in the food-and-fete department: the best hospitality suite was Charles Sousa’s nightclub-themed bash, and Sandra Pupatello’s food truck outside the convention venue was a tour de force of culinary suasion.) Wynne’s fundraising was also stellar, boasting by far the most donations.
Her campaign manager was veteran organizer Tom Allison, who brought his considerable experience to bear, ensuring that day-today details were looked after while he also created the conditions for success on the convention day itself.
Allison paved the way for Wynne’s victory on that final Saturday vote with, of all things, a campaign of friendliness. One senior team member said Allison would end every campaign meeting by “reminding everyone to be friendly whenever we are talking with other delegates.” And Wynne-team volunteers were expected to chat up other candidates often, and well in advance of the convention weekend.
The idea that Wynne’s team should be the most welcoming, the most open and the most collegial wasn’t just a feel-good slogan — it was a pragmatic strategy born of bitter experience. When Allison worked on Michael Ignatieff’s 2006 bid for the federal Liberal leadership, his team failed to reach out enough to other candidates beforehand, and suffered as a result.
That’s a problem in a leadership race where candidates must woo their competitors’ supporters. But it was no problem for Wynne on the weekend. She was able to convince Eric Hoskins, Gerard Kennedy and, most surprisingly, Charles Sousa to stroll across to her side of the old Maple Leaf Gardens. But while the necessity of a professionally managed campaign can hardly be overstated, its effectiveness wouldn’t have mattered much but for the personal appeal of the candidate. Wynne delivered that in spades.
It’s been a long time since Ontario had a leader who is so spontaneous and at ease in her own skin. Remember McGuinty’s early days in front of a microphone? Painful. Conservative leader Tim Hudak sounded almost robotic when discussing his platform in the 2011 election (although he is much improved of late). And when was the last time Prime Minister Stephen Harper sounded like he was speaking from the heart?
Wynne, on the other hand, is engaging even when she messes up. She flubbed what was supposed to be the big-finish last line of her barnburning speech on Saturday morning — and used the moment to disarmingly connect with the crowd. During her acceptance speech, she went off script, confounding the techies running the show. “I wish you could see the Teleprompter right now,” Wynne told the crowd.
Even Mayor Jim Watson, who remained scrupulously mum on whom he supported in the race, made no secret of being impressed with Wynne’s ability to roll with the punches on Saturday morning, when he was in the room to see her show. And Wynne’s message that balancing fiscal responsibility with social progressiveness is possible clearly resonated in the room. In the video portion of her presentation, Wynne talked about how “being tough doesn’t have anything necessarily to do with being mean.”
That tough-but-not-mean mantra, combined with her widely discussed ability to build bridges — she was a professional conflict mediator before she came to Queen’s Park in 2003 — are the factors that convinced her competitors to propel her to the top job in their party and the province.
In particular, those leadership candidates who are not so keen to face an election this year supported Wynne because they rate her as better suited to keeping the Liberal minority government afloat under difficult circumstances.
She needs to keep reducing the deficit, move quickly on the teacher unrest — in particular somehow reinstating extra-curriculars in schools — address joblessness, all while making improvements and changes to the social services system. All that, while also making palatable concessions to either the Conservatives o r the NDP to avoid triggering an election. Can she do it and remain that spontaneous, reasonable figure with whom so many seem able to feel a connection? That is the biggest question looming in Wynne’s leadership right now, not whether Ontario is ready for a gay female premier.
The answer will depend on whether Wynne can run her government like she did her campaign — slick and even shrewd, and yet wedded to communication style that’s refreshingly direct. Running the government will either amplify the virtues of her winning formula or quickly prove its limitations.