Ford’s game plan seems to be working
Doug Ford and Pierre Poilievre are very different Conservative cats, but they have one thing in common this spring.
Both are running classic frontrunner campaigns: maintain tight control at all times; minimize risks; avoid unscripted appearances; take advantage of friendly media to keep opponents fighting among themselves and use social media to play up their spats; never find time for press conferences; evade scrums lest some dodgy reporter raises an awkward issue not anticipated in the politician’s cheat sheet.
The front-runner strategy is not new. Early versions were employed to an extent by John Diefenbaker and Pierre Trudeau. Perfected by Stephen Harper’s campaign managers, it worked well for him until 2015, when it didn’t. It failed for his successors Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole, who, lacking Harper’s discipline, were too insecure to lock it in. So far, it is working quite nicely for Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Ford and federal Conservative leadership candidate Poilievre.
With the Ontario election just 17 days off, let’s concentrate on Ford.
The party that he leads calls itself “Progressive Conservative.” The label is meaningless; the party is neither progressive nor conservative these days. Simply put, it is what it needs to be to ensure that the Liberals and New Democrats keep splitting the opposition vote (roughly 60 per cent of the total) evenly enough to prevent either from becoming a serious threat.
It means Ford doesn’t have to pry supporters away from the other parties. Until Ontario Liberals and New Democrats stop playing into Ford’s hands, until they recognize that the only realistic chance of toppling his government is by joining forces, the premier doesn’t have to worry about either of them. He doesn’t have to offer goodies to bribe their voters. He is free to shore up his own soft spots by taking care of his friends and reassuring waverers that he has their backs.
Judging by the polls, the frontrunner strategy is working as intended. When the Ontario campaign began officially on March 4, the Liberals seemed to be closing in on the Progressive Conservatives. But the new Liberal leader, Steven Del Duca, appears out of his depth at times, and the Liberals have lost momentum.
Three vote consolidators, CBC’s Ontario Vote Tracker, Toronto Star’s The Signal and 338Canada’s Ontario Simulator, put the PCs from 8.5 to 9.7 percentage points ahead. And with 63 seats required for a majority in the 124-seat legislature, the three outfits are projecting a second Ford majority government, with between 72 and 75 seats.
The premier could come a cropper in the final leader’s debate Monday, but that seems unlikely. He will be allowed to bring his binder of crib notes. He knows his fate will not rest on defending the government’s record. What he needs to do is reassure the 36 or 37 per cent of Ontarians who are already disposed to re-elect him that he has done as well as could be expected from any ordinary fellow in the face of a pandemic and other exceptional challenges.
That’s Ford’s great strength — his ability to present himself as an ordinary guy who does his best, and who is simply seeking the indulgence of other ordinary Ontarians.
It’s an act, of course. There’s nothing ordinary about Ford and there is nothing in his years in office that clamours for his re-election.
He will win on June 2 because Ontarians — enough of them anyway — accept him as an ordinary person doing a tough job that few of us ordinary Ontarians would take on.
Ford wins, we win. Because he is us.