Election could turn nasty
ugly
by Eric Dowd
Toronto -- No love is lost between the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, the Hatfields and McCoys of Ontario politics, and there are indications the October 2011 election could turn particularly nasty.
Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals have never forgotten a slur in the 1990s, when he first led his party in an election and Tory premier Mike Harris ran advertisements picturing him looking grim and uncomfortable, as in a police mug shot, and claiming he was “not up to the job,” and they played a part in his defeat.
The Conservatives who have held power almost as a divine right for most of the last seven decades are desperate to regain it and dispossess these upstarts and polls show they have a chance they cannot afford to miss.
The bitterness between the parties has emerged mainly in reports from their back rooms. The Liberals have been mulling over the idea of putting Conservative leader Tim Hudak’s wife, Deb Hutton, in their ads.
Leaders’ wives usually campaign with their husbands, mostly by simply accompanying them, which demonstrates they have families and draws little comment.
But Hutton was a senior unelected adviser to Harris when he was premier, probably the most influential woman aide any premier has had.
She played a key role in decisions for which he still is criticized, including reducing social services. Hudak and Harris have said they admire each other’s policies and the Liberals say they will focus on this in the election, as they entitled to, although voters should expect the two parties’ more recent policies to be the main themes.
Hutton was at talks in the1990s in which which Harris told police he was anxious to end quickly an occupation of Ipperwash provincial park by aboriginals and a judicial enquiry ruled this helped create an atmosphere in which police moved in and a protester was shot dead, although curiously she forgot the gist of what was said.
The Conservatives also appointed Hutton to a lucrative public post, all of which makes her much more than a political wife.
The Liberals in a recent news release included Hutton in a list of “Tories at the trough” and said they are entitled to point to her because Hudak has used her and their three-year-old daughter in commercials to attract votes.
The Tories once attacked McGuinty because he had one of his profusion of brothers working in his office, at a low salary which showed he was not in it for the money. McGuinty explained he wanted him there because he was a hard worker and reliable, but the Tories forced him out.
Hudak has said attacking an opponent’s spouse is ‘way over the line" and he would never allow his campaign to do it.
It is not a conclusive argument to say a political aide should be immune from criticism because she has married a party leader.
Bur many backroomers were given even higher-paying rewards by Conservative governments and a case can be made the Liberals would be better advised to focus their attacks on them.
The Liberals appear to have dropped the idea of targetting Hutton, but the Conservatives are also incensed because a relatively new Liberal research and innovation minister, Glen Murray, said in an internet message he did not feel would become public Hudak supports discrimination against gays, of which there is no evidence and which he withdrew.
The Liberals were not amused when Conservatives picketed their recent convention with signs “watch your wallets -- Liberals in town."
Someone also registered a fake account with meaningless messages on Twitter in the name of Miller Hudak, Hudak’s three-year-old daughter, which McGuinty and his party quickly decried and said had nothing to do with them, and Hudak immediately accepted.
But there are so many itchy fingers on the trigger in these two parties and so many ways of expressing criticism it will be surprising if someone does not shoot below the belt.
