Ontario 2018 election

[King of Kensington]

One acquaintance of mine (who ran for school trustee in Toronto a few years ago) described Brown as "without hyperbole, the creepiest person I’ve ever met."

[King of Kensington]

There was some speculation the federal NDP might choose a different leader depending on who the federal Tories chose...but in the end, does anyone think that if the Tories had picked Bernier instead of Scheer it would have made any difference whatsoever to who the NDP chose? Would vast number of NDP have have said to themselves "Jagmeet Singh would have been good to run against Scheer, but since they picked Bernier, I guess we better go for Charlie Angus" 

At the time, I think one could think Angus looked weaker if the Tories had gone with Bernier since his French is pretty bad.  But he ended up doing so much worse than expectations that it probably would have made little difference in the end.

[King of Kensington]

Since this was written by Martin Regg Cohn I'm assuming Tories think having a leadership race now is a brilliant move:

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/01/26/did-progressive-conservatives-just-give-away-the-game.html

[King of Kensington]

Muskoka, Parry Sound, Haliburton and Algonquin Park are the transition zone.

[King of Kensington]

No, that's east-central Ontario.

[King of Kensington]

Do you consider it to be in Northern Ontario, though, in the same way that Parry Sound-Muskoka is considered to be in the North?

No. 

Northern and Southern Ontario are the primary regional divisions in Ontario. 

Eastern Ontario is a subregion of Southern Ontario, as is Southwestern Ontario.  SW Ontario was called Western Ontario for a long time, but it never meant anything in the North.

Central has been used for both lying "in between" north and south and east and west.  It's not as clearly defined.

[King of Kensington]

https://twitter.com/TheoMoudakis/status/958443216914628608

[King of Kensington]

Question:  In what ridings would a Doug Ford-led party over-perform compared to the generic PC vote and where would Christine Elliot or Caroline Mulroney do better?

[King of Kensington]

Most of Peel and probably Woodbridge would likely see Ford do better than the generic PC vote.

[King of Kensington]

John Nunziata - remember him? - says he was retained by a woman who was sexually harrassed by a Liberal Cabinet minister:

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/provincial/ontario-liberal-cabinet-minister-sexually-assaulted-woman-lawyer/wcm/3a00feba-477c-41d4-a53a-db39bc49c866?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook

[King of Kensington]

The Trillium Party may be a better fit for Brown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpU4-j_eNHk

[King of Kensington]

Brown was apparently scheduled to be interviewed on CFRB today but backed out in the last minute.  Guess he realized it's owned by Bell Media (which owns CTV).

[King of Kensington]

Eric Hoskins has resigned.  He will be heading a federal commission to explore Pharmacare.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/eric-hoskins-ontario-health-minister-resignation-1.4552697

Getting the coveted Liberal nomination in St. Paul's is a bigger deal than winning in the general election.

[King of Kensington]

What did Caroline Mulroney offer besides a famous last name and stupid statements like "we need to let the private sector into IT."

[King of Kensington]

Why on earth were Christine Elliott's people saying she'd run in St. Paul's?

[King of Kensington]

St. Paul's and Ottawa-Vanier are probably the safest Liberal ridings in the province. 

[King of Kensington]

Christine Elliott is not conceding:

https://twitter.com/CBCQueensPark/status/972701075487805440

[King of Kensington]

Wynne is a formidable campaigner.  Horwath is OK.  I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that the NDP is going to displace the Liberals on the center-left of the spectrum. 

[King of Kensington]

Steve Paikin has given out a lot of riding results on his Twitter feed.

[King of Kensington]

^ Check out Paikin's Twitter page.

[King of Kensington]

I think some would be surprised by the result in Peel Region (pretty evenly split).  Ford dominated York Region (more nouveau riche/McMansion territory) to the north.  Elliott won Durham (her home turf) and Halton (more "establishment").

[King of Kensington]

My mom, who I consider to be the quintessential Ontario swing voter, told me she won't be voting PC, but on the subject of Doug Ford, "at least he's not Kathleen Wynne."

Worked for Trump.  Remember how we heard how college-educated suburban GOP women and Mormons and so on wouldn't vote for Trump because he was so horrible.

[King of Kensington]

The GTA vs. non-GTA difference is less pronounced than I think many would have suspected. 

[King of Kensington]

The GTA vs. non-GTA difference is less pronounced than I think many would have suspected. 

What was expected exactly? You could have argued for Ford doing better in the GTA (more immigrants, familiarity) or outside (more blue collar).

I’m surprised how well Elliott did in Peel actually.

The former.  I heard a lot of claims (not so much here) that Ford was far more popular in Toronto/GTA than outside it.  I was also surprised that Peel split pretty evenly.

[King of Kensington]

Huh...so Ford edged out Mulroney in York-Simcoe on the first ballot.