Sandra Pupatello is one tough politican, blunt, often abrasive and not afraid to call it as she sees it. Dalton McGuinty is a different breed but anyone who thinks he lacks steel hasn't been paying attention.
The two of them are taking on Flaherty and Harpoon in a battle of economic philosophies and it's an unfair fight. The Ontario team brings intelligence and facts to the table. The Alliance pair lack the former and have yet to get any economic facts straight.
Flaherty slithered into Toronto on Wednesday to spout Economics 101, the 1950s version so popular with Bush. It's the same bullshit that has the Americans sinking in a sea of debt and Bush revealed as an incompetent nincompoop - the old, tired, completely discredited mantra of cut taxes and all will be well. Flaherty got his ass thrown out of office in Ontario because Ontarians understood the look and smell of bullshit after eight brutal years under the Tories. Now he wants McGuinty to cut taxes to restore Ontario's economic engine to better times. Say this for Flaherty - if it fails once and then again and then again then hell, throw it up once more and maybe someone will be suckered into buying it. Sure it's a bankrupt philosophy! What do you expect from bankrupt pseudo smart guys in suits?
When Flaherty tried the same old song in a speech on Wednesday, Pupatello hardly waited for him to sit down before she was telling the CBC and everyone else that Jimmy's speech was made up of "bald faced lies" and that if he wanted a war of words he could just bring it on - Ontario was ready and itching to take the feds on.
Pupatello doesn't back down from anything or anyone, and is exactly the point person the Premier can use to best effect. Neither Harpoon nor Flaherty have much use for women outside the home. Neanderthals both, their social skills and insights are rooted in the same 1950s time warp as their economic ideology. Both are bullies and both try to browbeat women (and men as well, come to think of it) into submission and neither tolerates any disagreement with the party line. But if anyone will do the browbeating it will be the Windsor Wizard. No man we've seen yet is going to best Pupatello.
So it would be great sport to watch Harpoon get progressively madder as Pupatello's verbal rapiers rip skin off old pudge. Harpoon is fun to watch when he's angry. The red starts at the back of his neck, creeps up around his ears and flushes his face while his eyes burn and his mouth goes so rigid its almost spastic. He has a mercurial temper which they try to keep under control in public 'cause it ain't pretty but if anyone can provoke him it's Pupatello. And if anybody should be provoked it's this pudgy pol from the Prairies.
McGuinty dissed Flaherty pretty good on Tuesday, pointing out how out of step Flaherty is and completely debunking the Alliance approach to economic growth and prosperity. What is it you ask? Give the rich more, let the poor eat baloney, ignore education and sell off all our assets to foreign interests. By the time the shell game is revealed, the Alliance boys are eating at the public trough for the balance of their lives while the rest of try to recover.
Ontarians will be the final judges of this battle but it's a foregone conclusion. We lived this bullshit for eight long, painful years under Harris. We won't forget and we aren't blind - we see clearly how completely discredited this tax cut philosophy is in the US and the terrible state they are in after massive tax cuts to the wealthy and to corporate America. Even Republicans can't stomach it anymore but hey - that won't stop the Alliance. When you're a one-note Charlie you've only got one tune and it says here it won't make the hit parade in the next election. Ontario will be a desert for the Alliance - and should be.
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3 comments:
Good grief - Flaherty/Baird/Clements can't keep themselves out of provincial politics.
They're mad because McGuinty beat them and it's neverending attacks in HofC, QP.
Or, Flaherty is trying to set things up for his wife, Christine Elliot, to become next leader of the Ontario Tories.
Or, Flaherty may suspect his job is on the line and is setting himself up for next leader of Ontario Tories.
Or, the usual blame everyone else.
OR - "all" of the above.
What an idiot. He sure looks worn out these days.
McGuinty does have some 'slaining to do.
Can't blame the feds when the ROC is doing very well:
Dalton McGuinty is Ontario's biggest problem
Jim Flaherty, National Post
February 21, 2008
''For instance, we are experiencing the second-longest period of economic expansion in Canadian history.
Yet Ontario's share of the national nominal GDP has gone from 41.4% in 2002 to 38.6% in 2006.''
''Our national unemployment rate is at its lowest level in 33 years, with more Canadians working than ever before.
Yet Ontario's unemployment rate was above the national average for the first time in 2007.''
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=322556&p=2
1) Yeah, mess with Sandra "Lady Churchill" Pupatello and expect your butt handed to you. Moreover, every trick of gotcha politics this ex-brat pol learned at her knee, and every trick has brought down spendthrift bullies who called themselves community college trustees. If there is a courageous soul in North American politics, it's Pupatello. My point is this: Jim Flaherty brought a biplane to a dogfight with a Eurofighter 2000 - he's gone too far and now is going to get in the mud with an expert. As Warren Kinsella has blogged, "Oh, and messing with Pupatello is never a good idea." Having known this hero Pupatello, I concur.
2) Now, why did Jim do this? The problem is Flaherty is bitter because Pupatello bested him and his precious Ontario PCs twice now, Pupatello's people were crucial to winning those conflicts, and Sandra Pupatello is more fiscally conservative than Jim Flaherty. Now, how can that last point be? Try she has pushed in her ministries fiscal responsibility - whether that be with deadbeat dads or standing up to spendthrift school boards submitting a deficit until Dalton McGuinty undercut her and shifted her out of education to her current ministry. For the record, the trade ministry is something Pupatello said she publicly desired after the 2007 election so she personally didn't take a hit. Ultimately though, all the ingredients for this grudge match were set in motion long ago and its only going to get uglier until PMSH negotiates terms of surrender with the McGuinty-Pupatello government.
3) Great blog post, wish I could take credit.
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