Wasn't that a tidy little election!! Now what?

As expected, McGuinty romped home with a solid majority. As expected, John Tory fell on his sword, or his sword fell on him - whichever.

By election night the only really interesting question was whether Tory could defeat Kathleen WYnne in Don Valley West.

Wow!!! Beat him? She bloody buried him.

I am not surprised. Wynne is probably the most underrated politician in the province. Four years ago the Lib brain trust was touting women like Donna Cansfield, Laurel Brotten, and Mary Anne Chambers among others, but no one but no one saw Wynne as anything but back seat caucus wallpaper.

Cansfield and Brotten have done well. Chambers chose not to run again and the party can thank its lucky stars she bowed out - you'd have to look to the Harris Eves years to find a worse minister. Supercilious, and believing herself to be infallible, Chambers gone is good riddance. It is hard to understand why it took the Liberals so long to recognize that the best politician in the government is the minister from Don Valley West. She's full value for her Wynne, you'll pardon the pun.

The real question is, now what? It will be interesting to see what the party does with this victory and how smart it really is. The truth is, McGuinty didn't win this election, Tory lost it. No one expects Liberals to acknowledge that publicly but if the party leadership fails to acknowledge and act on that truth internally, then Liberals will lose four years from now, and deserve to do so.

Even with the 10 ton anchor of funding private religious schools tied firmly around his neck, Ontarians still preferred Tory as premier over McGuinty by a whopping amount. In spite of having done some good things, and been blessed with a robust economy, the Liberals did not do nearly enough.

They haven't moved quickly or far enough on a whole raft of problems such as health care, the environment, infrastructure, agriculture or aggressively courting new economy businesses. Government itself is sluggish, working with badly outdated communications systems and bureacratic approaches that cry out for dismantling. Bill 212 in the education field is about to blow up if the government doesn't get serious and listen to school boards about it. Hospitals and health care workers do not have the kind of computerized systems of health records that are becoming standard in other, well managed states and provinces. The lack of the transfer of health care records to a standard, province-wide system is costing millions and millions every year. The city of Toronto Act has not properly solved the issues there and the government needs to give the mayor the power he needs to be able to make and enforce decisions and then be held accountable for them. The tepid, sort-of, kind-of gave Toronto new powers is an approach that has created chaos at City Hall, Miller's critics and his own bad judgement notwithstanding.

If the Tories had had better staff advising Tory they could and would have shot the Liberals to smithereens with a withering fusilade of appropriate and well earned criticism. The Liberals deserved it - and they can't hope to be that lucky again.

So those tempted to sit back and feel pumped by the results should have taken three days off plus the weekend and been back today, recognizing how lucky they are, what a narrow escape they have had, and determined not to repeat the mistakes of the last four years.

McGuinty needs to shake up his cabinet and he needs to shake up his office, bringing in more sophisticated advisors who can see and understand that the best political strategy grows out of the best public policies, not the glibbest political phrases.

I am not holding my breath. But four years from now, I told you so.