FEDS

Federal grits dump on Dalton

Not much call for McGuinty's Blue Light

As he and his small-ish band of acolytes cast about for something -- anything -- that will persuade Ordinary Ontarians^© to give them the favor of a vote, one cannot help but feel a modicum of pity for provincial Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty.

Cursed with a party that does not particularly stand for anything, competent opponents and an unfortunate haircut, young Dalton rather resembles cartoon-strip icon Prince Valiant, does he not? Resplendent in a suit of gleaming armor, weapons at the ready, pledging fealty to God, Grits and Goodness. Ready to do battle with the nasty Tory dragons that have occupied the Pink Palace since 1995, leaving restructured hospitals and distressed Dionne sisters in their wake. Our Dalton.

As political problems go, lacking any type of a platform and possessing a ridiculous hairdo are not insurmountable. Dalton may cheer himself with the news that Ronald Reagan and Jean Chrétien achieved high office without either policy or sensible hairstyles. That, and the fact that virtually every living, breathing woman and young person is mad at the Harris Tories -- along with most residents of Northern Ontario, Eastern Ontario and Toronto -- should add up to a tidy little victory for Prince Dalton, should it not? With the battlefields over education and health care, should not Mr. McGuinty ride his trusty steed to victory?

Not if his federal Liberal cousins have anything to do with it, we are sad to say.

In recent weeks, in the pages of reputable news journals such as The Hill Times and The Toronto Star, Liberal members of Parliament have been unburdening themselves of their thoughts about young Dalton. And the MPs have not been kind to the provincial Grit leader.

"Why should I help Mr. McGuinty?" sniffed Sarkis Assadourian, MP and pride of Brampton Centre, when contacted by a scribe at The Star (where, it should be said, legions of reporters are as busily laboring to elect Dalton -- just as much as the nutty folks at The National Post are sworn to the service of Preston Manning's United Alternative). "When you do a survey of members of Parliament, it shows that his chances aren't too good. The view is that the Liberals aren't doing very well in Ontario."

Ouch, as they say in political circles. The unhelpful comments of Sarkis could perhaps be dismissed as sour grapes. After all, his son Raffi was apparently shut out of a provincial Liberal nomination in Brampton, and Mr. McGuinty has been too busy to meet with Sarkis. But Mr. Assadourian is not alone in his view. Plenty of other federal Grits have ripped young Dalton a new arsehole, on the record and off. Some have even opined that a vote for Mike Harris is just fine, thank you very much. And no less than the Prime Minister of Canada has quietly let it be known that he will be nowhere to be seen during the upcoming provincial election.

WHEN IS A LIBERAL NOT A LIBERAL?

For those who labor under the misapprehension that a Liberal is a Liberal, whether on Parliament Hill or at Queen's Park, here are five pithy reasons why Prince Dalton cannot count on federal help:

He's a goner. Having eyeballed the overall, long-term Tory approval polling numbers, federal Grits know a Harris re-election is a near-certainty. So why hang out with the walking dead?
His policies. Mr. McGuinty will likely find that the provincial Tory approach -- deficit-cutting, debt-cutting, social program-cutting -- bears great resemblance to the federal Liberal approach. And the federal Grits are pretty darn popular, too.
He's Blue Light. In the now much-repeated words of the Angus Reid Group, Mr. Harris is "Blue," and Mr. McGuinty is "Blue Light." Why, query Liberal MPs, pick a watery imitation when you can have the real thing?
He is Ontario's Yeti. While some people claim to have spotted Mr. McGuinty, most others are resolute in their view that the provincial Liberal leader does not exist. Assadourian has a greater public profile than Dalton McGuinty.
He is a Liberal. Federal Liberals from Ontario, most of them now happily calculating their MPs' pensions, believe fervently in the Liberal-government-in-Ottawa-equals-Tory-government-in-Toronto theorem. Why elect a Liberal government at the provincial and federal levels, when that could possibly jeopardize the sinecures of the latter group?

Dalton McGuinty: princely, valiant, but on a crusade that is almost certainly doomed.

Feds is written by a federal insider.