NDP denies Andrea Horwath set to resign as leader

I have no idea what will happen - but even if she was planning to resign - people around her would be denying it until she actually said it.

Is it just me or has Steve Paikin swung and missed on a number of rumours over the past month? He should spend less time gossiping at North Toronto cocktail parties and more time verifying his sources.

She probably just wants to express her admiration for Tony Blair. I think that's what replaced socialism in the preamble.

As other commentators have pointed out, we're in a new era now.  NDP leaders today are expected to make bigger breakthroughs and be able to win.  Losing multiple elections is not considered acceptable the way it once was.

takeitslowly wrote:

its fitting the news are spreading rumour about Andrea Horwath; they had done the exact same thing throughout the whole campaign by suggesting that she would work with Hudak. The media , especially the Toronto Star, is an Anti NDP propagenda machine.

"We must never underestimate our opponents; nor should we forget the closer we come to reaching our objectives, the more vicious and forthright will their opposition become." - T.C. Douglas

takeitslowly wrote:

its fitting the news are spreading rumour about Andrea Horwath; they had done the exact same thing throughout the whole campaign by suggesting that she would work with Hudak. The media , especially the Toronto Star, is an Anti NDP propagenda machine.

This rumour doesn't seem to have anything to do with The Toronto Star.  It was reported by Steve Paikin of TVO.  He should have made sure he verified his sources rather than just reporting gossip.

But as some journalists have said this week, Andrea Horwath hasn't been seen in public since June 12th, so perhaps she should have spoken out before now if she wanted to make her intentions clear.

CBC had an article on her press conference. 

Quote:

She was asked about the leadership question and said party members will have their say, as they always do, at the NDP's annual fall convention. 

"Our party always has that review and I look forward to that," said Horwath. "We always have a vigorous debate."

Horwath said she will now focus on raising questions about the budget the Liberals plan to re-introduce, calling it a Trojan horse budget with "a lot of regressive pieces."

"This is not the progressive budget the Liberals have been spinning," said Horwath. "We can't support an austerity budget when voters rejected austerity."

There is a rumor that Steve Paikin is going to resign.

When you blame "strategic voting" it sounds like you are blaming the voters for being dumb - bad move. It was the responsibility of the NDP campaign to make the NDP the "strategic choice" in the eyes of voters. They should take a look in the mirror on why they failed to do that. 

Quote:

"Look, the people in this province, they made a decision to basically choose fear — or to vote out of fear — as opposed to choose positive change," Horwath said Wednesday.

How distressing it must be, running to be Premier of such weak-willed fearful folk.

How brave and dedicated she must be to carry on in the face of such an undeserving electorate!

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

I am not looking for a change of leader -- at least not yet. But my support for Andrea is conditional.

The condition is she and the NDP not be in denial about the last campaign. It was not okay. The fact the party did not get fewer seats than previously does not take away that it was a huge missed opportunity and the status quo is not acceptable. Next time it will be harder. I expect the PCs to have a better leader (can you do worse?) and there will be no opportunity to campaign against McGuinty. The NDP leader should indicate that she knows what went wrong and will take steps to correct it.

Specific issues that I think ought to be considered may not be the same ones others would identify but no matter what something needs to be looked at.

The failure in communications was significant. The ballot question when the campaign started was the Liberal record as expected. By the end of the campaign the ballot question was Hudak's proposals (and the answer was not what the PC party wanted to hear). At no time did the NDP even get close to influencing the ballot question. Without influence on the question you won't do well.

To use an analogy the NDP called the meeting and could have tried to set an agenda but simply failed to table one.

My top 10 issues are the following:

1) The party was not prepared and looked it. Things were late. The campaign was, as expected, short and she was out of the front-runner race before releasing a platform. The communications were awful.

2) The idea of running against the Liberals based on "corruption" was a bust and needs to be recognized as such. You don't ever go from third to first based only on ethical lapses of the party in power. That is hard to do even from second place. Too much of the communications focussed on this single message. There were opportunites to advance specifics about the NDP proposals given up to repeat allegations about corruption that had already been heard and were repeated in an empty general way.

3) To go from third to first you need to do more than assert platitudes about your plan. You have to have details and a compelling narrative for that plan. Simply saying it makes sense and the others are corrupt is not good enough. (The choice of the word "sense" was silly. Looked like a retread form the Harris campaign. To use a statement so bland that it could have come from Conservatives gives you an idea of a wasted slogan.) A better slogan could have been "What kind of Ontario do you want?" This could have been both an offence on the PC platform, an acknowledgement of Liberal failings and an inspiration for the NDP campaign. It also would have framed a more NDP-friendly ballot question.

4) The party does have to keep a focus on the most vulnerable and should not bury that in an effort to reach the "middle income class." Through poor communication the party left many who did not sign the infamous letter wondering if the NDP was doing enough for people not fortunate enough to claim to be "middle." I don’t agree that you have to stop talking about core values and policies in order to add support for the middle class. The NDP should build coalitions not narrowcast a campaign.

5) The party did have some good planks like the approach to business credits for job creation. Unfortunately the party did not do a good job of prioritizing the communications of platform pieces -- particularly ones that could differentiate the NDP from the others.

6) The NDP did not seem to have any kind of viable campaign strategy. Week one: The party could have stated at the outset that they wanted to talk about why they brought down the Liberals and focused for just one week covering the scandals and being specific about any concerns the party had with the Liberal budget and that it would announce a plan for Ontario in the second week. Instead they lacked specifics about what they opposed and did not explain the reasons for bringing down the government. I think if they had laid out a reasonable explanation for why now and what was wrong with the budget it might have been accepted but they never did.

7) In the second week they should have begun to slow down on commentary about the Liberals and really sell that platform. Instead, the party released a plan late and did not communicate it effectively. Most of the time I saw Andrea I tried to count key messages and found it difficult to sort what I thought she considered was key, what was secondary, what was trivial. The specifics were scattered and the main delivery was empty platitudes or railing on about the perception of corruption. No good case was made for the NDP plan. She did not explain in detail how the plan would help citizens. See above-- she never got out of the first week and spent the rest of the campaign not completing the first week objectives.

8) When Andrea spoke she sounded like either she was not very bright or thought the voters were not very bright. She has done better before. Speeches and focus was awful with too much emptiness. Only 50% vote and those are people who are more informed and don’t want to waste time listening to empty crap. Looks like she spent too much time trying to engage people who are not engaged and forgot to speak to the people who were -- those who expected more from her.

9) What were they thinking after the "common sense" campaign of Mike Harris still ringing in people's ears as reminded by Hudak? "Makes sense" was a vacuous statement that only reminded people of how little was being said and how much it sounded like any political party -- even Harris. Horwath's personal touch looked phony when it was watered down to safe repeats of well-worn meaningless tripe.

10) Don't pretend that you can dismiss criticisms from people who are no longer members like those who signed the infamous letter without a rebuttal. Ignoring the media about that letter was a mistake. It served to leave many concluding that the NDP had lost its way -- or at least its voice. There are some things you can ignore and some things you respond to. They got it wrong on this. There were too many people who read that letter and did not dismiss it as disgruntled cranks. Many outside the bubble felt there was something there and an answer was in order. In fact I think a polite response pointing to what the NDP was offering could have been very effective. Why would you ever give up an opportunity to talk about your platform? "No comment" does not win votes.

Anyway. Rather than just a judgement on Horwath who is at least partly responsible, I'd rather start with a discussion on these things. I am fine with Horwath leading that discussion but if she is unwilling to then she needs to get out of the way.

Sean in Ottawa for Ontario NDP leader? Anyone else with me on this?

Stockholm wrote:

If the Liberal budget was a "Trojan horse" - why didn't Horwath ever use that line during the campaign?? Instead she never criticized one single solitary thing in it but said she would vote against it anyways.

This is true. The ONDP and Horwath could have more forthrightly attacked the budget, and had a more issues oriented campaign. I am not sure that would have changed the outcome much. They stuck to the "integrity in government" line that proved so effective for Harper in 2006.

I don't think a different focus would have won Schein 2000 votes in Davenport, or 9000 for Marchese in Trinity Spadina. Prue might have retained his seat. On the other hand, the simple "integrity" message may have been decisive in South Western Ontario, which was the target of the campaign.

Not having a flagship policy promise was more deterimental, than not attacking the budget.

It didn't help having the OFL and Unifor running around saying the budget was "progressive" -- those guys are about to eat that.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

I am not looking for a change of leader -- at least not yet. But my support for Andrea is conditional.

The condition is she and the NDP not be in denial about the last campaign. It was not okay. The fact the party did not get fewer seats than previously does not take away that it was a huge missed opportunity and the status quo is not acceptable. Next time it will be harder. I expect the PCs to have a better leader (can you do worse?) and there will be no opportunity to campaign against McGuinty. The NDP leader should indicate that she knows what went wrong and will take steps to correct it.

Specific issues that I think ought to be considered may not be the same ones others would identify but no matter what something needs to be looked at.

The failure in communications was significant. The ballot question when the campaign started was the Liberal record as expected. By the end of the campaign the ballot question was Hudak's proposals (and the answer was not what the PC party wanted to hear). At no time did the NDP even get close to influencing the ballot question. Without influence on the question you won't do well.

To use an analogy the NDP called the meeting and could have tried to set an agenda but simply failed to table one.

My top 10 issues are the following:

1) The party was not prepared and looked it. Things were late. The campaign was, as expected, short and she was out of the front-runner race before releasing a platform. The communications were awful.

2) The idea of running against the Liberals based on "corruption" was a bust and needs to be recognized as such. You don't ever go from third to first based only on ethical lapses of the party in power. That is hard to do even from second place. Too much of the communications focussed on this single message. There were opportunites to advance specifics about the NDP proposals given up to repeat allegations about corruption that had already been heard and were repeated in an empty general way.

3) To go from third to first you need to do more than assert platitudes about your plan. You have to have details and a compelling narrative for that plan. Simply saying it makes sense and the others are corrupt is not good enough. (The choice of the word "sense" was silly. Looked like a retread form the Harris campaign. To use a statement so bland that it could have come from Conservatives gives you an idea of a wasted slogan.) A better slogan could have been "What kind of Ontario do you want?" This could have been both an offence on the PC platform, an acknowledgement of Liberal failings and an inspiration for the NDP campaign. It also would have framed a more NDP-friendly ballot question.

4) The party does have to keep a focus on the most vulnerable and should not bury that in an effort to reach the "middle income class." Through poor communication the party left many who did not sign the infamous letter wondering if the NDP was doing enough for people not fortunate enough to claim to be "middle." I don’t agree that you have to stop talking about core values and policies in order to add support for the middle class. The NDP should build coalitions not narrowcast a campaign.

5) The party did have some good planks like the approach to business credits for job creation. Unfortunately the party did not do a good job of prioritizing the communications of platform pieces -- particularly ones that could differentiate the NDP from the others.

6) The NDP did not seem to have any kind of viable campaign strategy. Week one: The party could have stated at the outset that they wanted to talk about why they brought down the Liberals and focused for just one week covering the scandals and being specific about any concerns the party had with the Liberal budget and that it would announce a plan for Ontario in the second week. Instead they lacked specifics about what they opposed and did not explain the reasons for bringing down the government. I think if they had laid out a reasonable explanation for why now and what was wrong with the budget it might have been accepted but they never did.

7) In the second week they should have begun to slow down on commentary about the Liberals and really sell that platform. Instead, the party released a plan late and did not communicate it effectively. Most of the time I saw Andrea I tried to count key messages and found it difficult to sort what I thought she considered was key, what was secondary, what was trivial. The specifics were scattered and the main delivery was empty platitudes or railing on about the perception of corruption. No good case was made for the NDP plan. She did not explain in detail how the plan would help citizens. See above-- she never got out of the first week and spent the rest of the campaign not completing the first week objectives.

8) When Andrea spoke she sounded like either she was not very bright or thought the voters were not very bright. She has done better before. Speeches and focus was awful with too much emptiness. Only 50% vote and those are people who are more informed and don’t want to waste time listening to empty crap. Looks like she spent too much time trying to engage people who are not engaged and forgot to speak to the people who were -- those who expected more from her.

9) What were they thinking after the "common sense" campaign of Mike Harris still ringing in people's ears as reminded by Hudak? "Makes sense" was a vacuous statement that only reminded people of how little was being said and how much it sounded like any political party -- even Harris. Horwath's personal touch looked phony when it was watered down to safe repeats of well-worn meaningless tripe.

10) Don't pretend that you can dismiss criticisms from people who are no longer members like those who signed the infamous letter without a rebuttal. Ignoring the media about that letter was a mistake. It served to leave many concluding that the NDP had lost its way -- or at least its voice. There are some things you can ignore and some things you respond to. They got it wrong on this. There were too many people who read that letter and did not dismiss it as disgruntled cranks. Many outside the bubble felt there was something there and an answer was in order. In fact I think a polite response pointing to what the NDP was offering could have been very effective. Why would you ever give up an opportunity to talk about your platform? "No comment" does not win votes.

Anyway. Rather than just a judgement on Horwath who is at least partly responsible, I'd rather start with a discussion on these things. I am fine with Horwath leading that discussion but if she is unwilling to then she needs to get out of the way.

Conditional support, as long as she do the last campaign, entirely differently.

People seem to be having problems distinguishing between the ONDP loss of the balance of power, the ONDP, and the Conservative collapse. If Tim Hudak had not been so vulnerable, then the ONDP not only would have increased its seat count from the last general election, but they would still hold the balance of power.

That was the minimal condition for success in this campaign, not winning a majority.

It looks worse than it is because the ONDP lost "influence" in a minority government situation. But in fact the ONDP achieved the primary goal.

It was the Tories that tanked not the ONDP.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

I am not looking for a change of leader -- at least not yet. But my support for Andrea is conditional.

The condition is she and the NDP not be in denial about the last campaign. It was not okay. The fact the party did not get fewer seats than previously does not take away that it was a huge missed opportunity and the status quo is not acceptable. Next time it will be harder. I expect the PCs to have a better leader (can you do worse?) and there will be no opportunity to campaign against McGuinty. The NDP leader should indicate that she knows what went wrong and will take steps to correct it.

Specific issues that I think ought to be considered may not be the same ones others would identify but no matter what something needs to be looked at.

The failure in communications was significant. The ballot question when the campaign started was the Liberal record as expected. By the end of the campaign the ballot question was Hudak's proposals (and the answer was not what the PC party wanted to hear). At no time did the NDP even get close to influencing the ballot question. Without influence on the question you won't do well.

To use an analogy the NDP called the meeting and could have tried to set an agenda but simply failed to table one.

My top 10 issues are the following:

1) The party was not prepared and looked it. Things were late. The campaign was, as expected, short and she was out of the front-runner race before releasing a platform. The communications were awful.

2) The idea of running against the Liberals based on "corruption" was a bust and needs to be recognized as such. You don't ever go from third to first based only on ethical lapses of the party in power. That is hard to do even from second place. Too much of the communications focussed on this single message. There were opportunites to advance specifics about the NDP proposals given up to repeat allegations about corruption that had already been heard and were repeated in an empty general way.

3) To go from third to first you need to do more than assert platitudes about your plan. You have to have details and a compelling narrative for that plan. Simply saying it makes sense and the others are corrupt is not good enough. (The choice of the word "sense" was silly. Looked like a retread form the Harris campaign. To use a statement so bland that it could have come from Conservatives gives you an idea of a wasted slogan.) A better slogan could have been "What kind of Ontario do you want?" This could have been both an offence on the PC platform, an acknowledgement of Liberal failings and an inspiration for the NDP campaign. It also would have framed a more NDP-friendly ballot question.

4) The party does have to keep a focus on the most vulnerable and should not bury that in an effort to reach the "middle income class." Through poor communication the party left many who did not sign the infamous letter wondering if the NDP was doing enough for people not fortunate enough to claim to be "middle." I don’t agree that you have to stop talking about core values and policies in order to add support for the middle class. The NDP should build coalitions not narrowcast a campaign.

5) The party did have some good planks like the approach to business credits for job creation. Unfortunately the party did not do a good job of prioritizing the communications of platform pieces -- particularly ones that could differentiate the NDP from the others.

6) The NDP did not seem to have any kind of viable campaign strategy. Week one: The party could have stated at the outset that they wanted to talk about why they brought down the Liberals and focused for just one week covering the scandals and being specific about any concerns the party had with the Liberal budget and that it would announce a plan for Ontario in the second week. Instead they lacked specifics about what they opposed and did not explain the reasons for bringing down the government. I think if they had laid out a reasonable explanation for why now and what was wrong with the budget it might have been accepted but they never did.

7) In the second week they should have begun to slow down on commentary about the Liberals and really sell that platform. Instead, the party released a plan late and did not communicate it effectively. Most of the time I saw Andrea I tried to count key messages and found it difficult to sort what I thought she considered was key, what was secondary, what was trivial. The specifics were scattered and the main delivery was empty platitudes or railing on about the perception of corruption. No good case was made for the NDP plan. She did not explain in detail how the plan would help citizens. See above-- she never got out of the first week and spent the rest of the campaign not completing the first week objectives.

8) When Andrea spoke she sounded like either she was not very bright or thought the voters were not very bright. She has done better before. Speeches and focus was awful with too much emptiness. Only 50% vote and those are people who are more informed and don’t want to waste time listening to empty crap. Looks like she spent too much time trying to engage people who are not engaged and forgot to speak to the people who were -- those who expected more from her.

9) What were they thinking after the "common sense" campaign of Mike Harris still ringing in people's ears as reminded by Hudak? "Makes sense" was a vacuous statement that only reminded people of how little was being said and how much it sounded like any political party -- even Harris. Horwath's personal touch looked phony when it was watered down to safe repeats of well-worn meaningless tripe.

10) Don't pretend that you can dismiss criticisms from people who are no longer members like those who signed the infamous letter without a rebuttal. Ignoring the media about that letter was a mistake. It served to leave many concluding that the NDP had lost its way -- or at least its voice. There are some things you can ignore and some things you respond to. They got it wrong on this. There were too many people who read that letter and did not dismiss it as disgruntled cranks. Many outside the bubble felt there was something there and an answer was in order. In fact I think a polite response pointing to what the NDP was offering could have been very effective. Why would you ever give up an opportunity to talk about your platform? "No comment" does not win votes.

Anyway. Rather than just a judgement on Horwath who is at least partly responsible, I'd rather start with a discussion on these things. I am fine with Horwath leading that discussion but if she is unwilling to then she needs to get out of the way.

Really, the only serious commitment that either this, or the new leader of the ONDP should make for the next 4 years is a concerted effort to build the Constituency Associations, including ground rules that govern their independence and respect for local organization, because having a solid foundation of supporters, and activists willing to go out there and combat the kind of media mass attack and smear campaign that the ONDP and its leader came under this time, is the volunteers who make the party politically unique.

You seem very focussed on "communication" strategies outside of the party, but in a media framework that already has its chosen favourites willing to represent the establishment, it is fruitless to try and use the kind of "media messaging" strategies that organizations like the Toronto Star are more than happy to amplify, when you are the Liberals, but not the NDP.

This campaign has proved this once again; being too moderate allowed the right to attack the NDP for "not being left enough", while being "too left" will only be met with the charge that the NDP is "not moderate enough".

The focus for the ONDP should be "communication" within the party.

You should try not to be so petty yourself Debater

Debater wrote:

Horwath sounds somewhat bitter & angry today, and I can understand that since it's never easy for a leader to lose an election.

But it's important for her not to come across as petty.  I'm already seeing quite a few comments on Twitter from people who don't like the fact that she didn't show up yesterday for the swearing-in of Ontario's first Female Premier.

Certainly, the Star article made it sound a little like that. But sadly, my estimation of their journalistic integrity has been substantially diminished over the this campaign, and their tendency toward misrepresentation and pure gutter journalism is becoming more pronounced since 2010, so its kind of hard to tell what the focus of her speech was today.

Certainly no reason to forget their blatant misrepresentation of Rosario Marchese on the election, for example.

Do you have a link to the full speech or a transcript from it?

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

I am not looking for a change of leader -- at least not yet. But my support for Andrea is conditional.

Specific issues that I think ought to be considered may not be the same ones others would identify but no matter what something needs to be looked at....

 

3) To go from third to first you need to do more than assert platitudes about your plan. You have to have details and a compelling narrative for that plan. Simply saying it makes sense and the others are corrupt is not good enough. (The choice of the word "sense" was silly. Looked like a retread form the Harris campaign. To use a statement so bland that it could have come from Conservatives gives you an idea of a wasted slogan.) A better slogan could have been "What kind of Ontario do you want?" This could have been both an offence on the PC platform, an acknowledgement of Liberal failings and an inspiration for the NDP campaign. It also would have framed a more NDP-friendly ballot question.

4) The party does have to keep a focus on the most vulnerable and should not bury that in an effort to reach the "middle income class." Through poor communication the party left many who did not sign the infamous letter wondering if the NDP was doing enough for people not fortunate enough to claim to be "middle." I don’t agree that you have to stop talking about core values and policies in order to add support for the middle class. The NDP should build coalitions not narrowcast a campaign.

Thank you for such a well-reasoned analysis.  You expressed my concerns better than I could have done myself. I  like your framing the quesiton as "What kind of Ontario do you want?"  That is the key point on which the ONDP campaign failed completely. There was no apparent effort to communicate what kind of Ontario they wanted to build, what the overarching vision might be. Canceling the HST on hydro bills is not it (though a possibly useful minor detail in a larger vision). I listened to some of Andrea's speeches and read others (or bits of them) in the media, but never had any sense of where she wanted to take the province.  And I am a regular NDP voter (and sometime member)! If I couldn't see it, how is Joe Public going to infer from the disjointed details what a better future might look like?

And I was most concerned about the lack of any real mention of the commitment to help those who are the collateral damage of our corporate state. I think you summed up perfectly by saying, "I don’t agree that you have to stop talking about core values and policies in order to add support for the middle class. The NDP should build coalitions not narrowcast a campaign."

Amen to that. I also found your suggestions re campaign stragy to be astute. 

One may hope -- it springs eternal, after all -- that after some initial bristling at the thought that the brain trust of the ONDP s***** up (as they did) there may be some willingness to look at some changes.

. I'm especially with you on p[oints 3 and 4 (which I left in the quote for that reason). 

[/quote]

Unionist wrote:

I am always happy to see Sean back on babble. His posts are thoughtful and thought-provoking.

But this one was odd.

Among his 10 points about how the NDP didn't put forward its ideas for what Ontario should look like, all I noticed was "business credits for job creation" (which, personally, I find theoretically questionable).

Anything else of substance, Sean? Like the Liberal budget. Yes, you're right, Horwath opposed it without debate and helped trigger an election, then never analyzed it. This has been discussed to death on this board.

But now, it's June 25. Kind of urgent to declare, today, yesterday, what's right and wrong with it, right? Something more than "it's a Trojan horse"?

 

Actually I find this particular issue a major one. Huge amounts of money in tax reductions are provided to businesses in the name of job creation and most often these become tax gifts to business with no result.

The NDP proposed to stop the gravy train and replace it with a plan to require job creation credits or reductions to be conditional on specific performance. This is something I have been calling for and speaking to candidates and MPs for years. I would increase the tax rates to previous levels and make any tax credit in the name of job creation apply only to verified results. Companies not helping improve employment need to pay the higher previous rates rather than benefit based on the dubious notion of lower taxes for business creates jobs. It does not automatically. The NDP did agree to make this an express condition rather than a presumption as the Conserevatives and Liberals would have us believe. Any money from the higher taxes on those businesses who have not created jobs could be applied towards job creation.

Sorry I did not spell this out more clearly.

Yes I agree. Since the budget is back the NDP has to respond to specific provisions which we went through an election without them doing so.

[url=http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/06/25/andrea_horwath_shows_h... Horwath shows hubris over humility[/url]

Quote:

Instead of concrete policy, Horwath counted on a scandal-mongering campaign. By banking on her own popularity, she lost credibility. Her central thrust in the homestretch — that Wynne was a lynchpin of Liberal corruption — was repudiated by voters.

In the aftermath, New Democrats are circling the wagons and the leader’s office is hunkering down. But a bunker mentality is a bad media strategy for a party that needs to reintroduce itself to Torontonians — and the grassroots across Ontario.

Rokossovsky wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

I am not looking for a change of leader -- at least not yet. But my support for Andrea is conditional.

The condition is she and the NDP not be in denial about the last campaign. It was not okay. The fact the party did not get fewer seats than previously does not take away that it was a huge missed opportunity and the status quo is not acceptable. Next time it will be harder. I expect the PCs to have a better leader (can you do worse?) and there will be no opportunity to campaign against McGuinty. The NDP leader should indicate that she knows what went wrong and will take steps to correct it.

Specific issues that I think ought to be considered may not be the same ones others would identify but no matter what something needs to be looked at.

The failure in communications was significant. The ballot question when the campaign started was the Liberal record as expected. By the end of the campaign the ballot question was Hudak's proposals (and the answer was not what the PC party wanted to hear). At no time did the NDP even get close to influencing the ballot question. Without influence on the question you won't do well.

To use an analogy the NDP called the meeting and could have tried to set an agenda but simply failed to table one.

My top 10 issues are the following:

1) The party was not prepared and looked it. Things were late. The campaign was, as expected, short and she was out of the front-runner race before releasing a platform. The communications were awful.

2) The idea of running against the Liberals based on "corruption" was a bust and needs to be recognized as such. You don't ever go from third to first based only on ethical lapses of the party in power. That is hard to do even from second place. Too much of the communications focussed on this single message. There were opportunites to advance specifics about the NDP proposals given up to repeat allegations about corruption that had already been heard and were repeated in an empty general way.

3) To go from third to first you need to do more than assert platitudes about your plan. You have to have details and a compelling narrative for that plan. Simply saying it makes sense and the others are corrupt is not good enough. (The choice of the word "sense" was silly. Looked like a retread form the Harris campaign. To use a statement so bland that it could have come from Conservatives gives you an idea of a wasted slogan.) A better slogan could have been "What kind of Ontario do you want?" This could have been both an offence on the PC platform, an acknowledgement of Liberal failings and an inspiration for the NDP campaign. It also would have framed a more NDP-friendly ballot question.

4) The party does have to keep a focus on the most vulnerable and should not bury that in an effort to reach the "middle income class." Through poor communication the party left many who did not sign the infamous letter wondering if the NDP was doing enough for people not fortunate enough to claim to be "middle." I don’t agree that you have to stop talking about core values and policies in order to add support for the middle class. The NDP should build coalitions not narrowcast a campaign.

5) The party did have some good planks like the approach to business credits for job creation. Unfortunately the party did not do a good job of prioritizing the communications of platform pieces -- particularly ones that could differentiate the NDP from the others.

6) The NDP did not seem to have any kind of viable campaign strategy. Week one: The party could have stated at the outset that they wanted to talk about why they brought down the Liberals and focused for just one week covering the scandals and being specific about any concerns the party had with the Liberal budget and that it would announce a plan for Ontario in the second week. Instead they lacked specifics about what they opposed and did not explain the reasons for bringing down the government. I think if they had laid out a reasonable explanation for why now and what was wrong with the budget it might have been accepted but they never did.

7) In the second week they should have begun to slow down on commentary about the Liberals and really sell that platform. Instead, the party released a plan late and did not communicate it effectively. Most of the time I saw Andrea I tried to count key messages and found it difficult to sort what I thought she considered was key, what was secondary, what was trivial. The specifics were scattered and the main delivery was empty platitudes or railing on about the perception of corruption. No good case was made for the NDP plan. She did not explain in detail how the plan would help citizens. See above-- she never got out of the first week and spent the rest of the campaign not completing the first week objectives.

8) When Andrea spoke she sounded like either she was not very bright or thought the voters were not very bright. She has done better before. Speeches and focus was awful with too much emptiness. Only 50% vote and those are people who are more informed and don’t want to waste time listening to empty crap. Looks like she spent too much time trying to engage people who are not engaged and forgot to speak to the people who were -- those who expected more from her.

9) What were they thinking after the "common sense" campaign of Mike Harris still ringing in people's ears as reminded by Hudak? "Makes sense" was a vacuous statement that only reminded people of how little was being said and how much it sounded like any political party -- even Harris. Horwath's personal touch looked phony when it was watered down to safe repeats of well-worn meaningless tripe.

10) Don't pretend that you can dismiss criticisms from people who are no longer members like those who signed the infamous letter without a rebuttal. Ignoring the media about that letter was a mistake. It served to leave many concluding that the NDP had lost its way -- or at least its voice. There are some things you can ignore and some things you respond to. They got it wrong on this. There were too many people who read that letter and did not dismiss it as disgruntled cranks. Many outside the bubble felt there was something there and an answer was in order. In fact I think a polite response pointing to what the NDP was offering could have been very effective. Why would you ever give up an opportunity to talk about your platform? "No comment" does not win votes.

Anyway. Rather than just a judgement on Horwath who is at least partly responsible, I'd rather start with a discussion on these things. I am fine with Horwath leading that discussion but if she is unwilling to then she needs to get out of the way.

Really, the only serious commitment that either this, or the new leader of the ONDP should make for the next 4 years is a concerted effort to build the Constituency Associations, including ground rules that govern their independence and respect for local organization, because having a solid foundation of supporters, and activists willing to go out there and combat the kind of media mass attack and smear campaign that the ONDP and its leader came under this time, is the volunteers who make the party politically unique.

You seem very focussed on "communication" strategies outside of the party, but in a media framework that already has its chosen favourites willing to represent the establishment, it is fruitless to try and use the kind of "media messaging" strategies that organizations like the Toronto Star are more than happy to amplify, when you are the Liberals, but not the NDP.

This campaign has proved this once again; being too moderate allowed the right to attack the NDP for "not being left enough", while being "too left" will only be met with the charge that the NDP is "not moderate enough".

The focus for the ONDP should be "communication" within the party.

I can't agree. I read the platform. I voted NDP I am not a disgruntled supporter and do not rely on Sun or the Star for information. The plan was thin and timid in many respects.

I disagree that the NDP should not be responsible for the effectiveness of its campaign Horwath herself has recieved good reviews in the past and could have this time had the performance been better. The late release of the platform was terrible.

Horwath's speeches were frequently vague even after the release of the platform. The focus on Liberal corruption trumped discussion of the NDP platform planks way too often and was frequently wordy and lacking in specifics. This was a mistake and not due to the big bad media.

I heard many statements come out of the NDP that were simplistic to the point of being cringe-worthy. Even the pamphlet delivered to my door was pretty and shockingly empty, trying to spoon-feed impressions rather than anything specific. Much of the communications were quite forgetable.

I should add that I did not suggest Horwath should run the LAST campaign differently -- that is past. The condition is to commit to running the next one way better with a better plan -- not to blame the voters and repeat.

Unionist wrote:

[url=http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/06/25/andrea_horwath_shows_h... Horwath shows hubris over humility[/url]

Quote:

Instead of concrete policy, Horwath counted on a scandal-mongering campaign. By banking on her own popularity, she lost credibility. Her central thrust in the homestretch — that Wynne was a lynchpin of Liberal corruption — was repudiated by voters.

Bullshit. in fact, since both Tories and the ONDP pointed to Liberal corruption as a central theme of their campaign, and more than 60% of voters voted against the Liberals, the only conclusion is that the great majority of voters find the Ontario Liberals objectionable precisely because they are corrupt.

Since when did merely counting seats in the legislature count toward judging the mood of the public, Cohn's logic would make it seem as if the Conservatives in Ottawa have mass appeal beyond a very small base of public support.

Unionist wrote:

So, rather than wait for someone else to answer the question, "What kind of Ontario do you want?" - do you have any tips for the ONDP? Or are you just waiting?

First I say with respect, it is the job of the party (especially one that forces an election) to articulate that and for each voter to listen, question and choose.

My comment had some context-- I was criticizing the the slogan they picked. The slogan was not about what she would do or a vision but a self-review of the NDP plan (a plan that "makes sense"). I want to see a plan that makes sense and draw that conclusion myself not be told that it does by Horwath. Much of the details of the plan did the same -- saying the NDP would do better on one issue or another but not articulating how.

Still, I do happen to know what kind of Ontario I want. Frankly I did not hear the NDP speak to it.

The NDP platform suggested some minor tinkering would do-- little more for social assistance, little less tax on hydro (would save the average family what $10 per month? The GST would still apply).

Where were the grand ideas on education access? employment? tax fairness? Housing? First Nations in Northern Ontario? What about healthcare? Elder care? Dental eye care? transportation (did not sound very different from the Liberals and talked about some money but no mention of what the priorities were or the kind of projects)? What about income security-- - she does not like Wynne's plan even though the NDP called for exactly that a couple years ago?-- how do we make education accessible without adding more money? Anything to say about culture? artists? What specifically would be done for the environment?

No, I want more than the provincial portion of the HST off Hydro. And I knew the Liberals were corrupt before the election began. I listened to Horwath and the NDP through the campaign and learned almost nothing.

Even the best ideas from the platform you had to read them becuase if you listened to Horwath's speeches they mentionned very little.

Here. Read the plan -- it will take less than five minutes.This is not a plan. It is a pamphlet of highlights. We should be able to see more detail for almost every line item.

http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ontariondp/pages/491/attachments/or...

Read the Liberal plan. http://ontarioliberalplan.ca/#plan

I am not endorsing the Liberal plan but I notice there is more detail on almost every point. The Liberal plan does not just articulate an objective as the NDP does in many areas but says how they would do it.

So friends. Isn't the NDP supposed to be more activist than the Liberals?

When you put the two plans together I can see the NDP losing votes to the Liberals just on the depth of the plan (and some elements of the Liberal plan were attractive.

I am not getting into the issue of trust. The NDP plan should not rely on discounting the Liberals based on trust but actually put on the table a plan that is much better on the face of it. On a few issues the NDP were not bad but overall -- vague.

Frankly I think I could have produced a better document by myself on a weekend -- including the graphics. Looked like the NDP were not even trying hard. The policies that were best in that plan -- were not even new.

The NDP plan deserved the poor reviews and the NDP campaign was even worse than the plan. A few good elements but -- amateur hour. Where was the research? How can you say you will spend almost 30 billion on transit and not give a single example of a project you would do except say you will bring public transit to the cities. Like they don't have any now? The Liberals proposed specific things. Why can't we?

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Even the pamphlet delivered to my door was pretty and shockingly empty, trying to spoon-feed impressions rather than anything specific.

Wow, you got a pamphlet? They really went all out to get your vote. Horwath used my neighbourhood as a backdrop for a photo-op (while saying nothing of any relevance to the lives of the poor people who live here), but we didn't receive any campaign lit.

onlinediscountanvils wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Even the pamphlet delivered to my door was pretty and shockingly empty, trying to spoon-feed impressions rather than anything specific.

Wow, you got a pamphlet? They really went all out to get your vote. Horwath used my neighbourhood as a backdrop for a photo-op (while saying nothing of any relevance to the lives of the poor people who live here), but we didn't receive any campaign lit.

Well there you go. But my pamphlet had more thought put in the graphics than the text which bordered on patronizing. I was embarassed to read it. I was hoping for something that would give a reasonably informed person a reason to vote NDP.