That's right Wiff, and a third party does not get to set the context or the dominant message unless it happens to be "different." The liberals set that campaign theme as soon as tory said he would run on "fund all religious schools." The media just followed along. Nothing in "get orange" fit that election frame.

The only way the NDP could have "shifted the frame" was to start in the "dominate frame" and shift from there. To do this the NDP needed to differentiate its education message from the liberals, but alas it's education message was "liberal lite" and thus got lost. Even if the NDP had strategically suggested that an NDP govt would setup a panel on education funding would have gotten some media attention, and thus provided the segway to "talk about their issues." But they remained "silent" and thus irrelevant. 

Getting "angry" did not change that reality and nor would getting "angry now" or in the future would be good politics. Saying to Ontarians that this issue is not important, when obviously a lot of Ontarians expressed keen interest showed they were not "in touch" with them. 

______________________________________________________________________________________ Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let's have them learn together too!