Early this week, Andrea Horwath released a letter she sent to Premier Dalton McGuinty and Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak. In the letter Horwath asked the other two leaders to agree to three separate leader debates.
As the week ends the NDP tell me that suggestion has met "radio silence" from the other two campaigns. This morning the NDP sent out another missive pointing out the support in the media for more than one debate.
This is an easy one for the NDP. There is no downside to calling for more debates. It's even easier if your team is confident in the leader's ability to perform well in any debate.
The wait is over and all of us political junkies now know that the TV debate will be held on September 27 between 6:30 and 8:00 p.m. The Liberal, Progressive Conservative and NDP leaders have been invited. That leaves the Green Party looking in from the outside, again.
There seems to be a consensus that Horwath has the most to gain from the TV leaders debate (yes, I predict radio silence on more debates will continue). On CP24s LeDrew Live last night Steve Paikin, host of The Agenda on TVO, suggested that a strong showing by Horwath during the campaign could have an impact on voters not particularly impressed with either McGuinty or Hudak.
Everyone I talk to keeps coming back to the same thing. What happens if Horwath has a good campaign and catches on with the voters? Two polls this week have shown the NDP still well behind but gaining. Another pollster predicted to me that Horwath has lots of potential to grow as Ontarians get to know her. One Progressive Conservative insider says flat out that Horwath will win the big TV debate. (That's called lowering expectations on your guy.) A commentator actually predicted Horwath will win but when I asked if that was "on the record" there was more of that "radio silence."
I liked Paikin's prediction last night -- it will indeed be the closest election in 25 years.
Not surprisingly, as I write this, the Liberals just sent out a release focusing on the NDP, charging "Horwath chooses to play politics over child care."
Yesterday the Liberals tried to take a shot at the first NDP TV ad saying the NDP had broken its promise to not release any TV ads until after the writ is dropped. The NDP response: We will not buy time on TV until next Wednesday. Meanwhile a call yesterday to the Liberals to respond to Hudak's latest "sneaky tax grab" attack on the Liberal government got no response and certainly not a press release.
That said the latest e-blast from the Liberals charges that PC tax cuts will end up costing Toronto taxpayers $17 million.
The PCs released two new ads https://donate.ontariopc.com/initiative/tax-man this morning. Both are headlined "The Tax Man: In His Own Words." Both will start airing on TV today.
And the worst kept secret is now official. The Liberal platform will be released on Monday morning.
I don't think many Ontario politicians will be taking Labour Day as a holiday so I won't either. Check in for the holiday edition of the Election Note.
