What Democracy Looks Like

"Whereas Ms. Horwath has taken pains to convey that she prefers to influence policy rather than force another election, helping her build an image as a positive-minded pragmatist, Mr. Hudak signaled even before this spring’s budget was tabled that he planned to oppose it outright."

Tim Hudak - aggressive, intransigent, working on message-track autopilot - is seeing his public support slip away.  The "shoot first, think later" approach isn't working so well.

Andrea Horwath, whether it's positioning or a reflection of her personality, is trying to keep the conversation going.  She's re-evaluating her individual planks while never losing sight of the house she's trying to build.  The people of Ontario, including the Ontario Liberals, are pretty proud of her for that.

What this tells me is that, despite the flaws in our system and the massive challenges before us, Ontarians (and Canadians) still believe that democracy works.  We want leaders who embrace the public good (fundamentally, our best interests) ahead of their own, partisan ambitions.

I think Horwath struggles with the political dichotomy - it's a fine line to walk between leading a Party and pushing for partisan dominance and true leadership, which means putting the needs of the many ahead of the wants of the few.  It's promising that, when the pressure's on, her default is collaboration.

Stephen Harper has it wrong - Canadians aren't so focused on problems that they're willing to abandon our multicultural democracy to solve them.

Dalton McGuinty has it right - we can only be strong individually when we are willing to work together.