Horwath and Harper: When It Becomes About Winning...

 

"So when you get desperate, you do desperate things, and you make accusations that are less about the policy and more about other things."

Horwath makes a good point here - desperate people do desperate things.  By the same token, over-confident or win-tasting people have a habit of ignoring other things - like laws. 

There are people who for sure won't vote Liberal.  There are people who for sure won't vote NDP, or PCPO.  By the same token, there are people who simply won't vote at all because they see the same behaviour emerging from all Parties.

Did her ad break the law?  Forget the Liberal criticisms, the potential spin - did it break election laws, yes or no?  If yes, was this an oversight, or intentional?  If it had been another Party that had done this, what would Horwath's response have been?

She probably would have cried foul, and she'd have been right to.

Our leaders are fighting over shrinking ground, mercilessly pounding each other while turning a blind eye to their own rule-bending or cynical plays.  Whatever they can get away with, the logic goes, they can do in good conscience; a win justifies all.

There's this thing that happens when you put the win first, though.  Structural solutions come later, if at all.  When you start down the path of believing the ends justify the means, you'll never get where you think you're heading.

Instead, you become that which you once stood against, and the cycle repeats again.

I'll say this again; if you play dirty to win, you will play dirty to stay in power.  Your opponents won't let you do otherwise, and the platform will continue to burn.

It's a lesson Horwath could learn from Harper.  It's one people all over the places are learning from far too many of their leaders right now.

So here's the lesson these leaders need to be paying attention to - the people have access to information, skin in the game and are tired of being played.