Kathleen Wynne—lucky with her enemies

Some people are lucky with their friends; some are lucky with their enemies. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is clearly one of the latter. Faced with two opponents that seemed determined to alienate voters, she swept to victory in Thursday's election.

With only a decade-old government replete with scandals to beat, the election should have been a walk in the park for the opposition Conservatives. But they insisted on being led by an extremist mouthing extremist policies, apparently inspired by the American Tea Party, a political force in decline even among their fellow Republicans. It was all too redolent of the Mike Harris years and Ontarians have obviously had enough of that. The Conservatives made a bad choice and paid the price—trounced.

The NDP did no better. Fighting an election they should never have forced in the first place and led by a leader who didn't seem to know what her philosophy was, they too paid the price of ignominious defeat. They had been in a position where they were a major influence on government policy, now they must linger in the legislative shadows, bereft of any influence whatsoever.

The cliché has it that electors don't vote a government in, they vote a government out. That should have happened this time, but with leaders like Hudak and Horwath, the opposition simply wasn't up to the cliché. Congratulations, nonetheless, to a worthy winner—Kathleen Wynne.