That's debatable

Well what to say about last night's Ontario Party Leader's debate?

I don't think anyone stole the show. I didn't like all those video questions, and I thought the debate was a bit boring. Ninety minutes of two guys with very little in common unrelentlessy attaching anothe guy kinda does that.

The team of the night was Mcguinty's brokem promises. Hello, may I speak to the last 4 years please? Yes. Okay well, I just wanted to say that these broken promises are now a broken record. People know about them and the anger won't resurface. Mcguinty on his part, however, was smart to start off with the broken promise, and he initially defined himself as a leader who made the tough and correct choice. Mcguinty's best show was to keep on referring to his family and the lessons his dad taugh him. I would think that would go over well. I didn't like him constantly shaking his head. I don't think it was the best body language, but I think he did well when he became passionate and went off on Tory for calling him a liar (in everything but name).

In terms of Tory: he wasn't bad, but he wasn't good. He focused too much on why people shouldn't vote for Mcguinty instead of why they should vote for him. Sure, you should make the contrast, but that's been done and done and done. In the end, Tory didn't give Ontario anything significant enough to say "we want that guy." Tory did have a good joke though, saying that "by the end of the debate Mcguinty will be blaming Sir John A. Macdonald for everything that's gone wrong." That was said in reference to Mcguinty's reference to the mismanagement he inherited. Tory, however, was quite weak when talking about poverty. No real ideas.

As for Hampton.. what's the NDP doing? They need a new leader. I understand he was ill, and that's quite symbolic of his party's prospects. Sure he's trying to get his ideas out, but he wasn't always coherent, and importantly he wasn't very inviting. I don't understand why he was trying to attack the funding formula so much when anyone with kids in schools or who's been in school over the last 10 years clearly knows education in Ontario has improved. He and Tory gave Mcguinty way too many chances to say that education in Ontario has improved. You think people are gonna toss and turn over some bureaucratic formula? Likely not. Explain in the bottom line, and in that regard Mcguinty has some traction.

In the end, well I'm sure you've heard this before in other debates, but by there being no real winner, Mcguinty was the winner because Tory didn't show why Ontario should vote for him.