'Magic' of simple message, simple strategy led to Ford victory

He may be polarizing to a significant segment of voters,have run a messy campaign andcome with his own political baggage, but Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford may just have beenthe "ideal candidate"to winthis Ontario election.

This assessmentcomes not from a conservative political partisan, but from Don Guy,veteran Liberalpolitical campaign strategist,former campaign director and former chief of staff to Liberal ex-premier Dalton McGuinty.

"I think he was the ideal candidate because he gave small-c conservative voters a very comfortable home, a very comfortable archetype and a very strong message," he said.

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Certainly Ford benefited significantlyfroma voting public looking for change tired of the Liberals and theirunpopularleader Kathleen Wynne, who was never able to completely distance herself from the scandal-plagued McGuintyyears or convince voters she represented a clean start for the party.

Ford, as well, was able to capitalize on Ontario voters who may have had no love for him, butremainedsomewhat skepticalof theNDP.

But Ford'smajority win was also avindication for his team againstthe naysayers, including some in his own party, who believed his rise to the leadershipdoomed their chances.

In the end, hiscontroversial years by the side of his brother Rob Ford during hisreign as mayor, scandals over party nominations,last-minute headlines aboutlegal disputes with his brother's widownone of it had enough impact to curb hispath to victory.

'He came across as sensible'

"I think the fact that he came across as sensible during the debates really helped him a lot," saidKathy Brock, a political scientist at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.

"He didn't get upset during them. It was a very controlled campaign. He was very much in control as well.

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"He had his key messages. He stayed on point. He repeated them."

Ford's control, says Brock, also served to counter the image his opponents tried to create, that he was a radical, hard-right conservative and Donald Trump clone.

None of Trump's xenophobia

While there may besimilarities with Trump interms of populist appeal, Ford, like his brother, had made significant inroads into various ethnic communities in Toronto, and his campaign has none of the xenophobia attached to the U.S. president's, said Brock.

And like his brother, Doug Fordportrayed himself asa tax-cutting warrior, a fiscal conservativewho believes governments waste too muchtaxpayers' money.

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That message, says Guy, was simple and repeated over and overa Ford governmentwill be a responsible steward for taxpayers' money,"andthat help ison the way for hard-working families."

Ford said he would cut taxes, cut the price of gas, cut hydro rates, cut the price of beer and eliminate the deficit while spending billions on transit and infrastructure projects.

"He had a simple product, and he was selling it at a lower price than anybody else in terms of tax cuts and other commitments of reduced prices, whether it was for gas and beer etc.," said RyersonUniversity political scienceprofessorMyerSiemiatycki.

"So you know those are tangible deliverables that one could imagine people are attracted to."

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How Ford would deliver on thesepledges was never fully explained. Itwasn't until the end of May that his campaign put out a costed platform, with the exception of an important detail. While putting a price tag on those and otherpromises, they neglected to include how any of themwould be paid for.

Finding 'efficiencies'

Yet Ford's go-toexplanation, simply thathe would find "efficiencies" in government,may have resonated with voters.

"People do see government as being wasteful in some ways. Everybody's got a story about that. So that kind of hits home," said Brock.

Ford's strategists employed a front-runners campaign, minimizingthe opportunities for him to make mistakes, which included little access forthe media.

Indeed, theimprecision of the policy platform was designedto keep the different coalitions within that party together and the different voting coalitions together without getting pinned down on anything that's too specific, saidCristinedeClercy, a political science professor at Western University in London, Ont.

Imprecision doesn't hurt

"Clearly that that didn't substantially hurt them,it was a viable decision," said de Clercy. "If you think you're going to win, why basically give your opponents the opportunity to attack your plan?"

Ford's campaign, put together relatively last minute following the sudden departure of former leader Patrick Brown, was by normal standards, disorganized and slow, not at all what one would expect from the party,said JonathanMalloy, chair of the political science department at Carleton University.

"And you know that sort of chaos is consistent with the leader's brand. I mean, Mr. Ford doesn't pretend to be a smooth organized individual, andthe campaign platform reflected that."

Chaotic, maybe, but ultimatelysimple andeffective, saidGuy.

'The magic of it'

"That wasthe magic of it. Thesimplicityof the message,simplicityof the strategy, everybody could understandit."

The winning strategy, Guysays,was simply to take the angry ruralconservativebase that's been building over the last four elections and addthe established voting pool made up ofFord Nation, that core group of supporters in Toronto who were faithful to former mayor Rob Ford and were the key to his one-term rule.

Some believed Christine Elliott may have been a stronger, safer candidate who appealed to other voters and demographics not enamoured ofFord. ButGuy said the strategy the partyimplemented would not have been readily available to her, meaning no one can say whether Elliott would have made an even better showing.

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"They would have had to invent a whole new wheel."

Despite Ford'svictory, Siemiatyckinoted the strong showing of the NDPand the seats won in different pockets of Ontario.

"This was not a Ford landslide romp to victory," he said."Among all the Ontarians who voted in this election,the majority did not support Mr. Ford. So it's not like there is this massive groundswell of attachment to Mr. Ford."