Seven things Kathleen Wynne's victory tells us about ourselves

Kathleen Wynne’s victory tells us as much about ourselves as Ontarians as it does about her.

Let’s take the first seven things that come to mind, shall we? And if our informal survey of reactions is accurate, then today — if even just in the post-election glow — we should feel good about ourselves.

1) It’s about character.

“It shows that Ontarians don’t vote first for platforms or policies,” says political consultant Randi Rahamim with the Toronto-based firm Navigator Ltd. What people sense is bred in the bone proved more important than the Liberal scandal over gas plants or the ORNGE air ambulance fiasco. “Character matters most and people have a gut feeling about that. Who do they want to have a coffee with?”

This doesn’t mean that Wynne’s Conservative opponent Tim Hudak doesn’t have character. Hudak suffered a bad loss, enough to make him announce he won’t lead his party into another election. But voters identified with Wynne for the same reason women often give for choosing a husband: “He made me feel comfortable.”

2) Wynne makes us feel good about ourselves.

Rahamim believes that she “embodies what every one of us likes to think about ourselves as people. She’s kind, tolerant, nice.”

Former Conservative premier Ernie Eves, defeated by Wynne’s predecessor Dalton McGuinty in the 2003 election, said on Global TV’s election desk Thursday night: “She’s a decent person.”

Peter Donolo, Wynne’s campaign communications chief, called Wynne “super authentic” and that’s how we want to be. Not phonies. “She’s intelligent but not flashy about it. Understated.”

Kind, sensitive, thoughtful — all the adjectives apply. She took time in her acceptance speech to stress that every candidate from every party, as well as every volunteer, worked hard and deserved the gratitude of Ontarians. These volunteers, all of them, are what make our democracy work.

We want to be that person who thinks of the feelings of others, especially at the height of our own success. Former Liberal premier David Peterson, also on Global’s election desk, said: “(Politics) is a very cruel business.”

3) She makes us feel good about who we are as a community and, on a wider scale, a province.

Donolo compares her appeal to U.S. President Barack Obama’s effect on Americans in his first campaign in 2008. “There’s a real sense of optimism that they see reflected in her,” says Donolo.

There’s so much to get us down, starting with the lack of jobs and the way a dollar doesn’t stretch anymore. That could have been lethal for Wynne; her own party has been in power since 2003.

Instead, she included her definition of government as part of her stump speech, stressing that people pay taxes to cover social services. She also made it clear the government must respect the value of hard-earned dollars.

4) We’re not just tolerant, we’re breaking new ground.

Wynne flipped the re-election of the Liberal party into a vote for change. Ontario has elected the first female gay premier, “and what that says about us is that we’re progressive,” says Rahamim.

On election night, Wynne told a cheering crowd: “This is a beautiful inclusive place that we live in.” She was almost giddy with excitement. “Anyone can be premier . . . We haveso proven that tonight.”

5) We’ve shifted politically.

This may not be permanent, but Donolo describes a “new political centre in Ontario.” This time, he said, “both the Conservatives and the NDP were out of the mainstream.”

The Liberal team around Wynne saw how the public warmed to Wynne through their polling. The general consensus was that Hudak won the debate, while a nervous Wynne didn’t perform well. But in the days after the debate, Liberal insiders said their polling showed there had been no downside for Wynne.

“She’s the right person with the right plan and she embodies the new centre,” says one adviser. “It’s a new activist centre that straddles both the left and right. Progressive but with fiscal responsibility.”

6) Torontonians may be feeling differently about their own politics if Wynne’s ability to change the dynamic in Etobicoke-Lakeshore repeats elsewhere.

There, Conservative Doug Holyday, the former Toronto deputy mayor who won the party’s only city seat in a 2013 byelection, lost to Liberal Peter Milczyn.

Political author Ron Graham believes the change is significant both for Toronto MayorRob Ford (on leave in rehab) and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “Consistently for five or six years, there has been this message coming out of political journalists, the intelligentsia, that we’re moving to the right in Canada,” says Graham. “But I never thought that happened and think this is proof it’s not the case . . . The inability of Hudak to sell that platform is a reaction to Harper reform and Ford reform. People are saying they don’t like that rhetoric.”

7) Ontario is a good place for women, especially older women.

Of course, everything isn’t great. But pundits talked on election night about how difficult it will be for the Progressive Conservative party to raise money and choose a leader facing a future with Wynne as opponent.

A future! Wynne is a 61-year-old grandmother and proud of it. She’s seen as a threat down the road in this province. Down the road, she’ll be in her mid-sixties and then, late sixties.

Her parents, John Wynne and Patsy O’Day Wynne, both in their nineties, were on stage with their daughter on election night.

Wynne family longevity could be a very bad sign for her rivals.