{"id":2790,"date":"2010-11-04T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2790"},"modified":"2010-11-04T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T13:00:00","slug":"campbell-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2790","title":{"rendered":"Campbell Resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/TNG7pVrWNhI\/AAAAAAAAB_o\/fuuMzvvYpgI\/s1600\/threepremiers.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 250px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 210px; CURSOR: hand\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535411735883036178\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/TNG7pVrWNhI\/AAAAAAAAB_o\/fuuMzvvYpgI\/s320\/threepremiers.jpg\" \/><\/a><br \/>One of the most interesting story lines in Canadian politics over the past year has been the fate of the three Liberal Titans &#8211; Dalton McGuinty, Jean Charest, and Gordon Campbell. Their political background, beliefs, and styles are very different, but they&#8217;ve dominated the political landscape in Canada for close to a decade. Hell, the federal Liberals have gone through <em>four<\/em> leaders since this trio took power of the country&#8217;s three largest provinces at the start of the decade.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/TNG8L865MVI\/AAAAAAAAB_4\/Hr8VMKx-hr8\/s1600\/capbellcharest.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 174px; CURSOR: hand\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535412330532778322\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/TNG8L865MVI\/AAAAAAAAB_4\/Hr8VMKx-hr8\/s200\/capbellcharest.JPG\" \/><\/a>Sure, they all had setbacks &#8211; Campbell&#8217;s famous DUI, McGuinty&#8217;s broken promise, and Charest&#8217;s near-defeat in 2007. But up until recently, things were going swimmingly for them.<\/p>\n<p>McGuinty trounced John Tory in 2007, leaving the provincial PCs in complete disarray. Charest bounced back in 2008, capturing a majority government. Gordon Campbell took a third straight majority in 2009, in a province where Premiers usually wear out their welcome before the paint dries in their office.<\/p>\n<p>But ever since Campbell&#8217;s re-election, the trio has fallen on hard times. The HST burned McGuinty first, then Campbell. And Jean Charest has had to fend off daily scandals. In a recent Angus Reid <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theprovince.com\/news\/Campbell+approval+rating+drops+time\/3683353\/story.html\">survey<\/a>, Campbell&#8217;s approval rating came in at 9%. Charest and McGuinty haven&#8217;t done <a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2010\/03\/provincial-uprising.html\">much better<\/a> themselves lately.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/TNG8IxE2j7I\/AAAAAAAAB_w\/mCqxYmTSfQo\/s1600\/capbellmcguinty.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 169px; CURSOR: hand\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535412275813715890\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/TNG8IxE2j7I\/AAAAAAAAB_w\/mCqxYmTSfQo\/s200\/capbellmcguinty.jpg\" \/><\/a>So <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/news\/opinions\/editorials\/the-transformative-leadership-of-gordon-campbell\/article1784895\/\">Campbell decided to pack it up<\/a>, in an attempt to save his party from an electoral wipe-out in 2013. McGuinty is ready to run for a third term and might very well win it. As for Charest &#8211; the man is a fighter and comes back to life more often than slasher film villains, but it wouldn&#8217;t at all surprise me to see him make the same call as Campbell early next year.<\/p>\n<p>Outside of the three Liberal Titans, Danny Williams is the <em>only<\/em> current Premier who has managed to win re-election. And Danny, being Danny, is an exception in every sense.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it&#8217;s part of a larger &#8220;time for a change&#8221; mood sweeping the nation. Maybe it&#8217;s just a coincidence in timing. But even if McGuinty is re-elected next year, he&#8217;s going to be surrounded by a lot of fresh blood on the provincial scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most interesting story lines in Canadian politics over the past year has been the fate of the three Liberal Titans &#8211; Dalton McGuinty, Jean Charest, and Gordon Campbell. Their political background, beliefs, and styles are very different, but they&#8217;ve dominated the political landscape in Canada for close to a decade. Hell, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}