Williams on the verge of history....but good history?

Is Danny Williams the next Frank McKenna?

People who watch politics closely will remember the landmark victory of McKenna’s Liberals in 1987, when they ran the table on the Conservatives, capturing every seat in the provincial legislature.

The Liberals grabbed all of those seats with 60 percent of the popular vote. Danny Williams Conservatives enjoy an even larger margin than that. Last month, William’s numbers were in the 70 percent range and that was before the Hebron Offshore announcement, sure to give the government a slight bump in the polls.

Nodice.ca projects the Conservatives will run the table on the Liberals, but not the NDP. Their final projection comes out at 46 seats for the Tories and the NDP holding onto the 2 they currently hold.

What is the up side of having a House of Assembly where there is absolutely no opposition? There isn’t one. A complete run of the table, or what we’ll call “total governments” are devoid of the very thing that makes politics work- opposition.

Opposition keeps the government on their toes. In the case of no credible opposition, governments tend to rest on their laurels. Government needs the opposition as well; it helps them show they are, in fact, getting things done. If William’s feels that he is going to shutout the Liberals he should think of what McKenna did in the same instance. Premier Frank allowed the parties not in the house, to actually ask questions of the government on the floor of the house. It would show some co-operation that would be much appreciated by the Liberals. Afterall, they could be exiled to political nowhereness in the near future.

So, with just over 30 days until election time, Liberal leader Gerry Reid needs to mobilize the historically dominant Liberal vote in the province. But how? The Liberals are mired at 19 percent provincial support, a number so low ex-Premier Joey Smallwood is turning in his grave.

Smallwood would never have thought the Liberals would get this low in popular support, considering his run as premier of the province. The Liberals once enjoyed the kind of support the Tories are now, causing Joey (as he is commonly referred) to pen the phrase, “I could hang a Liberal sign on a Newfoundland dog and get it elected.” Those times are long gone. But Liberals in the province need to remember what those times were like and need to bring back the energy that charged the Liberals to victory from 1949 until 1972.

It won’t be easy. They need clear ideas and a policy framework that differs slightly from the Tories. I say differs, because what’s right for the province is right, and it’s hard to disagree with the fact the William’s Conservatives could be the government that transforms Newfoundland and Labrador into a have province.