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adam radwanski

Trading heavily in numbers, avoiding too much hyperbole, they seemed about as cool-headed and rational as could be expected of high-level partisans a couple of months away from an election campaign.

But beneath the calm, there was more than a hint of urgency in the briefing that Dalton McGuinty's top officials gave to reporters this week.

Their detailed case that Tim Hudak's platform contains a massive funding gap was about more than just calling into question the Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader's math skills. Clearly, it was meant to start changing the emerging storyline of the campaign - something the Liberals desperately need to do, if they're to have much chance of winning a third term on Oct. 6.

At present, the race seems to be shaping up largely as a battle over pocketbook issues - the parties fighting to show that they understand Ontarians feel squeezed. That's extremely bad news for Mr. McGuinty, who's the target of considerable anger over tax increases and rising energy prices. This sort of debate allows his opponents to paint him as tired and out of touch with Ontarians' day-to-day concerns - a vulnerability for almost any two-term incumbent, and especially for a Premier who doesn't do empathy all that well.

The frustration for Mr. McGuinty is that, if only he could get the debate over to the government's biggest files - the ones supposedly closest to voters' hearts - he'd be in much better shape. On health care and (especially) education, the Liberals' record is defensible, their brand is much stronger than the Tories', and there's a potentially appealing pitch for stability. But Mr. Hudak has effectively promised the status quo - right down to maintaining the government's health funding projections, and continuing to implement full-day kindergarten.

With little daylight between the two leading parties in those areas, we're free to focus elsewhere. So the great imperative for the Liberals' strategists is to cast doubt on whether Mr. Hudak's plans for health and education are as benign as they first appear.

To date, they've mostly tried to do so by calling attention to Mr. Hudak's past positions, including his initial criticism of Mr. McGuinty's prized kindergarten plan. But with this week's meeting, and some public attacks by Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, the Liberals began making a more substantive case.

Their argument, boiled down, is that Mr. Hudak has failed to explain how exactly he would cut income tax, fund energy-bill rebates out of general revenues, and pay for assorted other commitments - all without cutting any core services, or deviating from the government's deficit-reduction plan. In reality, they say, he'd need to find $14-billion in savings over a four-year period, going well beyond his vague promise to cut spending outside of health and education by 2 per cent annually.

It's doubtful that Mr. Hudak is hiding sinister plans. But it's a fair criticism that he's not really levelling with Ontarians about how all this would work, possibly because he hasn't fully figured that out himself. And to actually follow through on his promises, he might indeed need to make some unpleasant decisions.

Voters won't sit around poring over every line of the Tories' platform, calculators in hand. When looking for a change, they're often willing to cut some slack to the people offering it - something that once worked in Mr. McGuinty's favour, when he improbably (and, as it turned out, untruthfully) swore that he wouldn't need to raise taxes to pay for his spending agenda. And partly because of that history, it won't be easy for the Premier to argue that it's his opponent who shouldn't be trusted.

But one way or another, the Liberals need to cut through the suspension of belief that allows opposition politicians to argue we can pay less, and get more in return. Their number crunch, even presented in simpler form than it was to journalists who spend every day watching provincial politics, may not be enough to do it. But Mr. McGuinty doesn't have a lot of other options, if he wants to shift the debate back to the issues he could win on.

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