Election day!

Somehow, I almost feel sorry for John Tory. There's little evidence that he personally was a big fan of the disastrous school funding idea that ate his campaign. Rather, it was supposed to be red meat for the base so they felt that somebody up there still loved them.

Still, the effect is clear: Dude went from being Premier-presumptive to being Opposition-leader-presumptive to now not knowing if he's going to even win his own seat. Ouch. Now, unless there's a really weird hiccup in the polls, we're looking at a Liberal majority. The talk before the election was about whether or not there would be a Conservative majority, and I remember speaking with Liberals a year ago who were worried about that.

What's next for the Conservatives? I imagine, the old Harris caucus will demand a leader with more ideological purity, which normally I'd say was a death sentence for their party. Except, and this is where the next few years will be interesting, Dalton McGuinty is probably not going to run for a third government -- his sixth election! -- in 2011. Neither, I'm assuming, will Howard Hampton, meaning that in the next election all three major parties will have new leaders and not a single one of them has an heir-presumptive for the top post. The next few years are going to be very interesting as the Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP all hold leadership campaigns -- probably all within the next two years, so they're ready for the election. (Journalists, clear your social calendars.)

Anyway, go vote. After all my whining about how my incumbent NDP MPP is going to for sure win, it looks like he's worried about something, based on the last-minute flurry of campaigning I'm seeing. Also, the Liberals seem to have gotten a second wind in my riding. Maybe the Greens are taking enough votes (like mine) that the Liberals are going to win it.