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The allegations date from the Brown era, as he says. But if true, their effects live on. Most people vote for their party preference, but if you suspect your local candidate might have rigged his nomination using stolen identities, that could plant a hell of a seed of doubt.

It would make sense on policy, too. The NDP actually specifies what Ford will supposedly cut: 36 hospitals, 28,000 nurses, 780 schools and 28,000 teachers, according to a new campaign website dubbed “Can’t Afford Ford.”

It’s the sort of thing many people would call a “lie” if it were coming from the Tories: Ford promises no cuts, only “efficiencies,” and without a single job lost. But especially with no PC platform available to consult, that will quite rightly strike people as highly suspicious.

Viewed from a mile up, there’s not much difference between the NDP and Liberal platforms. The NDP’s thus offers a natural home for the “sick of the Liberals, but not necessarily their policies” vote.

These are still New Democrats, though. As recent events have helpfully underscored, they are a breed apart, with their own unique hangups, bugbears and obsessions that have made it very difficult for certain kinds of voters (I’ll raise my hand here) to consider them.

Whereas the Liberals distrust the free market, New Democrats sometimes seem to loathe it. Heading into the long weekend, Horwath reminded us of her plan to regulate gasoline prices — not just to end pre-weekend “gouging” (which is to say prices going up in a period of increased demand), but apparently to set regional prices.

“You get to the next destination and, all of a sudden, the gas is, say, five cents cheaper and you feel like you’ve been ripped off because you’ve just paid five cents more 40 kilometres down the highway,” Horwath told reporters.

Yeah, see, I don’t. Because I know that some things — most things; almost everything! — cost more in certain places at certain times than in others. But this is the sort of non-problem NDP governments set out to solve. This is the party whose federal arm put out an angry press release amidst skyrocketing cauliflower costs that called the easily explicable situation “bizarre.”