Listening to the Ontario Liberal leadership race, you could be forgiven for thinking the party’s principal problem is that nobody has properly explained Doug Ford to the voters. Once they discover what he is really like, presumably, the misunderstanding will be cleared up.

This is a comforting theory for a party that went zero for three in this summer’s provincial byelections. It is also an excellent way to lose the next election.

Ford is a moderate. That does not make every decision sensible or every expenditure defensible. It means his political appeal sits much closer to the instincts of ordinary voters than Ontario Liberals seem willing to acknowledge. When they talk about moving back “to the centre”, I wonder what the hell they mean. Ford is already sitting there.

The centre is something politicians compete to define. Ford has given voters an account of what matters, what threatens us and what he proposes to do about it. Ontario Liberals need a more convincing account of their own.

There is an obvious place to begin: better health care and education, sustained by a growing economy. Explain how Ontario can become more prosperous through learning and training, and how that prosperity will deliver a family doctor, a better school and a decent start for somebody’s children. Give people a reason to change governments that makes sense even if they rather like the premier. Which they do.

That should be the central work of this leadership race.

Instead, too much of the conversation begins with “Ford says…Protect Ontario” or “He thinks he’s Captain Canada but…” The candidates repeat the government’s language before explaining why it is wrong. Even their objections arrive in Tory packaging.

His communications team might reasonably ask for a raise since they’ve deputized Liberals as his inadvertent spokespeople.

Donald Trump will not necessarily remain Ford’s trump card forever. But waiting for the orange man to depart is a peculiar recovery strategy. While Ford presents himself as defending people’s livelihoods, Ontario Liberals need to explain how they would improve them. The American electoral calendar cannot do that work for them.

Worse still, much of the field has contracted governmentitis. They sound like second-tier ministers dispatched to a regional chamber of commerce to repeat the fall economic statement: priorities, commitments and, somewhere in the background, a framework. Nowhere, however, is there any juice.

Bains has at least been a minister. The others have acquired the delivery of one without the inconvenience of serving in cabinet.

The problem is that this style assumes an audience already interested in the announcement. A party trying to recover must first earn people’s attention. Its candidates should sound as though they have something urgent to persuade us of.

The exception might be Eric Lombardi. He’s distinguished himself for being blunt. He’s probably overdone it. But at least he’s fighting.

The organization as a whole, too, needs to distinguish activity from accomplishment.

Before the summer byelections, a Liberal communications staffer proudly tweeted a print advertisement in the Toronto Sun attacking Ford’s abandoned attempt to buy a plane.

But does the Sun even offer home delivery in Hamilton, Scarborough and Bradford? How many voters in the contested ridings would see it? Why invite them to revisit a controversy already litigated months earlier?

Perhaps there was a sound rationale. But what came across was delight at having produced an advertisement, in print, in 2026.

One ad did not lose three byelections. But the episode captured the temptation to think old school and mistake another attack on Ford for progress towards defeating him.

As I wrote after those votes, the Liberals had made encouraging gains. They had also fought an internal civil war over the Scarborough nomination and finished the summer without winning a seat. Their capacity to generate excitement inside the party remained greater than their ability to turn it into victories outside.

The fundraising offers another measure of the work ahead. Bains recently trumpeted more than $500,000 raised. Crombie’s leadership campaign raised $1.31 million. As we know, even her fundraising strength did not deliver victory in the subsequent provincial election. Liberals should regard the current milestone with some perspective.

I like Nav. There are capable people and worthwhile proposals in this race. The question is whether any candidate can bring those proposals together into an argument that reaches beyond the existing membership, attracts support and builds the organization required to win.

That requires understanding why voters choose Ford. People who voted Conservative are potential Liberal voters. Ford Nation and the Wynne and Trudeau majorities were made in the same places. A successful leader will give those voters a compelling reason to reconsider without requiring them to confess that they were fools.

Ford has an agenda and an audience. Ontario Liberals need to build both.

The next leader’s job is to offer people something better than the satisfaction of agreeing that Doug Ford is awful. Because Ontario does not agree.