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Heather and I were at a school program and university info night last night until roughly 9:30, but I’d recorded the debate on TVO, including Steve Paikin’s the Agenda. We watched all of it as soon as we got home.

I was struck by a number of things:

1. It was clear that Mr. McGuinty is not as well advised on debating strategies. I counted several missed opportunities where Mr. McGuinty, had been coached differently, could have inflicted more damage upon Mr. Tory, especially on the faith-based education issue.

2. While I didn’t calculate it precisely with a stop-watch, Mr. Tory received more air time if you include the number of times he was permitted to talk over others, Mr. McGuinty in particular.

3. Before hearing distracting pundit chatter after-the-fact, I'd concluded Mr. Tory would be perceived as having performed better than Mr. McGuinty. Since listening to a sample of pundit chatter, my conclusions have been proven correct. By and large Mr. Tory is perceived to have performed better than many were expecting, and Mr. McGuinty is perceived not to have performed as well as he could have. Respectfully, Mr. Hampton effectively served as a less relevant split to the vote. Some soft Liberal voters may shift further left to the NDP. Few, if any, soft NDP voters will shift to the Conservatives.

4. If new post-debate polling data collected next week shows the numbers have tightened with the Tories inching closer to the pre-debate Liberal lead, I expect we will not see a Majority on October 10, but rather a Minority that could go either way. If the numbers don’t move significantly in the next week, the Liberals could still win either a Majority or slim Minority.

5. Notwithstanding Ontario’s tendency to vote Provincially and Federally in opposite directions, on style points alone, I think Mr. Tory, should he be successful, got PMSH’s attention as possible Ontario vote turnkey.

6. I was shocked there wasn't a question about the referendum and MMP. Seems to me that would have been an obvious and interesting topic to hear the leaders debate.

7. Heather went to bed before me.

Ontario leader's debate; post mortem