Bains gets the PC war room treatment

Fresh slogans

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FRAMING THE FRONTRUNNER

It’s a hard and fast rule of politics that you need to define yourself before your opponents do, and presumed Liberal leadership frontrunner NAVDEEP BAINS already has his work cut out for him.

Within hours of Bains dropping his launch video and kicking off a provincewide tour in Windsor, Energy Minister STEPHEN LECCE was out with the attack line the PCs clearly want: “Trudeau 2.0.”

Bains’s latest clip is a first glimpse at how he’s setting himself up: a centrist focused on the middle class and economy. He talks about bringing back the “Ontario deal” — where “you show up, you work hard, and Ontario gives you the opportunity to build a good life — a job that pays well, a doctor when you need one, an affordable home in a safe neighbourhood, and a school that does right by your kid.”

“You’re still holding up to your end of that deal — your government is not,” he goes on to say, without name-checking DOUG FORD. “L…