The Saskatchewan Party government has a new mandate stay the course on health care, and spend more time and money chasing the same mirages.

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The conventional wisdom is that governments defeat themselves. The idea well runs dry. They lose talent, talk too much and listen too little. Scandals pile up and weigh them down. Cranky voters get bored or lose patience; molehills become mountains.

The liabilities typically pile up by the end of the second term. Occasionally governments survive longer: the economy blooms at the right time, they have a charismatic and admired leader, the opposition fails to connect. Three terms is an achievement. Beyond three is a dynasty.

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If conventional wisdom is true, the opposition need only have a pulse to get its turn. It has only to pick up the torch from the incumbents’ cold, dead hands.

The conventional wisdom may hold elsewhere, but not in Saskatchewan. The 34-to-27-seat margin understates the magnitude and significance of the Saskatchewan Party victory. The NDP got a lot of seat-winning bang for its popular vote buck.

No rural seat........

© Saskatoon StarPhoenix