I feel bad for the guy. As a leader I find him more likable than McGuinty. Somehow though his message always got lost in the noise surrounding one element of his campaigns and he lacked the political skill to overcome that and center the focus of the media attention on something else. He also came on the coat tails of Harris and Eves, two real popular guys
In 2007 it was the religious schools thing, which IMHO was blown way out of proportion by the media (which in Toronto has a very strong liberal bias). During that election McGuinty was given a free pass on all his past sins (hello, health tax) because everyone was talking about how those radical muslim terrorist schools were now going to be fully funded (which was not true.)
This time he was punished by the voters of one riding who perceived that he was robbing one of his caucus members of her seat. Which albeit somewhat true, is not exactly unheard of in Canadian politics. No party can operate with their leader sitting outside of the legislature.
The real shame is that the voters of this by-election have ensured that McGuinty will have no meaningful opposition for quite some time. Tory deserved a better fate. I still shudder when I think about how we picked Miller over Tory to be the Mayor....