— Musings —01.04.2011 03:27 PM
— Musings —01.04.2011 03:27 PM
A minor shuffle that promotes two GTA Conservatives. The Liberal GTA fortress is under attack.
But what about The Scud Stud’s bro’ being shifted from being a semi-successful Diplomat to the Americas to doing naught but warmed-over Lip Service to the Environment?
The Cud Spud?
WTF does that mean?! I always suspected Namesake worked for the OLO coms office… now I’m certain… LOL;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Kent
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/91100.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_the_Spud
Something to talk about before the Juniors play for gold
tomorrow?
Minister of State for the
Elderly??? The man who was in charge of the
largest police force in the country after the RCMP (OPP) and the
largest municipal police force in the country (Toronto Police) is
now given the vaunted position of being in charge of the elderly
reporting to another Minister. I wonder if his comparison of his
trials and tribulations as a campaigning candidate to the suffering
during the Holocaust and under the Nazis had anything to do with
this demotion.
He’s destined to be a 1 termer. Or, more correctly, a .3 termer.
The elderly vote. In fact, they line up to vote. The Cons will run with their Crime platform fearmongery and the ex cop Fantino will sell it to those old folks (Rae and Iggy excluded of course). So, I’m not sure it’s a demotion.
I think Harper may have given Ignatieff a gift today. I wonder if Bubble Boy, and now we know why he was kept in a bubble during the bye-election, will be allowed to answer any questions in QP? Cleverly crafted questions could be worth half to full point percentage gains in the polls. Early Stockwell Day at least had some experience in the Alberta legislature.
Maybe all this means is that Harper will prorogue again.
Before you go concluding that Fantino is some huge
political liability for the CPC, you really ought to canvass the
views of actual ordinary voters, as opposed to Liberal Party of
Canada partisans and Ottawa Press Gallery pundits etc. I’ve seen no
solid evidence that Fantino is a political net liability for the
CPC. Yeah, he shoots his mouth off, and sometimes misspeaks. Big
Hairy Deal. A lot of people consider that to be a sign of a sort of
homespun genunineness. Remember also that outside of Ontario, most
ordinary voters don’t know who Fantino is, have never heard of him
and couldn’t care less about what he says or doesn’t say. As for
your wishful equivalence to Stockwell Day, Stockwell Day was leader
of Her Majesty’s Royal Opposition and the man second most likely to
become Prime Minister at the time in question. Fantino is the MP
for Vaughan and a junior cabinet minister. There’s a bit of a
difference there in terms of profile and significance. Once again,
we see Liberal Party supporters wishfully hoping for the magic
bullet that’s going to come along, destroy the CPC and return the
LPC to its rightful place at 24 Sussex. A while ago it was the
economic meltdown. Then it was the long-form census. Now it’s
Julian Fantino.
He looks pretty grumpy in any of the photos I’ve seen of
him.
Harper 38 Ministers. Martin 33. Chretien 28. Mulroney 38.
Hrmm. I wonder who was really more fiscally responsible. Conservative? Or, Liberal?
I wholeheartedly agree that reducing Cabinet to 28 people will solve our budgetary problems, and is a great metric for judging the fiscal responsibility of various governments!
http://whatdoiknowgrit.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-are-conservative-governments-good.html
Um, seem to remember the UN quality of life index telling the world Canada was THE BEST joint in the world with 28 cabinet ministers. Guess with38 they can work on moving us to number 7 from number 8.
I smiled and smiled when I heard the news of the appointment of retired police chief Fantino as Minister of State for Seniors. Just like Harper. While everyone focuses “police chief” the Prime Minister focuses on “retired.” I admit I didn’t see that coming. But it makes so much sense. Fantino will not (for now) be asked to front the “law-and-order” agenda, instead he will front pension reform, elder care, retirement health care and the political importance of the elderly. Sort of like Jason Kenney is to new Canadians, Julian Fantino will “outreach” to working pensioners. Another key demographic of people who actually vote to persuade to go over to the Conservatives.
I agree. Fantino’s appointment as Minister of State for Seniors is a good political move. Baby boomers and older were taught to respect the “uniform”. The fact he was Chief of Police gives him automatic respect. He’ll be allowed to make mistakes or political gaffes particularly if it upsets the youth (anyone under 45).
“Baby boomers and older were taught to respect the ?uniform?.” ———You believe that? Seriously?
God, talk about not understanding the demographic. LOL
I do wish the Liberal Party would push for a public inquiry into the G20. If they did so, they would be able to prove that Fantino was the heavy hand of the law on Sunday, taking over from Bill Blair, and expose Fantino for what he is – someone who treated his own police force poorly, and promoted a state of martial law in Toronto.
I find it disturbing that he is being moved up the ranks so quickly into the Cabinet given his very checkered past, and someone needs to expose him for what he has done.
I’d be interested in knowing if you think what you’re proposing would be good politics or not. Of course, if you think it’s the moral and right thing to do, good on ya. But I really wonder about the LPC harping on the G20 stuff for political gain. Overall, I don’t see the political gain for the LPC in this. First of all, almost nobody outside of Ontario gives a rat’s behind about it — except for left-leaning activist types who would never dream of voting Conservative in the first place. And really, in terms of political orientation, again, by and large the sort of people within Ontario who have a huge problem with what went on tend to lean to the NDP-Liberal camp.
Think about the optics for the CPC attack machine: Iggy wants to hug people who smash store windows and burn cop cars. However distorted and unfair that characterization may be, that’s what you’ll get.
Maybe. But maybe you just “don’t see the political gain”
because you’re prejudging the result, which could just as easily
be, “Harper wanted nearly 1,000 people to get arrested and
‘kenneled’ to justify spending nearly $1-B to turn the city he
hated into a temporary police state, all because of some minor
property damage which they deliberately let happen.”
I think you just backhandedly proved my point. What you typed above perfectly encapsulates the preferred take on the G20 that we hear from professional Harper-haters such as yourself. I get that. On the other hand, if you think that what you typed would actually be the verbatim executive summary to come out of a genuinely impartial formal inquiry into the G20 affair, then I really wonder about whether your partisan leanings are impairing your ability to judge things with any measure of objectivity. Like, you think some respected retired judge is going to actually conclude that an animating motivator for the Prime Minister in this affair was that he hated Toronto? Yeesh.
All that aside, my main point is that I just don’t see what happened at the G20 as a significant vote mover for anyone. Most people who vote Conservative would not agree with your description of what happened. More people who lean Liberal, Dipper, Green and Bloc would. The net result politically is a wash.
Right. A respected retired judge like John ‘Small Town Cheap’ Gomery would never stoop to editorializing like that. And right, I used the scare quotes to predict the actual executive summary, rather than to insulate myself from a libel charge by clearly invoking a hypothetical OLO warroom parallel to the CPC warroom missile you launched. Thanks for the reality checkup, Doc.
WTF does Fantino know about the average ‘senior’ he now earns 200K+ and has big fat Police pensions. BS still baffles brains
They ALL make their 200K+’s plus a big fat pension. (Heck, I never made that money all decade, just sayin’ lol.)
Now that Mr. Fantino is a junior minister for seniors, I expect that Mr. Harper will appoint a senior minister for juniors.
I love it