08.15.2015 08:41 AM

KCCCC Day 13: greetings from Albany!

  

  • Did you know? You can’t get anything gluten-free at Dunkin’ Donuts? Or that they call Lala “a model”? (She is more beautiful than that, if you ask me.)
  • Anyway. Gotta get on the road soon. So here’s sentence fragments from my next Hill Times column. 
  • Election year themes: “1984,1993 and 2006 were about throwing the bums out. 1988 was about an actual issue. 2008 and 2011 were about Tim Hortons vs. Starbucks. 1997, 2000 and 2004 were about ‎sticking with the Known over the Unknown. 2015? It’s about nothing, so far.”
  • The Dippers “have badly stumbled over controversies involving candidates, on everything from keeping oil in the ground, to accusing Israel of war crime.”
  • The Grits “needed a solid debate performance by Justin Trudeau, and he gave them one.”
  • The Cons’ “campaign, meanwhile, has not been without its challenges, the aforementioned Duffy trial among them. There has been the Oshawa Conservative MP inviting children to a fundraiser at a gun range – and there has been the spectacle of the Tory campaign battling with a provincial Premier over a pension plan, when said Premier’s name isn’t even on the ballot.”
  • There you go. All I can do today. Have a good one! Beach, here we come!

24 Comments

  1. Alex says:

    A quick thought: What if all the daily noise — i.e. Mcquaig’s views on oil; Care Bear economics; Harper’s feud with Wynne — is simply background noise that is hiding a huge shift in mood in the Canadian electorate?

    All the cool kids are convinced that Duffy is a non-issue, and that voters don’t really care about the claim that Harper is abusing power. But what if they are wrong? Today a Leger poll had the Harperites in third. CBC has reported record ratings for its Duffy coverage on the At Issue panel and Power and Politics. My father commented this morning that he was surprised about how many people at his gym were taking about Duffy. This is not conclusive evidence by any means, but it does suggest that the country is starting to get tired of Harper, which make me think that the quiet majority is getting ready to give the Cons the boot.

    The opposition should not sit on its laurels (whether real or imagined) because Harper could still pull out a magic trick and win. However, the cool kids (e.g Gerry Nicholls) may be reading the tea leaves all wrong, and Harper may end up finishing in third as the Leger poll suggests.

    • Michael Bluth says:

      The Conservatives finishing third is a very, very big leap of faith at this point.

      Just as the Conservative support was artificially inflated after the UCCB cheques were mailed out it is not surprising the Conservatives support would be artificially deflated during the Duffy trial.

      People talking about the Duffy trial at your father’s gym = the ‘quiet majority’ is getting ready to give the Conservatives the boot?

      That’s a pretty big leap of faith.

      This election starts for real after labour day.

      • Alex says:

        You make a completely valid point Michael. Just to be clear, I am not predicting that the Cons will finish in third. Rather, I wanted to challenge the prevailing view among certain political commentators that Canadians are immune to scandal, and that Duffy will not have an important impact on this election.

        At this point multiple scenarios are possible. This includes another Conservative majority following post-Labour Day campaigning (more likely), but also the Tories finishing in third after the silent majority decides that enough is enough (less likely). Many assume that Harper will outperform his poll numbers, and that Duffy is already baked into voting preferences. However, everyone also thought the sponsorship scandal was baked into voting patterns during the 2006 election, and then the floor fell out under the Liberals. While we are not there yet for the Cons, and may very well never get there in this election, we should not assume that the Harperites are immune from getting clobbered.

      • MissussaugaPeter says:

        It may very well end LIB vs. NDP.

        There is a certain 1993 feel happening. The CONS will not be decimated the way they were in 1993, because there is no second right wing party to split the vote, but they could very easily fall to poor third place.

        This Duffy trial, Wright testimony, which I am sure Harper thought may go unnoticed by vacationing Canadians, is having an effect. People who usually stay quiet about politics are adding their opinion. Many, many more Canadians than Harper wanted are getting hit by the barrage of MSM coverage.

        Big mistake by Harper not following through with his stealing of NDP policy of abolishing the Senate.

        The NDP should be all over this. Big, big mistake to not make this the issue of the campaign. Get the media off the candidates and onto this big issue.

      • JJ says:

        The Duffy trial stinks, but does it stink more than the Sponsorship Scandal or the Ontario Gas Plant Scandal?

        In the first case, the Liberals were re-elected with a minority after taking $40 million from taxpayers.

        In the second case, the Ontario Liberals were re-elected with a majority after cancelling gas plants worth over a billion dollars.

        If voters could hold their nose to re-elect two governments that widely mismanaged millions of taxpayer dollars, can voters hold their nose and vote for the Harper government after a staffer that got in trouble for trying to pay back $90,000 to taxpayers? Food for thought.

  2. Marc-André Chiasson says:

    Hey Warren, this NY Times article should put you in the right frame of mind as you enter America the Great. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/the-closing-of-the-canadian-mind.html?_r=3&referrer

  3. davie says:

    Dippers stumbled by angering people who want to get oil out of the ground and burned into the air a fast as possible, and uttering a heresy about the Tel Aviv regime’s treatment of people under its control.

    Climate, TRC recommendations, and electoral reform…I want those to be the issues.

  4. DougM says:

    Put down the smart phone/tablet/laptop and get back to your vacation! We’ll be here when you get back and so will the election campaign.

  5. Kaplan says:

    If 2015’s about nothing, can we collectively agree, then, to call it The Seinfeld Election?

  6. Don Wilson says:

    McQuaig stumbled? Yes, not a very politically adroit thing to say during an election campaign, but give the woman a break. 97% of the world’s climate scientists agree with her. Maybe there are times for the hard truth and election campaigns are not one of those times?

  7. nic coivert says:

    Albany has a beach?

  8. UFP Ambassador says:

    Do you guys believe at all that this kind of stuff:
    http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/08/15/why-harper-and-friends-are-a-bigger-threat-than-is-burman.html

    …is helpful to the progressive cause?

  9. fuck says:

    fuck u

    Stupid third rate political commentator….

    ASSHOLE FUCKER

  10. !o! says:

    on the election year themes. We have the benefit of hindsight.

  11. John Matheson says:

    Enjoy your trip!

  12. nez1 says:

    FINALLY! A Liberal ad–during a football game. Wasn’t bad, but still not enough. A Con minority in the works; interesting times ahead.

  13. Christian Giles says:

    Hope you’re enjoying your trip. Have to disagree about your Trudeau assessment. His expectations were so low that as Korn Kob said if he showed up wearing pants he’d win. He eliminated any gains he may have got through his ‘care bears’ economic lesson. Thing is, it’s a long election and only weirdos like you and me are actually paying attention to the details. The Frontporches are paying attention only to headlines and sound bites, which makes the Sun’s front page of Care Bear Justin relevant. BTW latest poll still shows the NDP ahead but Liberals 2nd (it was Leger).

  14. Bill Templeman says:

    Looking ahead to coverage of the potential NOTA vote (None Of The Above). In 2011, the NOTAs beat the Conservatives. NOTA: 39% of eligible voters; Cons:24%

    Why do people vote NOTA? Now there is fodder for a column or two

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