, 05.24.2018 10:34 AM

Warren’s free tips on scandal stuff

So the Wynne Liberals revealed their big, big Doug Ford scandal: he allegedly paid for a few party memberships before he became leader.

Big deal.

“It’s nothing burger,” one senior Ontario PC operative said to me after the Ontario Liberal press conference ended.  “Steady as she goes.”

Now, scandals (real or imagined) have a way of taking on a life of their own. Even though the voting public aren’t nearly as preoccupied with scandal as the media and politicians are – Exhibit A, the Clinton/Lewinsky “scandal,” Exhibit B, the entirety of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign – selfsame media and politicos are undeterred. They love scandal-mongering more than, you know, talking about boring stuff like “policy.”

Here, then, are a few helpful bullets on scandal-mongering.  The politicos and media won’t pay attention, but I know my smart readers will.

  • Scandal-mongering doesn’t work. 
  • The media/politico chattering class call everything a scandal, and always append “gate” to the end of same, to no discernible effect.
  • The public already think everyone in politics is a crook, so the breathless revelation that someone involved in politics is a crook isn’t ever a revelation to them.
  • Joe and Jane Frontporch, the aforementioned public, have heard the hysteria and histrionics about “scandals” too many times, and don’t believe any of it until the perp is led away in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.
  • Joe and Jane believe the real scandals are things like the lack of a job, or having to lay in a hospital corridor for two days to get health care, or spending billions on security and deranged, lone-wolf fanatics still figure out a way to kill innocent people – those are the real scandals.  Not someone expensing something by bona fide mistake, or the dissemination of political party membership cards, or consensual adults with zipper problems.

The Martinesque operatives around Kathleen Wynne are running the worst campaign in Ontario political history.  And, the next time they cry “wolf” about some other scandal, nobody is going to believe them.

They’re done.

31 Comments

  1. Matt says:

    The Libs are paying “The Wizard” $70,000 a month.

    As the campaign drags on, I’m starting to wonder if the NDP are paying him $80,000 a month to trash the Liberals from within.

    On another election topic, I had an interestin conversation last night with a friend who is a Liberal supporter. I pulled up to his house and there was a big OPC sign on his lawn. I asked if he had finally seen the light.

    His response – don’t laugh – was NO, but he and his Liberal friends got to talking and they think Ford would screw up as Premier so bad he’d be a one term wonder and the Liberals will be back in power in 2022.

    While if Horwath wins, “she’s promising all the same “free” shit we are and more, it might be 2026 or longer before we get a shot at power again”

    • Warren says:

      BINGO. I said the same thing on Twitter and the Dippers went nuts on me. They’re sucky sucky babies.

      • Adam says:

        So the Liberals would rather have Doug Ford in power for a term — along with all the damage that would bring — just so that they can get their beloved power back in their hands that much sooner, rather than put up with Horwath and the ONDP actually implementing progressive policies instead.

        How hilariously self-interested is that? I wonder who’s being more childish?

        Or is “strategic” voting only a valid and commendable thing when it benefits the Liberals?

      • Neal Vincent Peale says:

        “The Martinesque operatives around Kathleen Wynne are running the worst campaign in Ontario political history.” I mean, worse than ’90? Without divulging strategy, how would you have done this differently? Asking for a fiend.

  2. Matthew L says:

    Warren, I’ve heard some rumblings from The Hill that Trudeau’s gender-equity cabinet has ticked off some high profile Ontario Liberal MPs who in a different climate would be shoe-ins for cabinet positions. A bespectacled Toronto MP and a gregarious Durham area MP come to mind.

    Think any of them could pull a ‘Patrick Brown’ and run for the provincial leadership? Lord knows there won’t be many options in Queen’s Park two weeks from now.

  3. Dork in EastYork says:

    It’s so odd to see the ‘strategic vote,’ long the butcher of NDP hopes and dreams, suddenly working in the NDP’s favour.

    Just how far will the ‘strategic vote’ take them? Will high crust doctors in St. Paul’s hold their nose and vote for a Hamilton bread-and-butter populist? Will boomers in Cooksville who have never seen an NDP pamphlet at their door, suddenly vote for Team Orange?

  4. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    If you ask most voters who call themselves progressive, I doubt they will say that they intend to vote strategically for Doug just so he can allegedly fuck up Ontario and thereby permit the Liberals to supposedly return to power. That’s Titanic type of logic — from a progressive point of view.

    • Neal Vincent Peale says:

      Dear Ronald,

      Either Doug Ford slashes jobs which allows the Liberals to march back into office in 2022 saying “we were for expanding tax revenue based jobs, now look at what Ford did”

      OR

      Doug Ford does an above average job by making the Ontario economy more Hayekian and less Keynesian and the Liberals resurge as the opposition in 2022.

      It’s quite an interesting scenario: Liberals can dress up for the Red Tory ball everyone in a while. 33% of Liberals are soft-Tories according to Joe Clark.

      Strategic voting: please read Hegel. It’s a dialectic. It’s a pendulum swing, don’t you know? Swinging further to the left has it’s appeal…but typically the pendulum follows the interests of parties that do not attempt to artificially distort market forces too much, i.e. pragmatic NDPers or Liberals or Conservatives. Harvarth is borderline pragmatic…

      Horvarth has just as much potential to “fuck up” the Ontarian economy as Ford. Possibly more so.

      Thanking you,
      Neal Vincent Peale

  5. Richard says:

    This was the most disappointing scandal release I’ve ever seen.

    If the OLP is trying the “death by 1000 cuts” idea, they might want to stop using butter knives to do the cutting, cause it just isn’t isn’t working, at all.

    Best I think they can achieve now is staving off the orange crush and try to bring down Howarth and grab a couple seats that way.

  6. Steven S says:

    I am a Liberal. I will vote Liberal, despite the flaws.

    I am old enough to remember that under the last PC Government ( where Doug Ford Sr. sat as a member), people in Walkerton literally ate shit and died, because, of “efficiencies”.

    I have university kids whose future (along with tens of thousand of others) has been thrown under the bus and tuition fees flushed down the toilet by Horvath and her union-fluffing Dippers by ruling out back-to-work legislation. My taxes, their dogmatic entitlement.

    • Joseph says:

      Steve:

      The government that has been negotiating with those public sector unions for the last 15 years wasn’t an NDP or Conservative one.
      So if you wanted to make the point about public unions being pandered to while running up the debt to where it is now wouldn’t it be truthful to pin the blame on the current rulling party?

      • Steven S says:

        Joseph:

        As far as I am aware, no Liberal government ever gave away any bargaining leverage by way of back-to work legislation.

    • JBF says:

      The Walkerton deaths were caused by two drunk-on-the- job union members. The Cable(sp) brothers NOT the government of the day. If there had been efficiencies under the NDP two people would have been fired for being drunk at work and no one would have died.

      • Steven S says:

        JBF:

        Your comments and misspelling of names tells me that you either never heard of or are ignoring the O’Connor Inquiry Report and what it said about the PC Government’s conduct in the tragedy.

        But why let facts get in the way for the low-information MOGA / Ontario Proud rubes, right?

        • Fred from BC says:

          “Your comments and misspelling of names tells me that you either never heard of or are ignoring the O’Connor Inquiry Report and what it said about the PC Government’s conduct in the tragedy. ”

          That report, like most similar ‘Inquiries’ was pure political theatre. Most people realized this.

          “But why let facts get in the way for the low-information MOGA / Ontario Proud rubes, right?”

          Says the butt-hurt loser…

  7. Lou says:

    That in itself should frighten the voters. 8 years of NDP!!!

  8. Lou says:

    8 months of NDP in BC is already too much.

  9. Derek Pearce says:

    WK methinks you meant “orange jumpsuit” not “orange pantsuit”. Freudian slip! I thought you supported Hillary lol… Anyhow the rest of this post I you’re quite right.

  10. The Doctor says:

    The related point is, you should let a scandal or gaffe speak for itself. Don’t try milking it. Hillary Clinton did that in her debates with Trump and it was cringeworthy stupid. If the other guy is imploding you just stand back and let him implode. Let the thing speak for itself.

    • Fred from BC says:

      ” If the other guy is imploding you just stand back and let him implode.”

      Classic Sun Tzu. Love it.

  11. Dawna Tracey says:

    I wouldn’t consider Ford’s time in Toronto civic politics to be considered successful… a failed attempt to be mayor, and a big influence in the embarrassing time brother Rob was mayor. Parties are supported by a demographic, but each demographic (party) is steered by individuals. Bob Rae was a party leader of BOTH the NDP and the Liberals at different times… did his qualifications change? Or did his ideals? I don’t think so. Look at the leaders.

  12. Michael McCallion Sr. says:

    Remember please Warren Kinsella is dyed in the “pure laine” if you understand Quebec truisms, other wise “old wool”. Kinsella is now in the Old Category and was an Uncle Jean Chretien acolyte.

    Now that the David Herle crowd have moved, at the expense** of the Ontario Tax-Payers from Toronto to Ottawa, now they have screwed Ontaio into the Sewer. Herle never wants to miss out on a chance to pull Tax-payer’s Money. The move of the Herle Insider Gang forcing the Trudeauce BFF__ Gerry Butts to an accelerated rate of Federal Screw-ups. Yes “believe it or not”.

    This is in keeping with *** BFF Gerald Butts getting caught trying to seek a needless Half a Million plus expense report past the Canada Tax-Payers. ___ Getting Caught and having to pay back the $ 500,000.00 is not good for Liberal Crony Class Sleazy Pulls — from the Canada Taxpayers. The Real scurrilous Liberal Insiders will stop sucking up to The Liberal Party & Laurentien Elites if there is any Theirs To be pulled.

    Y’all must understand The Quebec Liberal Crony Crowd will not let the Paul Martin–David Herle Crony Crowd get their “stuff’ from the Canada Tax-payers.

    This is Jean Chretien’s –personal Tax-grab turf where–David Herle and Crony Gang are concerned. This is why Trudeauce’s BFF Gerald Butts was caught off-base. —- Butts is a secret David Herle__ minion__ and Chretien Cronies squealed. To the Central Canada Tame Media. The Ottawa Laurentien Elite Bureaucrat insiders panicked.

    But; But; didn’t you also put a couple of ** besides the David Herle Sleazy Pull from Ontario Tax-payers? Yes I did!.

    The reason is a David Herle & Crony Crowd’s Sleazy Pull of a contract over $ 850,000.00; ____ just as the Herle Crowd was moving to Ottawa from Toronto was a Gift Deal by Kathleen Wynne’s continually gifting of Ontario Taxpayers funding.

    It was not Canada Tax-payers. funding.___ Jean Chretien’s Crony Crowd doesn’t care about Ontario at all; __never has___ except when buying Votes from self-serving Ontario Voters.

    What an Ottawa Politician Family like the McGuinty crowd do to Ontario doesn’t matter to the Montreal Liberal Insiders and the Laurentien Elite Federal Bureaucracy Mandarins. At the top level of Ottawa Bureaucrats their assets are in Quebec; their Children receive the best bi-lingual education; the best Quebec Health Care. —Quebec is and remains the Nation/Province which always receives One & Half Times Per Resident over an Ontario Province Resident. ($ 2,800.00 To $ 1,200.00)

    The best Proof is a Proof; as Jean Chretien say.; The misinformation the CBC shoves on Ontario Voters in English and Radio du Canada insists in French Liberals will always give Quebec more, is when the Ontario voters give the absolutely proven and accepted corruption of the Dalton McGuinty–Kathleen Wynne Ontario Liberal Party Governments yet another Sleazy Pull from Ontario Tax-payer Period of another Four years from 2014 to 2018.

    (Ontario is now the__ Most in Debted__ Sub-National Government in the World. ____Even wotse than California; which has gone to Washington D.C. begging for money to avoid total Bankruptcy ___)

    The Ontario Legislative Buzz is;__ all anyone has to do; “is say to Premier Wynne____ this will make Her Nieces say really great things about Aunt Kathleen_____ and She will sign anything put in front of Her Government as long as the Tax-payers let Her Get away with it”.

  13. Sean says:

    Surely this has never happened before in a Canadian political party. Parliament has decided that such activity should be illegal in Canada. Elections Ontario and Elections Canada have the jurisdiction to review and overturn internal party elections and enforce serious legal standards. Otherwise, nomination meetings and leadership elections would become a wild west show… a circus orchestrated by insiders….completely unaccountable to the membership and the public….

  14. Matt says:

    Hmmm……..

    OPC will be, or may have already (haven’t seen the news this evening) called a 9:00am presser for Friday.

    “Explosive” examples of rampant anti-Semitism by NDP candidates.

  15. Matt says:

    Beloved former Mississauga mayor Hurricane Hazel McCallion has endorse Doug Ford for Premier.

    A couple hours after endorsing Liberal Charles Sousa as a local candidate for MPP.

    • Chris says:

      There are a few reasons why she was a successful politician for so long. You have just described one of them.

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