And, in case you were wondering, in conversation he was smart, perceptive and very funny. (Very.)

This picture was taken backstage at the OREA event (more pix here and here and here).

We talked, for just a minute, about Kennebunkport, and about how I’ve been going there for years with my kids and family and friends. He said he plans to start spending more time there himself.

Listening to him, I was reminded of what my former boss Jean Chretien told us, when we wondered about the White House reaction to our decision to not participate in the invasion of Iraq.

“He’s a very nice guy,” said the Canadian Prime Minister. “He’s always been a very nice guy.”

Caption contest!

 

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Today, at the kick-ass OREA conference – which earlier features Jean Chretien, Doug Ford, Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott – I’m on a panel (with my sister Adrienne, Kathleen and Chad). Just before George W. Bush!

How do you warm up a crowd for a US president? Can I tell Dick Cheney jokes? Do I wear a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED T-shirt? Do we shoot the shit about the Clam Shack in Kennebunkport?

Anyway. Should be a lot of fun. Later.

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Trudeau has apparently changed his behaviour, for which he deserves some credit.

Scheer hasn’t.

For which he deserves none.

Trudeau has maintained a low profile since the election, even avoiding media appearances this week in the midst of meetings he arranged with the other federal party leaders.

Political strategist and commentator Warren Kinsella raised the point on Twitter on Thursday, saying the prime minister has handled himself in the right way since the election.

“No stunts, no selfies, no over-saturation,” Kinsella wrote about Trudeau in a tweet.

The post drew a response from right-wing political activist and former Conservative staffer Jeff Ballingall, who said, “Andrew Scheer couldn’t be handling it worse.”

Ballingall is the founder of a collective of wildly popular “Proud” Facebook pages. With its 438,000 Facebook likes, the Ontario Proud page, the first founded by Ballingall, is more popular on the platform than both the provincial Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives, as well as boasting more likes than Scheer.

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He will be impeached in the House. But the Senate will not remove him, of course.

Doesn’t matter. It will increasingly obsess him and his team, it will drain their already-thin resources, and it will hobble his re-election effort.

Which means it’ll work.

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