Soon to be replaced by another one. (Getting marriage licence this morning.)

  

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• I’m on a beach in Maine. Lala is asleep, as are most of our four teenage boys. I am watching people do odd yoga things or walk their dogs. 
• The election seems far, far away. However, sometimes you get a note that is so thoughtful, so pithy, it brings back the wonder and joie de vivre of campaigns in a rush. Here it is, and have a good one. I know I will. 

   
 

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• 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!

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• I’m off (with Sons 1 and 3)! Leaving for Maine early this morn. Will be busy doing that, so quick hits:
• The cheapest sneer is the sneer about someone’s faith: So Nigel Weight was asked why he helped Mike Duffy, and he cited Scripture. Almost immediately, the mocking began, and a lot of it was vicious. So what, I ask, is wrong with what he said? Would it have been somehow better to say something else? What, exactly? Sometimes people are just assholes.
• Is the Care Bear thing turning into a thing? It didn’t surprise many folks when Justin Trudeau’s paean to emotional economics was mocked in the Sun and the Post. They don’t like him. But when the CBC got in on the act – well, that spells trouble, baby.
• I love Denis Coderre – and here’s yet another reason why. He should be Prime Minister. It would be a hoot, if nohing else.
• What if it’s 110/110/110/8? Increasingly, that is starting to look possible. Would Mulcair be able talk Trudeau into supporting him as PM, and not the reverse? Would they be able to set aside their mutual detestation? Will Harper head home to Calgary? Will Liz May table more truther petitions?
• I’m outta here, baby. Off to the U.S. Of A! And here’s a highly manipulative Hollywood meme to prove it!

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Stubbed my toe on Lala’s PET statue this morning. Cosmic karma for laughing out loud at that Toronto Sun front page.

  

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• Justin Trudeau stepped in it yesterday…or did he?
• Here’s what the Liberal leader said:  And this is a quote, from Canadian Press: “We’re proposing a strong and real plan, one that invests in the middle class so that we can grow the economy not from the top down the way Mr. Harper wants to, but from the heart outwards.”
• Do you understand what that means? Well, don’t worry. I don’t either. Zoolander. 
• Various media are having a field day with it. The Sun is calling it Care Bear Economics, which is actually pretty funny.  “Whatever that means,” said the Post, in a headline. 
• Is it truly as bad as Scott Reid’s “beer and popcorn” remark? The Post says that one sank an entire election campaign, and I wouldn’t disagree. 
• I liked what Jeff Balingall said about it: Will we now measure our GDP in hugs?
• You? Was it a disaster? Funny? Weird? Decide!

  

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(Who I miss very, very much, by the way. I adored that man.)

Here’s what Senator Davey famously said: “If the other guy says, ‘You’re fat,’ don’t say, ‘I’m not.’ Say, ‘You’re ugly.'”

Which brings us to this photo of someone’s jacket, captured this morning in Saskatchewan and sent to me:

“I am ready.”

We see the same problem in this Liberal ad: they’re repeating the negative the Tories are disseminating about them.

Stop doing that, Team Trudeau.  Stop, stop, stop.  Stop leading with your chin.  Stop repeating the negative.  Stop staying within the other guy’s frame.

Start changing the channel, instead.

 

 

 

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Oshawa MP Colin Carrie is doing just that.  Quote (and from the Sun, no less):

TORONTO – Conservatives in Oshawa are hunting up donations with a “family friendly” fundraiser at a shooting range.

Oshawa MP Dr. Colin Carrie is the advertised special guest at The Long Range Target Shoot Fundraiser to be held Saturday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the Orono Fish and Hunt Club.

“Join us for a family friendly day at the range including a demonstration by trained staff and the opportunity to safely discharge a wide variety of firearms,” the invitation says.

Images accompanying the invite show a long gun and a handgun.

Look, I’m no an anti-gun fanatic. I own at least one firearm, and I’ve got all the training and licensing to do so.

But inviting children to a fundraiser to shoot guns? Seriously?

I’ve heard from several Tories who are very, very unimpressed by this move by Oshawa Conservatives. And it is therefore no surprise that central campaign declined to defend it.

What are you thinking, Colin Carrie?

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Conservative ad. Note the now-ubiquitous tag line. 

 

Okay. Now, here’s a New Democrat ad. Note, too, the tag line.

   

“Just not ready,” and now “isn’t up to the job.”

The Cons and the Dips are buying their research from the same focus group firm. That, or there is unprecedented all-party agreement on Justin Trudeau’s biggest point of vulnerability. 

Either way, I can’t recall  seeing something like this before in Canadian politics: an attack line that works with voters on the Right and the Left. Can anyone else think of a precedent?

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• Where’s the NDP war room? As I tweeted to the universe yesterday, I’ve so far seen plenty of evidence that the CPC and the LPC are taking strips out the NDP’s hide and more – but not much evidence indicating return fire.  What gives? It’s not like they didn’t know a campaign was coming.  It’s not like they don’t have the dough.  So what’s the problem? They’d better fix it, and pronto – the somnambulist-style electioneering is having an effect.
• When “no neg” means “go neg”:  As I recall, and as I also tweeted, Justin Trudeau repeatedly and solemnly promised never to go neg in this campaign.  Fine.  Me and others thought that was a big mistake, but whatever.  Now, stuff like this is starting to seep out of the Liberal campaign.  Personally, I think those anti-NDP spots are pretty darn good – but aren’t they now doing, you know, what Trudeau said he wouldn’t do?
• When you can’t throw the candidate under the bus…: Throw a whole province under the bus!  Linda McQuaig’s nutty suggestion that we leave all that oil in the ground – and what are her campaign signs made of, anyway? – flatly contradicted what Angry Tom had been saying for two years.  Now, however, NDP campaign staff say the controversy fault isn’t McQuaig’s – it’s the fault of Albertans.  Great strategy there, Team Orange.
• The issue that isn’t: Remember how everyone was talking dope about dope, endlessly, two Summers ago? Remember how it was supposed to be a great big election issue? Well, er, it isn’t.
• I’m confused, as usual: Let’s do this logically.  (a) Kathleen Wynne said, if elected, she’d put together a new pension plan.  (b) She got elected, big time. (c) She started to put together a pension plan because she, you know, had a mandate from the people to do so.  So how’d it become an election issue, with Conservatives who don’t have a mandate to kill Wynne’s pension plan? Beats me.  Wynne’s only doing what she said she would do.  That kind of thing used to matter, to Conservatives.
• Finally – take that, Messrs. Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau! In Ottawa, at least, I kick your ass on social media!

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