…it’s usually because our names aren’t on a ballot.

Don’t do it.  Don’t, don’t, don’t.

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How could have Justin made such a mistake?  How, how, how?

Thank goodness the Prime Minister’s locution is beyond reproach!

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All the fun stuff that helped Harper win.  Right here, in yesterday’s Hill Times.

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Here they are – and here’s another day of great headlines, showing what a great job they’re doing!

• “RBC chief denies use of foreign worker replacements”
• “Royal Bank defends using foreign workers”

Anyone know, perchance, who is handling issues management/crisis comms for these bozos?

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Are you sick of media coverage about Justin Trudeau?

I know I sure am. And I’m a Liberal! And I know and like the guy!

I mean, the Liberal leader-to-be gets more ink than would a chance meeting of the newly minted pope, Justin Bieber and Ikea monkey.

Plug the Montreal MP’s name into Google and you’ll get a kabillion results in 0.23 seconds. Will it ever end? Make it stop!

I have it on good authority that Team Trudeau wishes it would, too.

Increasingly — and quietly — the Trudeaumaniacs are growing worried about the insanely high expectations being created by the insane amount of fawning coverage their man has been getting, for month after month.

For instance, if someone at the Toronto Star were to write a column suggesting the sun actually shines out of Trudeau’s behind, it would get printed. No one would blink.

In fact, CBC’s Evan Solomon and CTV’s Don Martin would thereafter seek out experts to discuss the beams of light emanating from the young Trudeau’s bottom and their political significance.

There is a long and proud tradition in Canadian politics. It is called “underselling and overperforming.”

Politicians who did so include Stephen Harper, Jean Chretien, Peter Lougheed and Bill Davis. All were pilots who knew how to fly beneath the radar.

Politicians who don’t — the ones who think it is a good idea to be all over the papers, all the time — tend to be the politicians who are found in political graveyards, stacked up like cordwood.

Generally speaking, voters elect leaders once every four years. Then they hope not to hear from said politicians for another four years or so. Just do the job we hired you to do, keep out trouble and keep out of the media; it’s a simple and simplistic formula and it works.

Justin Trudeau is messing with that formula. Through no fault of his own, Trudeau is getting media coverage of the kind that few of us have ever seen before.

(For instance, were the Messiah contemplating a return, we’d advise him to wait for the conclusion of the Liberal leadership race next weekend.)

The problem with Trudeau’s bursting media clippings file — and not all of the coverage is good, it should be noted — is this: It is creating expectations that no human being could ever, ever satisfy. Justin Trudeau, all evidence to the contrary, is human. Human beings are flawed.

Ipso facto, in the coming months, Justin Trudeau is going to say and do things that will disappoint untold legions of Trudeaumaniacs. It is inevitable.

If entering a witness protection program is not possible, Trudeau and his team need to start lowering the sky-high expectations, pronto.

To this point, Trudeau’s advisers have been the Maytag repairmen of Canadian politics; for them, nothing seems to ever go wrong. Their job has been an easy one.

It’s about to get harder. Team Trudeau must get their guy to step back from the spotlight, a bit, and focus instead on beefing up policy, membership, candidate recruitment and election readiness. They need to get him less media coverage, not more.

That’s unusual advice to give to a politician, but Justin Trudeau has had a very unusual campaign. The standard rules don’t apply.

Oh, and the sun shining out of his keester?

Team Trudeau have no comment.

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Here.

Great news if you’re Brad Wall, not so good if you’re Christy Clark.

Across the aisle? Adrian Dix is a very popular Opposition leader, seems. It’s why most people think he’ll be Premier.

But look at who exactly matches his number in Ontario! Does the same outcome await Andrea Horwath?

Polls are fun!

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Long piece. I was nodding until the author tried to set up Jan Wong, who is scum, as a victim. She isn’t.

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This seems about right, to me.

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I really enjoy the way he summarizes the news over at Maclean’s.  (And I like the fact that he doesn’t clumsily try and drive an agenda all the time, like that asshole who was there previously.)

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Right here.

Um, except:

1. Alf Apps? Alf Apps, he of Ornge fame, is the voice of renewal? Seriously? Can we get Chris Mazza in to oversee fundraising, now?

2. The “no old factions” stuff isn’t, well, true. I was told that one camp’s senior guys are very involved – and I know that another camp aren’t, so much. A choice has been made, which they’re entitled to do. But don’t pretend a choice hasn’t been made.

3. My old pal Ibbitson wrote this to be nice. He doesn’t believe it for a minute. The Big Shift, etc.

You’re welcome.

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