The 2012 punk rock festival called Riot Fest is, admittedly, a pretty unusual place to research Barack Obama’s demographic appeal with younger U.S. voters. But we aren’t afraid to go the extra mile for our readers.

It was a mud pit, Riot Fest was, and situated (improbably) at Toronto’s historic Old Fort York. Inside the gates, thousands of grimy, gritty tattooed punks were in attendance — and hordes slamdanced in the mosh pit in front of the stage, as bands such as the Lawrence Arms, the Descendents and Toronto’s F–ked Up cheerfully broke assorted municipal noise bylaws. Facial tats, piercings and swear words in abundance. Anarchy and chaos reigned.

Backstage, Fat Mike — nee Michael John Burkett — soberly reflected on the electoral chances of Obama. Sporting a Mohawk hairdo and a T-shirt with something on it that cannot be published in a family friendly newspaper, Fat Mike surveyed the ceiling of his trailer.

“I don’t think (Obama) is in an impossible situation, at all,” says Fat Mike, brows furrowed. “In fact, given that he inherited the Titanic, politically, he’s done very well.”

Comments (4)

Only 70 or so games to go!

Comments (3)

Randy Scott’s note. This story is hard to read.

Comments (6)

Everyone knows two things about political people, and political books.  One, political people look at the index, and only buy the political book if they see their name.  Two, reviewing a book provides an excellent opportunity to settle old scores.

Herewith and hereby, a TOTALLY SCIENTIFIC and IN NO WAY SILLY poll, wherein you get to pick the person(s) most likely to savage Warren’s latest creation in a review.  The results are accurate TWENTY TIMES OUT OF TWENTY.

Comments (8)

• Rotten Apple:  If, as rumoured, today’s big Apple announcement is about a smaller iPhone or iPad, I don’t really care.  Like billions of other people, however, I will care if they are planning to start manufacturing a smaller dock connector on Apple devices.  That move, alone, will make me, and billions of other people, really mad – because all of the devices we’ve bought over the years will be rendered obsolete.  Steve Jobs, where are you?
• The Assault on Reason:  Allan Gregg has charted an amazing career path, and he is one of the smartest people in Canada – which is why I quote him at considerable length in my new book. Check out this Hill Times article about his speech, and read it all.
• The Permanent Campaign:  Tom Flanagan – his recent dalliance with Wildrose notwithstanding – is also one of Canada’s smartest people (and is quoted on the cover of the new book).  His views on continual election readiness should be considered by every single Liberal.  One of Michael Ignatieff’s biggest mistakes was allowing his B-Team of mercenaries to shut down election readiness in Fall 2009.  He paid the price, dearly, and Harper reaped the benefits.
• Tea Party Tim To Stay:  The Lord has heard my prayers! Thank you! Thank you! Tim Hudak is one of the principal reasons Ontario Liberals won the last provincial election – and why Conservatives lost their Kitchener-Waterloo fiefdom.  As long as Hudak remains leader, I’m a happy Ontario Grit.
• Obama vs. The Rich Guy:  And the rich guy isn’t doing so well on the money front, turns out.  The fact that Obama’s also definitively ahead in the polls, to me, is pretty surprising: no U.S. president has recently won re-election with the economy doing badly (i.e.., less than three per cent GDP).  Tells me that impressions may indeed trump facts these days (see Gregg, above), and that it works in both ideological directions.
• The federal benefits of anti-federalism: It’s true.  There are indeed some – within the Liberals and the Conservatives – who see the election of the Parti Quebecois as useful, in that it gives them an opportunity to wave the flag, and reap the benefits in TROC.  The theory falls apart, however, when the country does.  That’s the, you know, problem with it.
• Idiot of the Month: We have a winner! This idiot – licence plate AMNX 030 – was photographed by my daughter on the 401, as she and Son Three and me headed up to the rainy lake on Friday.  In case you cannot make it out clearly, Queen Idiot is steering with her elbows while she eats an ice cream sundae.

Comments (30)

A joke.

That’s what media political polls have become in this country. And, if the news media continue to trumpet the results of polls, they risk becoming a joke, too.

By the time you read this, the pollsters will have hit the TV panels, trying to fool everyone into thinking that they didn’t really get the stunning Quebec election results wrong. But they did, and dramatically so. And they’re doing it all the time now.

“PQ headed to comfortable majority: Final poll before Quebec election.” That was the actual headline on a National Post story, published one day before Quebec trooped to the polls.

The PQ had “a large lead over the Liberals,” the Post declared, relying on a poll by an outfit called Forum Research. Forum claimed to have polled nearly 3,000 adult Quebecers, and that the PQ would win 36% of the vote, with the Liberals eking out only 29%. Forum also claimed their poll had a margin of error of less than 2%.

Well, they — and the Post — were off by a hell of a lot more than that. In the end, the Quebec Liberals and the separatist Parti Quebecois both received 31% of the vote, with the PQ a paltry .7% ahead.

The Post wasn’t alone in getting it wrong, however. A political website called ThreeHundredEight.com, one that is relied upon by many reporters, analyzed a number of polls, and stated that the Parti Quebecois could win as many 75 of the National Assembly’s 125 seats on Tuesday night, with the Liberals winning as few as 25.

When all the votes were counted on election night, however, the PQ had won only 54 seats, and the Liberals — who too many had suggested were as good as dead — captured 50 seats.

Comments (23)

This is, hands down, the funniest column I have read about politics in ages.

Along with the jokes, it also contains some truths worth knowing.

Comments (24)

…actually, we knew you quite well, as it turns out.

Hands up anyone who is surprised by this. Anyone? Anyone?

Didn’t think so.

Comments (51)

OMG this is genius.  And, yes, I am and always shall be an unrepentant Trekkie.

Comments (14)

Here’s my straight-up views on the by-elections in Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo.

• Liberals: We won huge in Vaughan, in a seat that is comfortably Conservative federally. I didn’t expect we’d win as big as we did.  In Kitchener-Waterloo, we got clobbered in a seat held by the Conservatives for a generation. I didn’t ever expect to win, but I certainly didn’t expect we’d get clobbered, either. We got the message, however. We have work to do.
• New Democrats: Their win in K-W was significant. Hats off to them. In Vaughan, they were a distant, distant third. They can dismiss that if they like. They probably will, because they’re insufferably pious and pompous. They also have a genetic tendency to equate by-elections with general elections.  I like it when they do that.
• Conservatives: They lost, badly, in Vaughan, when they should have been much more competitive. They were humiliated in K-W, a riding that has been theirs, as noted, for a quarter-century. My biggest concern, now, is that we will lose Tim Hudak, who – as Jacques Parizeau did after the 1995 referendum, blamed voters, sneering in a prepared official statement that they’d been “bought,” quote unquote.  Like Rob Ford, Hudak is a major Liberal asset. I will pray again, tonight, that his party shrugs off the by-elections and sticks with him. Please, God.

We, however, won’t shrug off the results. By-elections aren’t general elections, as every sensible person knows. We got a sent a message in K-W, however, and we intend to heed it. And act on it.

Comments (24)