New Tea Party link to Hudak campaign revealed

TORONTO, Sept. 1, 2011 /CNW/ – Tim Hudak’s campaign is importing their campaign strategy from the right wing extremist Tea Party movement, bringing in strategist Michael Prell.

Prell, the owner of Sterling Communications, sells himself as a “strategist for the Tea Party Patriots” and lists Hudak campaign manager Mark Spiro as his “best friend and business partner.” (Acknowledgements, Underdogma, BenBella Books, 2011)

Before joining the Hudak campaign, Prell worked with many Tea Party politicians, including recently receiving a book endorsement from Michelle Bachmann.

The extreme right wing Tea Party movement in the US is routinely exposed for lying, being incoherent, vacuous and deeply divisive.

Yesterday former PC Premier Ernie Eves decried that Hudak’s PCs are becoming “the Tea Party version of Ontario politics,” pointing to how Hudak and right wing extremist MPP Randy Hillier ousted long-time progressive Conservative MPP Norm Sterling.

As usual, Hudak tried to weasel out of responding to Eves’ charge.

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Since the weekend, Hudak’s fart-catchers had been frantically scrambling to keep Ernie Eves’ incendiary speech under wraps.  Or, failing that, they were desperately trying to persuade Hudak’s former boss to decline to repeat his condemnation of what the PC Party has become.

They failed.

So much for Timmy’s plan to get a week’s head start on the election, and some good coverage.

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Or, a picture is worth thousands of lost NDP votes.

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Angelo isn’t just a friend, he’s one of my closest friends. He calls me his little brother, in fact. And I didn’t have a clue this was coming, not a clue, which is how it should be. I saw it on Twitter, like everyone else.

The Star has been exceedingly gracious about his departure, and Official Ottawa seems to be agog. What does it mean? Is it good for Angelo? Is it good for his new boss? There’s lots of buzz in political/media circles.

On Tuesday in the Sun, I will write about my friend, and perhaps tell Official Ottawa some things it didn’t know about Angelo. Or should.

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Ernie Eves blasts Tories who want to bring ‘Tea Party’ politics to Ontario (Tories-Eves-Sterling)

TORONTO – With just days to go until the provincial election campaign begins, former Progressive Conservative premier Ernie Eves is taking aim at members of his own party.

Eves reportedly told an Ottawa gathering that longtime MPP Norm Sterling, who lost the Tory nomination in the riding he’s held for 34 years, wasn’t treated fairly or honestly by the party.

Eves tells Toronto radio station AM640 his comments last week weren’t directed at Leader Tim Hudak or the party, but a few individuals who want the “Tea Party version of Ontario politics” in that riding.

Despite having the backing of former premier Mike Harris and federal minister John Baird, Sterling lost a bitter nomination battle to Jack MacLaren in March.

MacLaren is a former director of the property rights group, the Ontario Landowners Association.

Fellow Tory Randy Hillier, a past president of the landowners, campaigned on behalf of MacLaren and worked against his caucus colleague.

(AM640, The Canadian Press)

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This is extraordinary:

STITTSVILLE – The ouster of MPP Norm Sterling by the Progressive Conservative Party in Carleton-Mississippi Mills was disgraceful, said former Ontario premier Ernie Eves.

“I don’t care who hears this,” said Eves. “The treatment that Norm got from his own party was not very polite, was not fair, it was not loyal, it was not compassionate, it was not even and it was not honest,” he said during an appreciation dinner for Sterling at the Canadian Golf and Country Club on Aug. 25.

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Ottawa is crazy.

Carry on as you were. I plan to.

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