More April Fool’s fun!
KCCCC Day 7: expect the unexpected
- The Stench of Death: That’s what we political hacks and hackettes call the unique odour that assaults our olfactory system when alighting in the campaign offices of a sure-fire loser: the stench of death. The candidate is off-balance and screwing up; the campaign is consistently misfiring; the voters are drifting away, or have, to the other side. I’m not saying that Stephen Harper’s Refomatories are dead – far from it, (a) they’re still a formidable election machine and (b) there’s still a month to go, which is four (4) lifetimes in politics – but, man oh man, are the Tories ever looking like losers. They’ll recover their bearings, I’ll wager, but for now – well, there’s a faint odour, and it’s unmistakable.
- Want proof? A proof is a proof. Here’s proof: here and here and here and here. Harris: “According to the latest Nanos tracking poll, Stephen Harper has managed something of a miracle: He has raised Michael Ignatieff from the political dead…If Mr. Harper goes on to blow a near double-digit lead when this campaign began, (either to win another minority or hand one to the other side), his substitution of messaging for communication will bear a large part of the responsibility. The prime minister uses language to create facts, not to convey them.” And, as I’ve noted in my coming Sunday Sun column, the Cons beleived their own anti-Ignatieff propaganda. Big-o mistake-o.
- Stephen Harper is a liar and a chicken: Rinse and repeat. David Olive, who is way more thoughtful and restrained than Yours Screwly, throws it down, right here. STEPHEN HARPER IS A LIAR AND A CHICKEN. I don’t know who were the morons who, reptilian kitten-eater-like, issued the now-infamous one-on-one debate challenge to Michael Ignatieff on the Conservative leader’s Twitter account. But I’m willing to bet they are now to be found under that infamous Parliament Hill bus – you know, the one under whose wheels so many other Tory staffers inevitably come to rest. “Jenni? Jenni Byrne? Senator Finlay is on the line, and he wants his office back!”
- Buck buck buck! Harper’s disdain and contempt for professional journalists is nothing new – some of us have been writing about it, and pointing out the likely consequences, for years. (To wit, as I wrote in the Post on March 30, 2006, the Harperite media-hatred was going to come back and haunt him – and I even found support for that with Mike Duffy! Said Mike, now a Conservative Senator: “Why would these guys want to get into a pissing match with the Gallery…before an election?”) Now, Harper’s decision to (a) take only five questions from the media every campaign day and (b) refuse to answer questions about that, or misfiring local campaigns, all point voters in one direction: he is, well, you know. And the media are paying him back at the worst possible time.
- The Harper-OLA connection: One of the Reformatory MPs closest to Stephen Harper is Scott Reid. Reid, with Harper’s blessing, was instrumental in last night’s Ontario political shocker – the dumping of Progressive Conservative Norm Sterling by a boss within the extremist Ontario Landowner’s Association. The OLA is slowly but undeniably taking over the Ontario PCs, and forcing out progressives. Who are they? Well, here’s a quote by Edward Kennedy, an OLA founder. It tells you all you need to know about our opponents in the coming provincial campaign: “Typical n****r behavior. Concealed carry would have made the outcome much different. Note if the perpetrators had been White, they would have all got the death penalty for a hate crime against n*****s. And the lieberals wonder why a large segment of Whites hate blacks and distrust them. I am surprised the black bastards did not try to rape them, that is standard fare for n*****s.“
- Internet toys are internet toys: Here we go again – more hysterical right-wing fulminating against the CBC for their “Vote Compass” Internet game thingie. Criminy! It’s for fun, rightist people – it doesn’t make you vote a particular way. If you don’t like it, well, um, don’t use it. And take a Valium, while you’re at.
- Pic of the day: We have two contenders, both featuring the PM, whose campaign images so far have been not so hot:
Caption contest! Mine: “Bring me my senior campaign staff!”
And there’s this one, from MontrealElite, which is my favourite:
“You two closely resemble my campaign co-chairs!”
April Fools!
Stephen Harper, chicken
Chris Blizzard in the Sun: Timmy Hudak is losing it
So far Hudak is doing well in the polls. That’s not because voters like who he is. They like him because he isn’t Dalton McGuinty.
He needs to give voters a reason to vote for him — not against the Liberals.
He needs to show some royal jelly. And he needs to show it now.”
Because it was past deadline, Chris didn’t even get to mention the latest Ontario PC disaster – the so-called law-and-order guys having their star candidate in Pickering hauled off by the cops on fraud charges.
Tim Hudak and his Hillier Hillbillies: they’re tough on crime. But not for themselves.
KCCCC Day 6: Grits up, Tories not
- Holy canoly, was that a wacky day or what? NDP candidates become Liberal supporters. Former Liberal candidates become Conservatives. Conservatives continue to break the rules they put in place. Debate threats issued on Twitter, just like in junior high. Like Mayor Lastman would say: it’s craaaaaazy! Anyway – it was a nutty campaign day, yesterday. But one thing I am hearing all over: Ignatieff and his Liberals are doing better than expected. And Harper and his Reformatories are doing worse than expected.
- Liberals surging! Swear to God, hook me up to a lie detector, I wrote the above bullet before someone in the Lib war room tipped me to the new Nanos numbers – Conservatives 39, Liberals 32, NDP 15. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a race! Why’s it happening? Four reasons, previously canvassed exhaustively in this space in recent weeks: (a) the Conservative ads went too far, and lowered expectations about Ignatieff – and he’s exceeding those expectations, now that he’s got and ad-and-news-coverage parity; (b) Iggy is turning in pretty good campaign effort; (c) Harper is phoning it in – he’s looking washed out and listless (for instance, he looked awful at that in-the-round, no-podium rally yesterday, like a chartered accountant in the middle of an airport line-up), and he clearly had started to believe his own propaganda about his main opponent; (d) Jenni Byrne ain’t Doug Finlay. Big time. It’s still early, early days – but the Libs feel like they have the winning campaign. And they do.
- The Bermuda Triangle of Politicos: The Dippers lose one to the Grits, and the Grits lose one to the Reformatories, here – while the Reformatories lose staffers to scandal on a daily basis, here. I can say that in the case of Genco, he was in my office just a couple of weeks ago, asking my advice about what to do. I asked him if OLO wanted him back. He said Pat Sorbara did, but Peter Donolo didn’t. Donolo won the debate, I guess, and Genco lost the nomination. Genco thereupon threw a hissy fit, and decided to hurt the party that has helped him out so many times. What do I think? Like Rocco Rossi, I think Tony looks like a bloody fool. Liberals – without whom he wouldn’t have had bus fare – will go out of their way to hurt him; principled Conservatives will never fully trust him. He, like Rossi, have become one of the political undead.
- Worst writing of the campaign so far: Earl McRae – who, seven years ago, mocked my father’s death to make a political point, and which I will never forgive – is someone who should have retired long ago. His latest column about Ignatieff, which I won’t even link to, is a damned disgrace. We may ultimately write for the same company, but I won’t hesitate to say when I think a writer has embarrassed himself. This is one of those times.
- Elizabeth May, Professional Complainer: As I opined yesterday, and as others seemingly agree, she has no place in the debates. If the broadcast consortium flip-flops like they did in 2008, I hope lawyers for the Marijuana Party, the Marxists-Leninists and the Yogic Flyers all start suing for a place at the table, too. None of them have seats in Parliament, like May, and all of them get votes right across the country, like May. If she gets in, they should too.
- Lobbyists and campaigns: Speaking as someone who is proud to lobby on behalf of those who fight for the environment, small business, animal protection, the poor, farmers and a tobacco-free Canada, I think this “no lobbyists on campaigns” rule is stupid. STUPID. Advocating on behalf of others is part of democracy – and who else is going to be most enthusiastically involved in democratic contests, but those selfsame advocates? This whiter-than-white piety is just going to push people underground, and make voters more cynical about political parties. It’s idiotic.
- Masticate about fate of debate: Look, if Messrs. Harper and Ignatieff really want to have a one-on-one debate, I have no authority whatsoever from Sun TV to offer them a platform. But I rather suspect Kory and Luc will think it’s a great way to kick off the network’s debut, a couple weeks from now. Meanwhile, as I twittered last night from the Raps-Bucks game (we lost, again), inflatable Raptor – who is a big crowd favourite, with thousands of fans, me included – doesn’t have a seat in Parliament, either. On his behalf, I hereby demand a spot in the debates! Seriously, though, the debate is a big deal – and a possibility for a real game-changer for Ignatieff. Moreover, the timing of the debates gives Harper precious little time to recover from a winning Grit performance. Tune in!
- Pic of the day: Well, it isn’t actually a pic – it’sa vid, and it captures Harper neatly summarizing the kind of campaign he’s been having so far: one “miscue” after another.
The Hudak-Hillier crime fighters
Hudak PC candidate Salman Farooq gets a free ride.
In any event, so much for that Ontario PC tough-on-crime talking point, eh?
Have a nice night, Randy et al.
Darren Kelly
How odd
For a little while, there, I dreamt I lived in a country where the Prime Minister actually threw down puerile barbs, and got into snarky exchanges, with opposition leaders – on Twitter. It was clearly a dream, because no Prime Minister would ever be so juvenile, so idiotic, to do such a thing in real life.
Clearly.