The grassy knoll in Winnipeg North

“…The end result gave Ms. Javier a paltry 1,647 votes, which NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.) says came largely from a diehard knot of Filipino Conservative supporters who supported the tough-on-crime agenda Prime Minister Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) drew attention to on his only low-profile visit to the riding. Had Mr. Larkin been the Conservative candidate, after having won 5,033 votes and 22 per cent of the vote in the 2008 election, Liberal candidate Kevin Lamoureux, who resigned his provincial legislative assembly seat to contest the byelection, would have lost, the senior Conservative said.

It appears that despite allegations the Conservatives put up Ms. Javier to draw votes from the Liberals, the opposite was the case—Prime Minister Harper and the Conservatives wanted Mr. Lamoureux to win.

Party insiders say there is one main reason: They want Mr. Ignatieff to be leading the Liberal Party into the next general election. Mr. Ignatieff has the lowest personal voter support ratings on the federal scene, perhaps since Brian Mulroney, although not for the same reasons, and he has been unable to bring the party’s support above the 30-per-cent threshold in public opinion polls. Critics say he has no political instincts and makes mistakes. For example, last week he got the Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette riding wrong when he was addressing his caucus.

“If they lost all three, the knives would have been out,” the Conservative said. Another told The Hill Times in an earlier interview after the byelections: “We’re happy Iggy is staying.”

Get that?  Clear?  They wanted to lose, because by losing, they end up winning, despite the fact that they lost, badly.  Understood?

In other news, we have obtained an exclusive photograph of a Senior Conservative Party strategist, hard at work in the party’s war room bunker:


In today’s Sun: by-election winners and losers

As a charter member of the Alberta diaspora, I admit I was rankled by the way the Conservative and Liberal parties – and the central Canadian media, too – seemingly ignored the two Manitoba contests over the one in Ontario. For example, Ignatieff sent his election “A Team” into Vaughan (including senior members of his personal staff), and they got clearly out-hustled. The rag-tag Grit gang in Winnipeg’s North End, meanwhile, received proportionately far less support from headquarters – but delivered on the ground, big time.

The Conservatives, too, appeared much more preoccupied with the one Ontario faceoff over the two in Manitoba. While the Cons were never in any trouble in the rural riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette, their decision to drop an extremely weak candidate in Winnipeg North – and if you saw the same interview I did on CPAC, “weak” doesn’t even begin to describe her – helped pave the way for a Liberal victory.


He’s a whore

Our circle of Calgary punks secretly (and not so secretly) adored Cheap Trick.  The Nasties, accordingly, played Cheap Trick tunes, and this one in particular.

Tonight, it seems quite appropriate.  Besides, you’ve gotta love Robin’s outfit.


Hudak vs. Hiller, the civil war continues

…and all of that doesn’t even begin to address the problems associated with Hudak letting in extremists like Ed Kennedy to serve on Ontario Progressive Conservative Party executives, who writes things like:  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.

Tim Hudak’s Conservatives: they’re ready for something, but becoming government isn’t one of them.


A columnist who gets it

First time I have seen an analyst analyze it right.  There’s Ford-ism, and anti-Fordism.

“In politics, sweet are the uses of adversaries.

Worse things could have happened to the Liberal government of Premier Dalton McGuinty than the election — and brash taking of office this week — of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Unfolding before the eyes of the city — and province — will be a case study in the politics of certainty, simplicity and culture war.

There will, naturally, be much giddiness among Ford fans over trouncing the vilified “elites” and taking city hall. Vengeance is ours, sayeth the suburbs and the generally ticked-off.

But such indulgent and unlovely emotion tends to be short lived. Reality eventually bites. Soon enough, the less rabid of Fordians — the swing sorts the premier will presently be wooing — might come to see the limits of slogans, ostentatious frugality, polarization.”


The XX

My daughter intensely dislikes this tune, but I still think it’s catchy.  What thinkest thou, armchair music critics?