“Just days into the Vaughan federal election campaign, a longtime Liberal Party stalwart and former foe of Conservative MP Julian Fantino has made a stunning about-face and threw his support behind the former top cop, The Citizen has learned.

Former federal Liberal candidate and well-known Vaughan volunteer Tony Genco said in an open letter provided to The Citizen that his change of heart was predicated on the fact that “the Liberal Party I joined over 20 years ago in university has disappeared. The ideas that I tried to represent of balance, diversity and nation-building no longer exist in this version of the Liberal Party. It’s clear the Liberal Party policies do not resonate with the majority of Canadians.”

Holy Rocco Rossi, Batman!  There’s more floor-crossing going on this race than at a square-dancing marathon!

P.S. Way to pick your star candidates, Pat Sorbara!

Comments (30)

“Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is distancing himself from another tainted political organizer who found a home in a local candidate’s campaign.

Giulio Maturi, who was a top official in the campaign of disgraced former Montreal mayoral candidate Benoit Labonté in 2009, was listed as late as Wednesday afternoon as the campaign manager for a Montreal Conservative candidate.

But during a lunchtime news conference, Mr. Harper said Mr. Maturi is no longer part of the campaign.”

What do I think?  I think that the media have endured being treated like doormats by PMO for a long, long time.  The lists, the disrespect, the disdain, the continual bashing of the MSM by Conservative bloggers and partisans.

And, now, the payback is taking place at the worst possible time for the Cons.  This is getting interesting.

UPDATE: Not the action of a guy who is way ahead, this. It’s the action of a guy who might be getting nervous.

Comments (53)

…and forget about what Harper feels about it.

Jack Layton must be spitting nails!

Comments (44)

Roxy Roller Kinsella sits in the sun this morning at Daisy Group, looking for political inspiration to come through the door. She waits. And waits. And waits.

Comments (7)

Check this out.

It would be immodest to suggest that I have this effect on newspaper circulation, so I won’t do so.

Comments (19)

• About those Liberal ads: If you think you’ve been seeing a lot more of them, this campaign, it’s because you have.  Last time around, Stephane Dion, God bless his soul, didn’t want to plumb the advertising depths in the way that Stephen Harper had done.  For ten days into the writ, his senior guys had ads ready to go – but Dion refused to give the green light.  By the time the Red Leaf folks said they were going to run the ads whether the leader liked it or not, the damage was done.  One of my best pals, Bob Richardson, is running Red Leaf this time – and Bob (like me) believes in strike first, strike hard, strike often. You’ll see the impact in next week’s batch of polls.
• The shift begins: As I opined in the Sun yesterday, the Michael Ignatieff depicted in the Conservative attack spots isn’t the Michael Ignatieff Joe and Jane Frontporch are seeing on their TV sets.  That, plus the fact that the HARPER HEADING TO MAJORITY headlines are unsettling for lots of demographics (see below) is hurting the Cons.  Thus this Nanos.  The Tory lead has shrunk considerably.
• Harper’s a Meanie: Hearing this a lot, lately.  At the Ontario budget speech, yesterday, a teacher approached me and said that she’s starting to experience a visceral reaction to Stephen Harper’s M.O.  “He’s so damned mean-spirited, I find it hard to believe, sometimes,” she said.  “My friends feel the same way.”  That demo – female, university-educated and/or youngish – is what denied Harper a majority for the past three attempts. More here and here, from female writers. Will women deny him this time around, too?
• May’s Boring: Look, Liz, we all (me included) wanted you in the debate last time.  Price of admission?  Your suggestion that you would win seats. Well, you didn’t.  You had your shot, you blew it.  When you get invited to the big kids’ table, you have to show you belong.  You didn’t.  You don’t.
• What does a war room do? As I have told every youngster who falls into my clutches at the start of every campaign, OUR JOB IS NOT TO WIN THE WHOLE CAMPAIGN BY OURSELVES. Instead, I tell them, yelling entirely in caps, our job IS TO WRECK THE OTHER SIDE’S CAMPAIGN DAY, ONE DAY AT A TIME. And, if you do that for nine days out of a 36-day writ, you have eliminated the other side’s ability to tell their story for a quarter of the campaign.  And that’s a campaign that cannot win. Thus, poor Sebastien Togneri.  The hapless Tory aide, being probed by the RCMP, helped the Liberal war room to stomp all over Harper’s message of the day on Tuesday.  That’s a win, in my books.
• …speaking of war: We are, for the second time in a short time, a nation at war.  Just before the election started, the Harper Reformatories effectively declared war on Mu’ammar Qadhafi.  They then proceeded to avoid saying anything – anything at all – about the war they committed us to. Where are the media?  Where are the Opposition parties?  I believe it is right to finally dislodge Qadhafi from power – I wrote a book about it – but do you?  And do you agree we need to know more about Canada’s secret war?
• Tim Harper’s back! My chum Harper is back in the Star, and (per usual) doing good work.  Tim highlights the reality of this campaign so far – apart from weird hacks like thee and me, no real people are paying any attention to this race yet.  They won’t for a while yet, either. So, effectively, the race isn’t 36 days long – it’s about 16 days long for all in the race.  That changes perspectives.  Or should.  And it explains why Harper isn’t looking rattled yet.
• Pic of the day: Look, I’m an amateur musician too (and I’m really amateur).  But, having last night spied Harper’s wince-inducing spin on the ivories with that Winnipeg kid who is gaga for Lady Gaga, I think it’s time for the Tory backroom to hang up his piano.  I suck, too, fellas in the Tory war room, but I try not to inflict my lack of talent on national television. Enough, already.  It’s boring and, frankly, embarrassing. Pic, therefore, of the day:

“Please releassssse me, let me gooooo…I don’t want to be part of your photo op any-morrrrrre…”

[Suggest your own caption song lyrics here! – ed.]

Comments (61)

However, Fentie dismissed the attacks from the Liberal benches and suggested that was all the Opposition party had to offer.

During the spring sitting, Fentie chided the Liberals on this count for “running on empty”, and after the spring sitting concluded – the last sitting before Yukoners go to the polls – he said there was not much to dispraise.

“They don’t have a lot they can criticize the government for when it comes to the economy, and to the infrastructure investments,” said Fentie. “So they avert to doing something that is right out of the Warren Kinsella style of politics and that is character assassination.”

Have I mentioned that Dennis Fentie did time for trafficking in heroin? No?

Never mind.

 

Comments (10)

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: it’s going to be controversial. It’s going to be populist. It’s going to be fun.

It is not going to be ideological. Or “Fox News North.”

Comments (23)

Seen here.

Says the irrepressible BCL:

Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Halifax. I don’t suppose that tells us much about who they might be (presumably not the CPoC itself, at least not directly).“

Comments (22)

“There is a great, big paradox at the centre of the Conservative Party’s multiple-million-dollar effort to defame Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. That paradox is this: The reason why the Cons are ahead is because of their attack ad campaign targeting the Grit boss.

And the reason why they will slip behind around the time of the televised leaders’ debates is because of that selfsame ad campaign.”

Comments (26)