From the deepest Annex
This is totally absurd. Honestly.
For the love of God: the new network hasn’t even broadcast 60 seconds of content, and it’s already generating historically humongous levels of hysteria, histrionics and hyper-ventilating (I love alliterations, guilty as charged, etc.). Get a grip, Maggie!
Among other things, I have never seen a media launch generate so much useful, and free, P.R. Never.
Right about now, I can picture Kory Teneycke grinning, can’t you?
Vital statistics
In case you were wondering, which you weren’t, the new-look www.warrenkinsella.com has apparently surpassed 3 million visits.
That is spread amongst some 560,000 unique visitors, Team Propellerhead tell me.
Suitably impressed comments are of course welcome.
Changey sentence fragments
Made a decision. Fed up.
Making a move.
Stay tuned.
Coastal bound
A headline that will tick you off
…as much as it did for me:
After a grinding, brutal recession – and with many, many families still grappling with hardship and uncertainty – you have to ask yourself: are monkeys running some of the bank P.R. shops?
Prominent bank V.P. Communications, official portrait.
Fun TeeDot mayoralty rumour-mongering
This is now:
And this was then:
Any of you smart spinners out there know how David Miller could successfully execute the flip-flop he’s clearly (and understandably) contemplating?
UPDATE: One of Miller’s inner circle contacted me and advises that a flip-flop on his intentions “ain’t going to happen.” So there you go.
Questioning political bits and pieces
- Cauchon signs up? The former Chretien cabinet minister – who I have always believed would one day make an amazing Prime Minister – has apparently signed on to be the top Quebec guy for Iggy. If true, it’s a clever move by the Liberal leader. Cauchon’s got smarts to spare, and few know the Quebec scene like he does.
- Bevilacqua to run? The loss of Maurizio Bevilacqua will be a big blow to the federal Liberal caucus (as would the rumoured departure of my other friend, Denis Coderre) – big. If he goes for the mayor’s chair in Vaughan, he’d be hard to beat – as would Julian Fantino, who would be running under the Conservative banner to replace Maurizio in Parliament, and who Grits like me admire and like.
- Rocco running last? If he truly is – and, as I recall, John Tory was at about three per cent for much of the pre-Fall period during the 2003 mayoralty campaign, and then went on to nearly win – then signing up my friend Bernie Morton was the way to go (and so too keeping on Sachin Aggarwal as policy chief). Bernie is a campaign manager from the Don Guy/John Rae school – quiet, calm and strategic, and the sort of person you want to have in your corner when the going gets tough.
- Tea Party North? Yesterday’s Ipsos had TeeDot’s chattering classes in a tizzy: Rob Ford can’t be stopped! He’s scary! I’m moving to Vaughan, where Bevilacqua will be mayor! Everyone calm down: Ford ain’t mayor yet. As my brilliant Ipsos chum John Wright would doubtlessly point out, voters are skeptical about scandal stuff – they’ve seen too much of it alleged over the years. What matters, instead, are the impressions that voters form of a candidate over a longer period of time – not a day or two of bad ink.
- “The kiss of death?” Oh, spare me. If Ford thinks his candidacy is assisted by his mouthpiece crapping on the biggest Liberal machine in Canada, he’s a lot dumber than I thought. McGuinty [full disclosure: whose caucus I’ve given comms advice] work with whomever becomes mayor – that’s the kind of guy he is. Ford, meanwhile, is telling the many, many Torontonians who vote Liberal that he won’t represent their interests – and that he’ll bite the hand he needs to feed his city. Not a good way to grow your base, Rush Ford.
- Harper’s nightmare? If they’re serious about mounting an intense and unrelenting public advocacy campaign, Canada’s police chiefs represent a formidable force – and they are a force that could derail the Reformatory/NDP plan to scrap the long gun registry. Can you imagine the next campaign, with local police chiefs standing up at all-candidates’ meetings to denounce the Tory/NDP’s unholy alliance, and their willingness to make Canada a lot less safer? Wow. That would be something to see. And that is a campaign I’d volunteer to work on.
History and memory
I’m heading over to U of T in a few minutes to give a speech to the History, Memory and Politics conference – about the need to continue to be vigilant about organized racism and anti-Semitism. I may mention Anne Frank’s tree, too.