03.19.2012 07:18 AM

Define or be defined, ad nauseum

Define or be defined.

Said they were gonna do it, now they’re doin’ it.

Say it again: Rae’s record can’t be erased. It’s a disaster. If the Grits go into 2015 with him as the leader, and without an arrangement with the NDP, turn out the fucking lights.

Define or be defined. It ain’t something.

It’s everything.

75 Comments

  1. CM says:

    Why today all of a sudden? Why during the week of the NDP convention. Are their internal numbers showing them something? The problem with this may be that most people in Canada — especially during the robocall scandal will — will not care and just see it as more of the same Conservative hyper-partisanship.

    • AP says:

      I see your hyper-partisan comment proves the point. Look man eventually Canadians will tire of all this shit and just throw the Consevatives out.

    • Dan says:

      I’m not surprised at all. If I was a Con this is exactly the type of ads I would be running. Rae can’t hide his record, which is why I wouldn’t favour him to be the next Liberal leader

  2. Dave B says:

    It seems so simple. Why does it appear that the leadership in both the NDP and the Liberals seem so out of touch with this issue?

    • frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

      Mr. MacKay promised not to hold merger talks with the CA(which was only as good as the wet napkin it was written on) John Crosbie thundered “No to the Reform undertakers!”
      Months later they were both enthusiastic supporters of merger between the PC’s and the CA(as I was….{{shudder}}…
      So people can change very quickly…..

  3. Cath says:

    Not only did THEY say they were going to do it WK but you did also….and why not? With Rae there’s so much baggage to choose from. What’s more is that every Ontarian that was in the province when Rae was Premier are going to be able to identify with the message in the ad.

    • Michael says:

      Or already knows it and can make up their own mind.

      Instead of comparing Rae’s past and potential attack ads to Dion and Ignatieff, we should compare him to Harper.

      It’s not like Harper doesn’t have the same skeletons from the time he was head of the NCC or his time in opposition. If you took what he wrote and said during that time at face value he would have a hard time getting elected dog catcher. But it’s been out there so long and everyone knew about it. Attack ads could not frame him in the electorates mind.

      The same can be said of Rae. His record as Ontario premier is well known. Everyone already has their opinion and impression of him. An attack ad is not going to change that, it will only make the Conservatives look churlish.

      • Cath says:

        there’s a reason why the NDP have never again been elected to government in Ontario.
        That reason is Bob Rae and a long memory.

        • JenS says:

          While I agree that Rae carries a lot of baggage that simply can’t be overcome, was likely the wrong choice for interim leader and is definitely NOT a choice for permanent leader, I think it’s a massive, enormous over-simplification to say the reason Ontario hasn’t had an NDP government since Rae left office is Rae. We didn’t have one in the 20, 30, 40 years before that, either. The NDP in 1990 was elected mostly out of protest, not out of some sudden left-leaning in Ontario. No one was more surprised to find an NDP Ontario government in place in September, 1990, than Bob Rae.

  4. Lance says:

    The third place loser, a failed Ontario premier, from a leadership convention two elections ago that saw subsequently decreasing returns from those two very guys that finished ahead of him. THAT is what the Liberals want to use to personify “Liberal renewal”, the key to moving forward?

    Well, okay then.

    • frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

      As someone who has only joined the Liberal Party recently(2years)……all I can say is that prior to Mr Rae……the Liberal brand in my riding was dead…..Mr Rae has breathed life into a moribund party….which his predecessor’s did nothing, as far as my riding was concerned, to address…The Liberal party, at least out West. quite frankly was in need of a rather large enema.
      Much more work needs to be done…..but at least the party has made a start……
      For that reason I support Mr. Rae fully, and until someone better waiting in the wings comes along, I will continue to support Mr. Rae…..

  5. MC says:

    Totally in agreement on this. Liberals (and the NDP) should harness the creative class who are aligned with them and start now to outsource the creation of ads, viral videos or other forms of messaging. Fundraising for this specific purpose might be an idea as well. They would have an advantage in this that they are not taking advantage of. And they’re missing an opportunity with the voter suppression scandal.

  6. Michael Behiels says:

    The Reformatories use their flush bank accounts to change the channel away from their fraudulent and illegal election dirty trick of suppressing Canadians’ Charter right to vote against CP crooks!

    Warren is right. Rae will drive what is left of the Liberal Party into the ditch in 2015 unless the Libs are taken over or merge with a troubled NDP.

    I argue no merger or takeover will happen until the Libs are reduced to a mere rump of MPs as was the case for Mulroney’s sad PC party in 1993.

    It is all about power. Mulcair as head of NDP will devour what is left of a hapless Rae Lib rump.

    Be patient and watch it happen.

    In the interim keep denouncing Harper’s Reformatories for destroying Canadian democracy one institution at a time.

  7. Philippe says:

    Canadians know Rae’s record. You can’t define a politician that’s been around a long as he has. Let’s not pretend there’s any candidate out there the Cons won’t attack.

  8. Joe Harrington says:

    I’ve ripped my LPC card in two when Rae became interim leader. If the LPC wont listen to thier younger core members and instead want to continue to listen to the ‘establishment’ then they will get what they wished for….obscurity.

    I have also ripped my OLP membership card in two as well, butthat is entirely another story.

  9. billg says:

    Michael Behiels: the cons bank account is flush because they get way more money from Canadians then any other party, figure out why they do before bitching about it. Second, please name the democratic institutions that Mr Harper has destroyed over the past 6 years.

    • smelter rat says:

      The CWB for one.

    • Ted B says:

      you mean they get way way more money from taxpayers, billg? They are and always have been the most taxpayer subsidized party by far.

    • Ted B says:

      “please name the democratic institutions that Mr Harper has destroyed over the past 6 years.”

      The House of Commons.

      Committees of Parliament.

      Rights and Democracy (the NGO).

      Statistics Canada.

      And while these may not all be “democratic institutions”, there are these 87 plus organizations that Harper has gutted if not destroyed and they are all part of the fabric of our democracy.

    • Michael Behiels says:

      Read and weap Billg.
      Your critics are legend!
      Harper’s CP also get millions from Oil & Gas and Potash corps in western Canada.
      Harper’s is a government for and by the humongous resource corps & financial institutions that underwrite them.
      Harper’s gang loathes the working people, especially those who belong to unions and fight for fair wages and hard earned benefits.

    • frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

      Well Bill G, they have practically every fundamentalist church member in Canada throwing dollars at them…..not to mention hordes of workers urged on from the pulpit come election time…….
      None of the other parties(save Christian Heritage), thankfully, pander to this crowd……

  10. Sean says:

    A few things:

    – They are just repeating things which people already think / know of Rae. This is very different than Ignatieff and Dion, who were pushed into downward spirals because people didn’t know much about them.

    – Having said the above, I’m strongly of the view that most Canadians don’t give a shit about what happened 20 years ago.

    – This is especially true when it is well established that Harper has done far, far worse. We are seeing record unemployment, record deficits, rampant corruption, multiple election fraud scandals. People are giving up on Canada because it is being run by a pack of lying, thieving goons who fundamentally hate this country. All the while we are bombarded with tax funded lies about how the Cons are doing nice things for the economy.

    – Why are the Tories making ads about the Liberals when the NDP is on the eve of a Leadership? B/C the Tories know what everyone else knows… The NDP is irrelevant.

  11. billg says:

    Sean: “people are giving up on Canada”. Really? Where? Who? What kind of people give up on their country just because its not the govt they voted for? Your forgetting the one province the Liberals HAVE to win to form any kind of govt, and, Ontarians remember Rae. You think swing voters would put an X beside Mike Harris if he was the CPC leader? The NDP is irrelevant?
    Seems to me that kind of thinking didnt help out much in the last election.

    • Ted B says:

      “What kind of people give up on their country just because its not the govt they voted for?”

      Maybe the kind of people who write angry whiny proto-separatist firewall letters.

      Or the kind of people who don’t really mind all that much if the country breaks up because they don’t like the current government and believe “Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be.”

  12. William says:

    Bob Rae is not the guy the LPC should go with.

    That said, there’s an infinite degree of hilarity for the Harperites, not one year into their majority mandate, to be going after the interim leader of the 3rd place party.

    If a carcass has been picked clean, why give it notice?

    I’d like to see what those internal CPC polls are saying.

  13. kre8tv says:

    The bad news is that this is entirely expected. The good news, of course, is that it means the LPC, despite having been reduced to third-party status, still warrants this kind of scorched earth campaign in the estimation of the Cons and the big money that runs its operation…a full four years ahead of any election (and yes, days before a doozy of a budget). And here I thought the old red tent had been written off.

    The curious thing is that what this kind of now-familiar play could do is make the argument for unite the left more compelling. But of course, that’s just kooky talk. What do guys like us, know, right?

  14. William says:

    I wonder if this isn’t a small tactical grenade in advance of next week’s budget.

    Perhaps the cuts won’t be as deep and deficit reduction will take longer than expected.

    Maybe they are planting a picture of bad manager Bob to, once again, play the dance partner to “he was worse”.

    It’s either that or trying to change the channels from robocalls……….either way, the cowards come out when the HoC isn’t sitting.

    • Philip says:

      This also gives Conservative MPs something else, other than election fraud, to talk to their pissed off base about while back in their ridings this week. Come to think of it, the Conservative Party hasn’t cranked up their hate machine in a couple of months now. Maybe they were afraid it had gotten rusty? Either way I’m sure we will all get treated to the bi-polar display that is the current Conservative Party, as it careens between manufactured rage and self-pitying victimhood.

  15. Anne Peterson says:

    I’m inclined to like anyone the conservatives attack. It has come to the point that they lie so much about everyone their attacks have become discredited.

    • Windsurfer says:

      Ya but, you notice there are more CON-TROLLS on this board than ever. What is that telling you?

      This board is one of 50,000 out there but I would say it’s the pulse of the resistance, so let’s destroy it.

    • Lance says:

      So what in that ad was a lie?

      • Lance says:

        Further, if their attacks have been “discredited”, then why do they work so well? Why would they continue to do them?

  16. dave says:

    Clever stuff by the Conservatives: They are not officially running the ad attacking Bob Rae on the day of the by election, but they have sucked in the media to tell everyone what is in the ad, and even to run parts of the ad. Bob Rae was on 2 all news channels commenting on the ad, then Jason Kenney pretty well told both programme moderators that his party had snookered the media into making this a big story on the day of the by election. (Kenney looked like the con who just cannot resist telling you that he has conned you.)
    Clever stuff, Conservatives!

  17. Realist says:

    I find it really interesting that the Tories launched this campaign while Rae is still “interim” leader, a full three years before the next election.

    You’d almost think they want to make sure Rae doesn’t become permanent leader. I wonder why that is.

  18. Gtoronto says:

    Probably a grandson of a CPC riding president in Alberta made a crappy video and everyone runs for cover.

    This is why Canadian politics has become amateur hour, dirty tricks on the right, ideological baffle gab on the left and political infighting down the middle.

    I really feel sorry for our country.

  19. Geoffrey Laxton says:

    Who is Rick McKnight? No one seems to know who the mystery employee for robocall company RackNine really is
    http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/19/who-is-rick-mcknight-no-one-seems-to-know-who-the-mystery-employee-for-robocall-company-racknine-really-is/

  20. william smith says:

    My point entirely in the original post that condemned Harris as the worst premier. But if 20 years of brainwashing by the SunMedia folks can turn the facts in a fashion worthy of admiration by the big ‘un Goebbels, than the Cons have succeeded in creating a myth and perpetuating the style of “If I said it, it must be true!” so dearly loved by the Cons. What’s that old saw – repeat something often enough……..! We have to beat these bastards down at every turn and rebut lies with facts.

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