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Thursday April 1, 2004
"Oh Sheila, it was horrible! They called me a...a Liberal!!!
The Liberals' new ads, according to reports (I've yet to see them), are "all Paul Martin, all the time." Paul Martin's name. Paul Martin's voice. Paul Martin's image. The word "Liberal" is not mentioned once, save for the legally required disclosure that the party paid for the ads.
The Liberals' election signs, if Warren Kinsella is right that this atrocity is what they're going with, touts "Team Martin" in giant type, and buries "Liberal" (new logo and all) in the bottom corner.
The Liberal hierarchy, namely Martin and his chief lieutenants, continues to stick with a pre-election strategy that basically means running against their own party's legacy.
It's become popular of late to attack Martin for never explaining why he wanted to be prime minister. But I'm starting to think the more interesting question is why he ever wanted to be Liberal leader. Given that his name is the only brand he's interested in selling, wouldn't it have been easier just to start the Paul Martin Party in the first place? That way, he wouldn't have had to waste 13 years of his life campaigning for the leadership of the icky party he now wants no part of.
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Wednesday March 31, 2004
"Stack-out" or cop-out?
Every few months, there tends to be a collective freakout about ethnic politics. In this case, it's been spawned by a three-part series in the Post, and in particular by the nomination defeat of Conservative MP Chuck Cadman. Cadman was knocked off in Surrey North by novice candidate Jasbir Cheema, who apparently had 1,500 loyal Indo-Canadians at his disposal.
Yes, this is unfortunate. And yes, parties need new rules to prevent mass sign-ups - not just to prevent what my colleagues refer to as "ethnic stack-outs", but also to bring some semblance of order to battles like the one that unfolded in Hamilton between Sheila Copps and Tony Valeri. As I explained in a little more detail in my March 18 column, if it were up to me we'd model both our nominations and our leadership campaigns after U.S. primaries, and leave it up to Elections Canada to enforce the rules.
But for now, maybe it's time to stop blaming members of a few ethnic groups for (gasp!) taking an active role in our parties, and wonder where the hell everyone else is. After all, it's pretty hard to accuse Sikhs, Ismailis, or whoever else of some sort of nefarious plot to take over the Liberals or Conservatives when they're only able to do so because nobody else bothers to get involved.
The majority of voters already associate themselves with a particular party. Between elections, they have the opportunity to choose their party's candidate. But with the exception of a few minority groups, they decline that opportunity, and then blame the minorities when they don't like the result.
In the last election, Chuck Cadman received 19,973 votes. Presumably, most of those votes came from Conservatives. If they liked Cadman, by all accounts a decent fellow who first got into politics to help change the justice system after his son was murdered, they should have come out and supported him. Instead, 1,500 members of a single group outvoted everyone else.
Moral of the story: You get the result you deserve. That may not apply to Cadman, but it applies to anyone who would have supported him but couldn't be bothered to come out.
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Tuesday March 30, 2004
The return of the mysterious "grassroots"
Looks like things got a bit ugly in Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot, where the Conservative nomination battle saw accusations that former Liberal MP John Bryden was using public funds to fight his campaign. But since Bryden lost, let's give full credit where credit is due.
Scoring Bryden as their candidate, even if he's a bit of a flake, might've helped the Conservatives' chances in ADFA. But they let the process run its course, and local businessman David Sweet won fair and square. If this had been a Liberal nomination race, and an opposition defector was running, there's no way the party brass would have left it to the grassroots to decide.
If you don't believe me, allow me to recall the sad story of Newfoundland municipal politician Sam Synard. Leading up to the 2000 election, he appeared to have the Liberal nomination for Burin-St. George's sewn up. But that was before Tory MP Bill Matthews crossed the floor, and the party looked to Synard to step aside.
Rather than obliging, Synard ran against Matthews for the nomination. And won. And had the victory upheld by a recount.
End of story, right? Er, not exactly. Invoking a seldom-used technicality (a failure by two of more than twenty polling stations to ensure that voters signed a waiver declaring that they had not voted elsewhere), the Liberals overturned the original result and held the vote all over again. This time, quel surprise, Matthews came out ahead. And the rest, much like Synard's career as a federal politician, was history.
Ensuring that everyone between the ages of 5 and 50 will continue to ignore him...
In the ultimate tribute to mediocrity, NBC has extended Jay Leno's contract through 2009. At least this means Conan won't be getting the 11:30 slot anytime soon, which means he can stay funny for a few more years.
Even more good news...Leno's apparently finished work on a children's book called "If Roast Beef Could Fly". For the love God, if you catch anyone indoctrinating their children with Lenoisms, call Children's Aid immediately. The last thing you want is for them to grow up thinking that the secret to success is driving lame jokes into the ground and kissing Arnold Schwarzenegger's ass.
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Sunday March 28, 2004
Politics is not life and death...
This is precisely what I hate about Ottawa. A great Canadian like Mitchell Sharp dies, and all reporters seem to care about is what bearing his funeral will have on the Chretien/Martin soap opera.
It's called perspective, folks. I know it's hard to maintain when you're operating out of the company town and you're immersed in politics 24/7. But take a step back every one in a while, and you'll understand why so many Canadians find the capital so distasteful.
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Saturday March 27, 2004
Horror fans, take note...
Susan Delacourt reports in today's Star that, for reasons best known to themselves, Tony Valeri and Sheila Copps both agreed to be miked up during their nasty nomination battle earlier this month. The results will be broadcast tomorrow on CBC, which led Susan to observe that this'll be the first time we've seen this sort of footage since Simon de Jong subjected himself to similar scrutiny while running for the B.C. NDP leadership, and was caught on tape asking "Mommy" what to do.
Humiliation like that is hard to top, but Susan's mistaken to suggest that other candidates haven't given it their best shot. Back in 1996, Dwight Duncan - now Ontario's energy minister - entered the provincial Liberal leadership convention a relatively distant third. But that didn't stop him from agreeing to have CPAC follow him around for the entire weekend, presumably in hope that his dramatic come-from-behind victory would be immortalized.
Sadly, it didn't quite work out that way. Instead, cameras captured an increasingly wild-eyed Duncan going to pieces as support failed to materialize and he was knocked out of the race on the thid ballot. If that wasn't bad enough, the candidate was then seen wandering around the convention floor as a succession of disgruntled Duncanites disowned him for having crossed the floor to arch-rival Gerard Kennedy. The piece de resistance came with Duncan's horrified reaction as Kennedy was upset by Dalton McGuinty on the final ballot.
To the delight of Duncan's rivals, CPAC - evidently knowing it had struck gold - replayed the documentary ad nauseum in the weeks following the vote. Just in case CBC fails to follow suit, Valeri and Copps foes would be well-advised to set their VCRs.
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Friday March 26, 2004
So here we go...
It's been almost two years since I've been online. Did you miss me? Did you even notice I was gone?
Blogging, it seems, has gone from being a bizarre ego trip to par for the course for anyone in my line of work. So I promise to make mine as interesting as possible. The great downside of this particular outlet is that it encourages undisciplined writing. So I'll do my best to keep the self-indulgence to a minimum. Of course, that won't stop me from straying from politics into music, sports, and whatever else spices things up a bit.
Do check back often, and keep in touch.
R.I.P., Dom...
I'd really like to start things off on a nice, light note. But that doesn't quite work on such a tough week for anyone in and around Ontario politics.
Many others have already expressed their sadness over Dominic Agostino's passing much more eloquently than I could. So let me just say this: Even when I was a complete nobody around Queen's Park, and couldn't possibly be of any particularly use to him, he always knew my name and treated me like I mattered.
He was like that with everyone, and it wasn't an act; Dom was a real people person, in the way our elected representatives should be but too often aren't. It's a terrible shame that more people won't get a chance to know him.
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