Well, not e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e, as was painfully obvious at the Rally for Danny.
Despite the claims of the rally organizers, it looks like about 1500 people showed up on a fine and glorious Friday. None too impressive.
[Photo removed by request] For those who don't know, that was the non-partisan rally organized by DW's political supporters and attended by...well, ...his political supporters, like this gaggle of political staffers (left). That's the Premier's parliamentary assistant standing there in shades, likely keeping an eye on his promotion to cabinet.
Paul Oram's boss worked the crowd like it was a Tory rally and at an appropriate moment took a spot behind the podium to deliver what was likely seen by most to be the keynote. They even chanted "Danny! Danny! Danny"!
The whole thing featured a bunch of speakers, culminating in a few politicos, but the high point was surely DW himself, as would be fitting at a Rally for Danny.
There was Steve Kent, on behalf of municipalities in the province, but oddly enough an aspiring DW candidate, as Bond revealed last January. He'll formally announce tomorrow but Bond isn't expecting a thank you for saving everyone the six months of suspense.
There was Kevin Noble, a fine local actor who has lately taken to calling every VOCM talk show on the go to attack anyone saying anything about DW that might look like criticism. No small irony Noble spent a chunk of his professional time playing Joe Smallwood.
Noble could parlay the whole thing into a kind of eerie one man show in which he plays both premiers simultaneously. Challenge people to guess which one said what.
But I digress.
Then there was a police officer speaking on behalf of police officers.
Yes, at a political rally.
Odd that no one bothered to read RNC Act and regulations.
And there was The-Only-Locally-Owned-Newspaper editor who tried to out-speechify the best political speechifiers. He was evidently taking a break from fearlessly tracking down all the stuff that conforms to his political biases, at least when it comes to the crowd Up-a-long, to give speech which confirmed once again that he is a master at saying one thing and doing another:
"I'm here to say it's time for Newfoundland and Labrador to grow up."
Speak for yourself, there buddy. The rest of us are wondering why the nationalists seem to project personal shortcomings, like immaturity or a lack of self-esteem, onto an entire population.
They all shared the view of the guy singing a song in praise of the Fearless Leader and encouraging him to keep up the fight against the evil enemy of the moment.
Anyway...
All of that is just a way of reminding regular Bond Papers readers that the problems with Harper Equalization problems were well known.
And they were known some time ago.
Well known to everyone, it would seem except Fearless Leader who, during the last federal election, was supporting the guy he has now turned on. The year before that he was trashing Harper - carrying an even better version of the later promise - and sucking on to Paul Martin.
But by 2006, there was this piece for example, that noted the vagueness of the 2005/06 version of Harper's commitment.
Then there was this one that predicted a nasty Equalization fight was on the way.
In March, 2006 - a mere two months after Canada's New Crowd took office - the rest of the world knew what Danny Williams apparently still didn't realize in October. [or did he?]
Then there was the little piece on bullshit, which is the main fuel for most of the Canadian political system apparently.
And even in this seemingly unrelated piece, there is evidence of what Stephen Harper was proposing and how it would benefit the provincial government, at least in comparison to the system the Premier himself proposed originally.
As yes, if only more people read Bond Papers.
or just grew up.
-srbp-