Just notice in the by-election follow up media how much the Premier and others – including Memorial University profs like Alex Marland and Michael Temelini - base their assessment of the importance of Marshall Dean’s win in the Straits pretty much exclusively on how popular Danny Williams is showing in the polls.
Just notice it.
Pretty well exclusively.
It doesn’t really matter, they say, because we are/he is hugely popular.
Just keep that in mind.
Polls.
Popularity.
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When the political going gets tough, what better way to handle it than to launch a phoney jihad against a completely imaginary enemy over a completely imaginary dispute:
The Premier is gearing up for another fight on the national stage. Danny Williams says Hydro Quebec continues to try and block this province from developing the Lower Churchill, now refusing to sign onto a water management agreement for the Churchill River in Labrador.
For starters, Danny Williams is only pissed at Hydro-Quebec because they aren’t willing to take the ownership of the Lower Churchill he offered then. It’s not that they are so interested in the LC and Danny that they are blocking him, it’s really bothering him that Hydro-Quebec just isn’t interested at all.
And that’s after five years of desperately trying:
[Natural resources minister Kathy] Dunderdale told VOCM Open Line show host Randy Simms on Friday morning that over the past five years, the Williams administration “got a path beaten to their [Hydro Quebec’s] door” in an attempt to have HQ become what Dunderdale described as an “equity partner” in the Lower Churchill.
Dunderdale described the Lower Churchill “piece” as a “win-win” for Hydro Quebec. She said that despite efforts by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador there was “no take up [from Hydro Quebec] on the proposal.”
But the biggest thing you have to consider on this water rights agreement thingy is that if the two parties – NALCO and Churchill Falls-Labrador Company – can’t reach and agreement on their own, the whole thing will be settled legally and finally by the public utilities board.
No big public, hair-mussing fuss required.
Danny Williams knows this because that’s what he amended the law to say in preparation for just such an event.
Well, okay first the provincial government tried to screw with the contract – as someone else tried in the 1980 water rights case - but they got caught red-handed in that little bit of tomfoolery.
While Williams and his ministers tried to downplay it at the time, they were caught so far in the wrong they even had to call an extremely rare emergency session of the legislature to deal with the mess created by someone’s childish legalistic game.
Anyway, that’s another story.
CFLCO not interested in the deal on water rights Williams wants?
Well that’s no problemo.
The whole thing just falls along according to amendments made to the Electrical Power Control Act in 2007 by none other than Danny Williams’ own administration.
The public utilities board – headed by Williams’ new buddy Andy Wells – just imposes a deal on the two sides:
5.5 (1) Where 2 or more persons to whom subsection 5.4(1) applies fail to enter into an agreement within a reasonable time, one or more of them may apply to the public utilities board to establish the terms of an agreement between them.
(2) Where an application is made to the public utilities board under subsection (1), the board shall establish the terms of an agreement for the purpose of achieving the policy objective set out in subparagraph 3(b)(i).
(3) An agreement established by the public utilities board under subsection (2) is binding on the persons named in the agreement.
Poof.
Job done.
Pas de sweat.
And lookit, the company involved here isn’t Hydro-Quebec, it’s the Churchill Falls-Labrador Corporation. That’s the company in which the provincial government’s energy company – NALCOR - owns a 65% stake.
And if you are still not convinced this is all yet another case of Tory dog-wagging, just consider that this evil foreign demonio Hydro-Quebec hates Williams so much and is working so hard to block the Lower Churchill they were will to sign a deal allowing energy from Labrador wheel across their province.
Wheel power and they make millions off the wheeling charges. Gee, that’s really putting obstacles in the way of the Lower Churchill. Yep, what better way to block the Glorious Lower Churchill project than demonstrating that Danny Williams can wheel power through Quebec to some other market than Quebec without any obstacles.
So what is all Danny Williams’ puffed chest really about?
Not even Ed Martin - the head of the provincial government’s energy company - seems to know.
But if one Ed doesn’t, maybe your humble e-scribbler can offer some easy suggestions on what issues are causing the provincial Conservatives to go hunting for a distraction:
- The by-election in the Straits is really not going well at all for the Tories. Then there’s Terra Nova to fight where the Tories haven’t even got a candidate yet and the Liberals wound up having two to pick from. Eight cabinet ministers in one day and four trips by the premier Hisself don’t seem to be working on the voters, at least not the way it is supposed to work.
Very frustrating when the old tricks don’t work any more.
- It’s really, really, really painful to make one decision and then be forced to make another. Think Danny Williams and the whole lab and x-ray thing. Jerome Kennedy confessed just this past week to what some of us have known all along: the decision to chop service was made by the entire cabinet.
That’s why they all stuck so hard to the line about “improvements.
That’s why they resisted changing their minds right up until the point they had no choice.
That’s why they tried desperately for weeks to try and blame someone else for the shag up rather than the people who actually shagged up.
It really bruises the ego to lose.
- And that’s on top of a string of “losses” including the Gros Morne one. Again, as much as they tried to downplay it, the whole emergency session of the legislature must have deeply embarrassed cabinet.
- There’s also the ongoing embarrassment of Paul Oram coupled with his decision to up and run when the going got tough. A cabinet minister resigns hot on the heels of another, thereby creating a mini-crisis in the government? Not a way to make the leader feel cheery. Paul Oram took himself off a raft of Tory Christmas card lists with his poorly executed exit.
- Unflattering comparisons to Roger Grimes? Lighten up a bit, people. It’s a joke.
- Let’s not forget the admission that the provincial Conservatives haven’t been doing such a fine old job of managing the public purse as they’d claimed. The word Oram used was “unsustainable.” Finance minister Tom Marshall said much the same thing.
- Then there’s the revelation that the government’s satisfaction rate ain’t what it was purported to be by the government’s own pollster. Between the opposition and local media, three recent CRA polls – never released publicly before – show that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador told CRA one thing but CRA told the public something else. The truth is sometimes painful but it does come out.
- Then there is the ongoing frustration of the Lower Churchill. As a story in the Telegram noted [not available online], NALCO has to go back and answer a whole bunch of questions for the environmental review on the Lower Churchill and that is now behind schedule. That’s on top of the lack of partners (see above), lack of markets - think Rhode Island - and the huge embarrassment to the government of being forced to abandon their original plan of slinging power lines through a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
On the whole it has been a very rough patch for the ruling Conservatives, at least from their perspective over the last six weeks and a bit more.
And what better place for provincial Conservatives to engage in some traditional Tory dog-wagging than the annual convention in Gander.
After all, that’s where ABC was born, at a time – as the House spending scandal broke in 2006, among other things – when things didn’t look all that rosy for provincial Tories in the short term.
Come to think of it, Loyola Sullivan packed it in not long after that, as did Paul Shelley and a few others.
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If it seems to you that there have been more by-elections since 2003 than at any comparable previous time in recent political history, you are absolutely correct.
Twice as many, in fact.
On average there was one by-election per year between 1982 and 2003. But in the period of the provincial government’s greatest prosperity, politicians have been leaving their jobs on average at the rate of two per year.
There have been a dozen by-elections in the six years since the provincial Conservatives returned to power in 2003. In the six years before that there were only seven and in the entire period of Liberal rule – four Premiers and 14 years – there were 16.
And just to really drive the point home, in the seven years between Brian Peckford’s massive victory and the fall of Tom Rideout’s Tories in 1989, there were just six.
The Conservatives have also shed more cabinet ministers compared to any administration since 1982 and lost them in unusual or controversial situations.
Former Tory leader Ed Byrne resigned to face corruption charges. Former leader Loyola Sullivan left politics in a complete shocker later that same year. Paul Shelley resigned suddenly in early 2007. Since the 2007 general election, Tom Rideout packed it in during a dispute over road paving work. Trevor Taylor walked in the middle of controversies over health care cuts, fisheries and forestry affecting his district and Paul Oram pulled pin a week after Taylor amid controversy over health care cuts.
Here’s the data:
1. Number of by-elections since October 2003: 13
* Cabinet minister Paul Shelley resigned in early 2007 necessitating a by-election in Baie Verte-Springdale. In the event, the by-election wasn’t called until late in the year with a date a few days before the general election. The writ for the by-election was vacated by the general election writ. The seat was won by Tom Rideout who resigned the next year.
2. Number of by-Elections in same period before 2003 (i.e. 1997 to 2003): 7
- Trinity North
- The Straits & White Bay North
- St. Barbe
- Port de Grave
- Humber West
- Bonavista North
- Conception Bay South
3. Number of by-elections between 1989 and 2003: 16
4. Number of by-elections between 1982 and 1989: 6
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Count the number of Tory cabinet ministers lining up to tell the people of the Straits and White Bay North this simple little message:
We screwed up. We are sorry. Please, puhleese vote for our guy. We are sorry. We have spent a lot of money on you. We are sorry. Oh and did I say how sorry we were?
Jerome Kennedy. Tom Hedderson. Two classic examples.
Could make for an interesting audio compilation, but in the short term it’s a huge clue as to how desperate things are getting for some people in the current by-election.
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Signs that things are not good in some parts of the province for some people:
1. The Other One Percent: Danny Williams rockets into Flower’s Cove a few days after advance polls and announces he’s managed to find the last one percent under the cushions of his Avalanche. Lab and x-ray will stay in Flower’s Cove regardless of who wins the by-election.
2. How many shifts of position does that make? It really depends on how many shifts of position you want to count.
In Flower’s Cove alone, a suggestion last February from the regional health authority to reduce clinic hours in the community as a way – theoretically – to save money was never implemented because cabinet ponied up the cash.
Suddenly and inexplicably that became a decision - by cabinet as it turned out - announced in August to cut operating hours and take out lab and x-ray service.
On top of that there was a review of x-ray and lab services everywhere in the province.
As the by-election started in the Straits and White Bay North, the clinic hours miraculously reappeared.
Then the lab and x-ray cuts became mere possibilities if savings could be found.
Then the review went into the “Doubtful it will be finished” pile.
Then suddenly the Premier was 99% sure the lab and x-ray service could be saved.
But only 99% sure.
And now it’s 100% back.
That’s eight shifts and it doesn’t even begin to count the finance minister flip flops on whether there is cash for everyone or things are tight and previous decisions were unsustainable.
3. Who actually made the decision? Paul Oram claimed he made the fateful decision in late August. No one really contradicted him directly but the Premier said early on that the decision were know before Oram became minister. Maybe Ross made it.
After Oram resigned, the Premier told someone on the campaign trail that “Paul Oram had proceeded on the basis of recommendations made to him by the health authority.” The story was picked up in the local paper.
Now it turns out that isn’t true.
Well, at least according to Jerome! Kennedy it isn’t true. In an interview with Here and Now on Thursday, the former finance minister and current health minister Kennedy told Debbie Cooper that the decision to cut lab and x-ray service was not made by Paul Oram but by cabinet. Paul was just the messenger boy.
That means that Jerome and Danny made the decision - along with every other cabinet minister in the district St. Anthony is in - a fact they didn’t disclose as they started campaigning and began switching positions.
4. Who’s fault is it anyway? Apparently, Jerome was in a fessing up mood on Thursday. He told VOCM that this has been a useful exercise for government since it forced government to look at the issues and admit they were wrong.
That’s pretty good for a guy who only a few days ago was admitting to the same media outlet that he and his cabinet colleagues would be playing the whole issue of lab and x-ray and the by-election by ear and see how it went.
Evidently making it up as you go along isn’t a good strategy after all.
5. How many ministers can dance on the end of a line? Pretty well all of them, if the radio call-in shows are any indication.
Shawn Skinner was charming if not a wee bit patronising as he recounted how Trevor Taylor had taught him so much about rural Newfoundland in their discussions around the cabinet table and in caucus.
Best of the bunch? Kevin O’Brien, the minister of permits and licenses for two reasons.
First he talked about much money this government had spent in the district and allowed that they wanted to keep doing that. Sounded a bit like a threat, it did.
Second – and the best bit – was when he stumbled repeatedly trying to remember the name of the district he was in. Finally O’Brien blurted out something like how great it was to be in the district St. Anthony was in.
Evidently he wasn’t in the same cabinet meeting as Shawn.
6. Things are that bad, eh? During his report on Here and Now, CBC’s David Cochrane referred this evening to senior Conservatives who admitted to him that the race was tight in the Straits. If the Tories are admitting even that much, along with Danny’s win-or-lose-ya-got-it-back, you can guess the Tory campaign shows the Liberals out in front.
That would also explain the steady barrage of cabinet ministers and Jerome’s repeated admissions of mistakes and errors and acceptance of blame. Odds are good the Tories are trying everything, including backing as far away as possible from their usual arrogance to try and win over every vote they can.
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On September 10, 2009, then health minister Paul Oram gave a version of the health care cuts decision that contradicted what his boss was saying.
On September 21, 2009, then health minister Paul Oram said that his own administration had boosted spending to levels that were unsustainable.
That was an amazing admission that the province’s finances were in such a horrendous state. Until then virtually every cabinet minister had claimed the opposite.
Paul’s talk of cuts prompted your humble e-scribbler to remind the universe of a previously unsuccessful health minister whose daughter now works for the Premier and of the current Premier’s own phrase when talking about a previous administration. But that was just fun.
On September 29, 2009, then justice minister Tom Marshall turned up on a local call-in show to discuss the province’s finances.
Marshall said a whole bunch of things that tended to affirm Oram’s statement, although Marshall – who had been finance minister for the highest of the high-spending years never actually said the word “unsustainable.”
But notice that it was Marshall delivering the message.
Not Jerome Kennedy, the guy actually holding down the title of finance minister at the time.
But Tom Marshall, the former finance minister, calling from his ministerial office in Corner Brook.
This was the day Danny headed off for a gigantic swan hobnobbing with the international environmental hoi-polloi that ran from the 30th of September to October 2.
On October 1st – and despite his previous insistence that the cuts at Flower’s Cove and Lewisporte were carved in stone - Paul restored at least some of the previous cut in Flower’s Cove.
Danny got back on the weekend.
On Monday, Paul told Danny he was leaving. That’s by Paul’s own version of the timing.
Paul heads off to Buchans for an emergency town meeting, called very hastily by the provincial government Tuesday morning.
The next morning, Oram ends it all, politically, in front of the House of Assembly.
Of course, Oram has some cock and bull set of talking points about health issues and the pain his family suffered and the evils of the CBC none of which explained why he was not only bailing out of cabinet but hauling ass out of politics altogether.
Oram was slitting the wrists of his own political body and yet he was blaming someone else for wielding the blade.
One of the examples Oram cited as painful was having his wife’s name on the television news in connection with the family business.
Odd that Paul Oram backbencher had no trouble with his wife’s picture and name being in a Labrador newspaper when she and her husband travelled to Labrador west talking about opening a new personal care home in the area. Anyone got a picture of that to share for posterity?
But that’s to get away from the real oddity here namely the appearance of the former finance minister a week or so before he got the job back again to tackle a finance issue when there was a perfectly serviceable finance minister more than capable of sorting out the whole issue. And to really add to the oddity, the formerly serviceable finance minister has now become the health minister.
The timing and the comments all seem a little curious.
One of the Premier’s most loyal foot soldiers leaving politics so quickly is highly unusual in itself.
The context might make it more unusual.
And if that’s the case, then Paul’s reference to Danny Williams as having been a father figure to him?
Well, that’s just likely to give a body the heebie jeebies.
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In other instalments in the Kremlinology series, we introduced you to Trevor Taylor. There were a couple of signs that things were not right with Trevor Taylor and his relationship with the current administration.
Until today he was a cabinet minister in the Danny Williams crew. He’ll be resigning his seat in the legislature next week.
Taylor pulled pin unexpectedly Thursday, announcing he was off to a new gig with a not-for-profit interested in Arctic ecology. According to Taylor, he is going for personal reasons. He said he made the decision a month ago, told the Premier a week and a bit ago and dropped it on cabinet today.
There’s a new job waiting for him that will involve working with a not-for-profit on fisheries management in places like the Beaufort Sea.
The real reasons are likely contained in all the pre-emptive denials Trevor tossed out in his scrum:
- He still loves Danny
- No dissention or tension
- Not running federally
- Nothing to do with Flowers Cove
Politics is hard on the personal life and when things get tough on issues like Flowers Cove, forestry and the fishery – all big issues in Taylor’s neck of the woods - family members often bear the brunt. The fact that Taylor hasn’t been able to make any headway with his cabinet colleagues on those issues doesn’t help.
His tone during the scrum seems stressed. This is a guy who doesn’t appear to want to leave politics. If he has issues within his family, a job that will take him over North America and involve work at the opposite end of the country doesn’t sound like a recipe for spending more time with the kids, as the phrase goes.
For his part, the Premier praised Taylor and said it might take until next month to sort out a new cabinet arrangement. A permanent replacement for Taylor would take longer. Taylor has carried a few stinky parcels for the current administration, including the fibre optic scheme.
Maybe Taylor’s departure speaks to frustration at his inability to change certain minds in the Confederation Building. He spoke about getting into politics to make decisions on certain things. One of them was likely the fishery, interestingly a portfolio from which Taylor was ripped in favour of some old-fashioned thinking.
Trevor Taylor is a relatively young man who – until today – seemed to have a bright political future ahead of him, especially in a post-Danny Williams Tory party. The fact that he decided to pack it in, rather than stick it any longer, might be a sign that kremlinology sometimes works.
Any other cabinet ministers or back-benchers feeling political heat these days?
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The province’s hospitality industry now supports the provincial government’s plans for Gros Morne national park, expressing their belief that a “balance” can be found in the government’s plan to sling hydro lines along 120-foot-high steel towers along the most visible, public portions of the park.
There’s a story in the Western Star from last week.
Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador – the province’s tourism industry association - issued an unprompted and undated statement in early July that said:
…By being an active participant in this process and working with stakeholders to find the best solution, HNL is optimistic that a balance will be found. As business owners, the tourism industry understands the need to be financially prudent in making long term economic decisions and is confident that the long term economic and social impact of Gros Morne to the province is being considered during this process.
That statement appeared around the same time the Gros Morne story reared its head again publicly. It came about a month after the provincial government created a new provincial tourism board. The membership includes a bevy of current and former HNL heavyweights including HNL president Bruce Sparkes.
The language in the statement – especially the bit about being “financially prudent” - matches perfectly the line taken by the Premier that he was prepared to sacrifice Gros Morne’s UNESCO status because the costs of going around the park might possibly, theoretically, be too high. Financial prudence dictated the shortest route, especially if that extra money could be spent on health care instead. Never mind that the province’s energy corporation would be building the lines with borrowed cash not money from the provincial treasury.
The Premier estimated the cost of going around the park at $100 million. The provincial government currently has cash assets on hand of upwards of $1.8 billion.
By the time HNL issued its new position, the “long term economic and social impact” had already been considered of course, and promptly dismissed by the provincial government.
As the Western Star noted, the new HNL language is also radically different from the statement HNL made in February when the towers controversy first appeared. Back then, there was an unequivocal statement that the towers were the wrong way to go:
"Running towers in front of dynamic and dramatic landscape is going to take away from the natural beauty of it," [HNL president Bruce] Sparkes said. [CBC story]
"From a photographic, awe-inspiring point of view, it's going to take away that. And who wouldn't say, 'Gee, too bad they put that pole line there?'"
What hasn’t changed in the government position, as expressed by the Premier:
“When park officials look at what the trade-off happens to be for the benefits we get at the end of day ... I think they will see the benefit,” he said.
Seems like that happened, but not to the park people. Who knows? Maybe the HNL rethink was aided by a few phone calls and e-mails.
What makes the HNL about-face even more spectacular something your humble e-scribbler noted back in early July when the erection story heated up again: “the surest way to put an end to any news story about the threat to Gros Morne from the potentially unnecessary infeed from the Lower Churchill – if that even gets built – is to have the tourism people state publicly that having Gros Morne festooned with steel girders and power lines is just a lot of fuss about nothing at all.”
The tourism people have spoken.
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Another news release of cash for Trevor Taylor’s district but no sign of any comment from the cabinet minister in the official news release from government.
Then again, a news release issued the same day with cash for a different project in the same community and Trevor is there, large as life.
Curious.
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The provincial government’s tourism folks love Gros Morne with all its beautiful views and its UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.
The provincial government’s energy folks want to sling 40-odd metre tall hydro towers through the park because it would be cheaper than going around the park.
So when the Telegram goes to the tourism department looking for a media line on a project that has – presumably – been endorsed by cabinet and therefore all of government, the tourism people suggest that reporter go speak to someone else.
Like the natural resources minister, she who oversees the line slingers.
Now it’s not like the comment was about something outside the tourism department’s mandate. They should have a line on it ready to sling in the event someone asks them about the power line slinging.
But they didn’t.
They instead pointed to the other bunch.
And that’s a bit odd.
It suggests that somewhere in the tourism department there is at least one e-mail, at least one memo perhaps pretty high up the departmental food chain that considers the liner slinging to be “the most serious threat” to any tourism campaign featuring the pristine natural beauty of the province.
There might even be a document of some kind that says that, having looked at the “trade-offs”, the tourism people don’t like the idea of high voltage direct current electricity wire zapping bugs all down through the park.
Because, the surest way to put an end to any news story about the threat to Gros Morne from the potentially unnecessary infeed from the Lower Churchill – if that even gets built – is to have the tourism people state publicly that having Gros Morne festooned with steel girders and power lines is just a lot of fuss about nothing at all.
But they didn’t do that.
The tourism people passed the buck to someone else.
Very curious.
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Years ago, your humble e-scribbler studied Soviet politics.
The tightly controlled, secretive, autocratic society of Bolshevik politics, gave rise to a whole bunch of western academics who tried to figure out the workings inside the seat of power – the Kremlin – by studying all sorts of seemingly insignificant details.
They’d study photographs to see who was standing next to the acknowledged powerful in order to spot either the rise or fall of certain people within the leadership. They’d study the wording of documents to see how things changed and see if that meant something.
There’s a pattern to regimes and so these Kremlinologists would look for changes in the patterns. Then they’d try to figure out what the changes meant.
Sometimes it’s fun to play the old games again.
Like say studying a news release of government money for a project to see if there is anything that doesn’t fit the usual pattern.
Lookee here: a news release announcing that a regional municipal service organization on the Northern Peninsula is getting an $232,000 of provincial money to help it fight fires and look after garbage disposal.
The money is called an “investment.”
Nothing strange there. The current provincial administration doesn’t spend money. It invests public cash in all sorts of things.
Taking out the town trash is called “waste management”.
Again, another classic piece of modern bureaucratese.
Given any government’s record of spending public cash on dubious projects, some wags would suggest that the act of government spending is itself really an exercise in “waste management”, but that’s another tale.
Back to the case at hand:
Things are actually looking pretty innocuous so far.
Quotes?
Yep.
Two.
One from the minister responsible for helping towns fight fires and haul away their refuse, the Honourable Diane Whelan, she of the multiple announcements of money she didn’t actually have.
Another one from the guy running the local crowd that are getting the “investment”.
Another couple of checks in the standard boxes.
Wait a second.
Where’s the quote from the member of the House of Assembly for the area?
If there’s one thing any government of any stripe does, it’s give the local boy credit for “investments” especially when said local boy is one of their own team. Just this week alone, Harry Hunter got a quote added to spending on a school in his district.
Flower’s Cove and environs is in the district represented by Whelan’s cabinet mate ,Trevor Taylor.
Now, Trevor is no ordinary fellow. He ran once for the New Democrats and then, in 2001, was elected for the provincial Conservatives in one of two by-elections on the Great Northern Peninsula.
That two-fer was heralded by newly minted Conservative leader Danny Williams as the first ripples of a Tory tsunami that would sweep the Liberals out and put the Tories back into power.
Trevor’s been in cabinet a while and has carried the can for a number of projects, good and bad. He’s been a loyal soldier and right now he’s got a few thousand constituents up in arms over everything from the downturn in the forest industry to the downturn in the fishery.
The loggers blocked a road this week trying to get a meeting with Trevor. The fisherman plan a protest aimed at the provincial government’s lack of help this week now that they’ve already protested about the federal government’s lack of help.
And it’s not like lesser mortals than cabinet ministers don’t get to hand out the pork.
Tory backbencher Derrick Dalley - a recently appointed parliamentary secretary to the education minister - turned up in the Lewisporte Pilot back in April handing out a cheque from the provincial government for money from a grant program to support sports initiatives. The money was described as a “donation”, the new term for government program spending that isn’t an “investment”.
Derrick’s likely not alone, by the by. Since the spending scandal dried up the slush fund that used to be constituency allowances, the government crowd seem to have discovered the political usefulness of letting the crowd on the back benches do some bacon-doling. His colleagues are out there with cheques, too; they just don’t always make the local paper.
Anyways…
No quote from the cabinet minister of some seniority about spending in his own district at a time when the guy could use the good coverage.
And it’s not like Trevor hasn’t had other shared announcements.
Hmmm.
It’s not like he’s Ray Hunter or something, either.
Ray’s the guy who showed up in the legislature this past sitting to find his desk and chair moved right next to the exit door. He probably had to keep shifting to avoid getting the door in the head every time someone went out for a leak or a smoke.
Ray’s also had to defend himself publicly from accusations by angry constituents that he is not allowed to speak freely within his caucus. Of course, that pretty much confirmed them.
Hmmm, indeed.
Now the thing about kremlinology is that it is one of the more dismal of dismal sciences. Think of it as economics but without the accuracy.
This omission could be nothing at all.
Or it could be a sign.
A sign of something very important.
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