Over at the
Telly, the weekend and holidays crew is writing headlines designed to arouse the irk of the nationalist fringe.
Either that or they didn't notice it's not just the apparent mainlander quoted by Canadian Press as dismissing the Anything But What It Seems campaign.
At least one of the people from Newfoundland and Labrador isn't impressed by the Premier's bout of high dudgeon and he's not a political science professor somewhat removed from reality, err, the front lines of political organizing.
Liam O'Brien points out the bleeding obvious, the so-bleeding-obvious that Memorial University political science professor Steve Tomblin missed it entirely. Sayeth Liam:
“It’s the strangest thing. It takes me back to my Catholic days when you go to confession. We’re getting these people walking up and whispering to us, ‘I’m a provincial Progressive Conservative, but I’m also a federal Conservative,”’ he said.
“They (Tory voters) don’t need to scream it out loud, they just need to mark their X on the ballot.”
That's pretty much what they did in 2004, the last time the provincial Conservative leader had a bit of a disagreement with his federal brother.
Comparing the 2004 and 2006 vote counts shows some slight suppression of turnout in the St. John's area ridings and a slight drop in federal Connie vote. But once the provincial Connies were given dispensation to work for the federal crowd, the numbers moved back up.
Overall though, the population continued its usual pattern of voting anything but Conservative.
That's what they've done in almost every election since 1949. And when they didn't do it, as in the late 1960s, the vote was driven almost entirely by their dissatisfaction with the provincial Premier of the day.
Like say 1997, when the locals were so rotted with the provincial government and Brian Tobin (Lloyd Matthews, father of Danny's Liz as health minister) over health care, that they bucked the trend and turned out a bunch of Connies even in formerly safe Liberal seats.
Poof.
Times change.
The irk subsides.
Every sign that voters are going back to their usual voting patterns not just here but across Atlantic Canada.
Up pops young Mr. Tobin to proclaim that he is leaving the premier's job behind and heading back to Ottawa - notwithstanding his promise of just a few months earlier he'd finish the full second term - to lead a joyous crusade for something or other and set it as his personal mission to restore Liberal seats in Atlantic Canada.
Restore Liberal seats.
When the polls showed voting patterns returning to the historic norms and seats which had gone Connie or Dipper in 1997 would be returning to the Gritty crew.
And some less than observant observers vowed it would be possible what given that young Mr. Tobin was wildly popular, a brilliant political strategist and able to walk on water, heal the sick and turn water into Jockey Club at the drop of a hat.
Miraculous lad, that young Brian, said all the sayers of sooth.
Had a bit of trouble with the fishes, though, but other than that a wonderful popular fellow who at no point had an ulterior political motive like say becoming prime minister. Pay no attention to that guy behind the curtain holding fund-raisers.
He's just going back to Ottawa on a mission for the people and he will produce a voting miracle.
But you see the pattern, right?
Predict something that usually happens and the rubes will think you are a genius.
It's the stuff of a late-night infomercial by The Amazing Ruth and her Psychic Bunions.
It does point out the weakness in all the drivel about Danny being pissed because Steve fooled him and so now Danny is going to make Steve pay by campaigning against him.
That weakness being the lack of tangible evidence the Provincial Conservative will have any sway with voters anywhere at all, including locally when it comes to federal politics.
'Cause, as Liam points out, in the secret ballot box where even the dogsbodies sniffing out the unfaithful for their master cannot go, there's no way of knowing what a given person does in the secrecy of the ballot box.
That little reality would be galling if that's what the dogsbodies' master really had as his political goal in the Anything But Reality campaign.
Not everything is as it appears, even on a Blackberry screen.
-srbp-
Eats, shoots and leaves update:
There are typos.
Untied instead of united? That's a typographical error in which letters are tapped out of sequence.
Then there are spelling problems. Typing sediment when you meant sentiment. Or tudor when you meant tutor.
No matter how you try and explain those, there is no way that those misuses of words are a function of fingers hitting the wrong keys.
Then, there are problems with punctuation.
Turns out that the headline on the story linked above is the original Canadian Press headline.
Almost.
The CP version had a colon between the word "Ontario" and the word "commentator". The colon suggests that the words before it are a paraphrase of a comment made by the commentator.
In this instance, there's a slight difference to the two headlines given the punctuation variation.
The Telly headline suggests that the commentator from Ontario isn't impressed. That's true, if you read the story, but the CP version gives the sense of the comments in the story story, namely that voters in Ontario won't be impressed.
All of this may only bother a handful, but when you are trying to communicate an idea clearly, everything from spelling to punctuation to verb tense to getting the words in the right order can affect what idea the reader sees.
For those who are troubled by punctuation, for those who do not know the difference between a colon and a semi-colon, there is help:
Your humble e-scribbler has looked for this book in a local bookshop for some time now. The heavens aligned recently and delivered it at a second-hand bookstore in Mount Pearl, in pristine condition and for only a handful of bucks.
Lynne Truss gives a master class in punctuation using simple sentences and plenty of humour.
What more could you ask for?
