Surreality Check, SJSMP version

Courtesy of CBC's St. John's Morning Show:

1.  Revanchism Redux.  NL First candidate Greg Byrne - who has been known to back a certain revanchist provincial first minister sans doubt - expresses amazement to a CBC reporter that people follow a certain other first minister unquestioningly.

Bryne apparently has never looked in a mirror.

Byrne is pushing many completely foolish ideas about Equalization and Confederation as part of his campaign.

2.  Meanwhile at Tammany on Gower.... Tom Hann, a St. John's city councilor who was once a federal Liberal riding president in St. John's South-Mount Pearl used a moment at St. John's city council to campaign for the Family Feud.

That's the Conservative family feud, for those who missed it.

Conservative mayor Doc O'Keefe attempted to cut Hann off with an admonition that council was trying to avoid the current federal campaign.  Something about trying not to bring politics into things, something clearly not motivating Conservative O'Keefe whatsoever in his comments.

Hann denied he was campaigning.

Then Hann stated his support for the campaign.

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Kremlinology 16 (Update): Deep T’roat

This is more like a blast from the past but it is curious artefact in light of recent events.

From December 2007, a comment by then-fish minister Loyola Hearn on the sour relationship between the crowd of Conservatives in Sin Jawns and the crowd of Conservatives in Ottawa:

"There are times I'm sure I know as much as what's going on in cabinet and caucus or on the eighth floor as the premier does," said Hearn, referring to Williams's office in Confederation Building in St. John's.

"I always do. That's why we can always be one step ahead of him," Hearn said in a year-end interview with CBC News. "I have friends throughout cabinet and caucus."

That doesn’t mean Loyola is Deep T’roat. What it shows is that the idea is already there of some measure of tension and dissent within Conservative circles.

At the time, Danny Williams dismissed the idea [of traitorous dissent within the ranks] with characteristic bluster. The faithful deployed, too, with their now-signature set of over-the-top messages, delivered in one example by permits and licenses minister Kevin O’Brien.

But still, that didn’t stop Hisself from demanding every member of his caucus swear a sort of loyalty oath during the 2008 federal election and the Family Feud that caused massive discontent within the party.  That was about 10 months after Hisself dismissed the whole of idea of loose caucus and cabinet lips in the first place and, on a go forward basis it seemed to telegraph a huge level of unease or uncertainty.

After all, if their loyalty was unquestionable – the essence of the December claim – then it seems odd to question it at all let alone in a way which someone leaked to the local media. Beth Marshall – now a senator – is the only one who said she wouldn’t support the anti- federal campaign.

Contacted by The Telegram via e-mail at the time, only six Conservatives would give an answer publicly.  The rest of the Tory caucus ignored it, apparently, although the Telegram piece does end with an interesting reference:

Outgoing federal cabinet minister Loyola Hearn has charged that the premier's office is threatening those who may aid the federal Conservatives, citing "a growing number of calls we have received from concerned caucus members and Progressive Conservative staffers."

Williams has denied the allegation.

You see, it is interesting because it matches up with what was going around the local Tory circles at the time.  There were a great many, for example, in St. John’s South-Mount Pearl who were extremely upset that Kathy Dunderdale, Paul Oram and other prominent local Tories were out door-knocking for the Liberal in the riding.

The idea of friction within the provincial Conservative camp isn’t new.  Some of it has been known to flare up in public.  And in 2008, don’t forget, St. John’s South is where the Tory vote didn’t stay home like it did in other ridings.  By all appearances and indications, a goodly chunk of the Conservative vote did head to the polls.  And voted overwhelmingly for the Orange candidate.

That definitely was not the officially sanctioned Family Feud choice.

10 years is a long time to crush every bit of difference and ambition in a crowd of ambitious political types.  A decade is a long time to demand unquestioning obedience or face the consequences of cashiering or a miserable seat.

And even if that weren’t true, there is still the fairly obvious unease resulting from both the by-election loss last fall and the fairly obvious fact the win in the other seat required every member of caucus and a whole lot of political staffers in order to hang onto what should have been a safe seat and an easy win.

“Atrophy” was one word used privately by someone who ought to know in order to describe what has happened to the district-level party machinery across the province.

There’s something to be said for that.  It’s pretty bizarre to shut down a government for a couple of months to fight two by-elections.  Historically in this province, incumbent parties can usually manage to walk and chew electoral gum simultaneously.  Work gets delegated and the Leader/Premier and senior cabinet get deployed only as needed.

And it’s not like Hisself didn’t say loudly and clearly and repeatedly in 2006 – although it seemed like everyone missed it – that he wouldn’t be hanging around for the Hat Trick.

10 years is a long time in politics anywhere.

And it’s a long time for people to be studying how things work in practice.  Size up the strengths and weaknesses.

And then lay in wait to take advantage of a golden opportunity.

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The Sunday scuttlebutt

If the rumours aren't worth following then the truth is sometimes much stranger than fiction.

1.   Loyola Sullivan is now reportedly out of the country and not taking Harper's phone calls. The only thing funnier than rumours are Connie candidate travails are the ones about the Dipper hunts. 

2.   Former newspaper editor (his last horse died under him twice)  Ryan Cleary is looking for the NDP nod in St. John's South Mount Pearl.  This could make the South interesting if for no other reason than Cleary would likely quickly start whining as reporters started giving him a dose of the stuff he's dished out.  The guy's shown himself to have a thin skin. 

3.  A close reading of the Danny Williams e-mail from earlier the week would make you think that all the Provincial Conservatives had to do was state their support for the government ABC campaign without any obligation to campaign for anybody but Conservatives.  That pretty much clinches it:  there is such dissension within caucus that even the Premier couldn't force his colleagues to join the fratricidal policy without risking his own political neck.

4.  Even if we aren't going to see natural resources spokesperson Kathy Dudnerdale - a great typo from voice of the cabinet minister last week - knocking doors for Walter Noel, savvy federal Liberal fundraisers have it covered.

Some were reportedly thinking of sending donation requests to the 44 Provincial Conservatives in the House of Assembly with a promise to send a copy of the tax receipt to the Premier as proof they've acted on their commitment to ABC. 

If the Tories would send over their membership list, the Liberals will probably ensure everyone one of the Provincial Conservatives is on side.

5.  Liberal Siobhan Coady will be taking full advantage of the ABC this time out, turning for the third time running to a connected advertising firm to look after her campaign needs. Idea Factory has been the source of provincial Tory campaign advertising for a while now and recently added former Mike Harris and Danny Williams government staffer Carolyn Chaplin to its stable of considerable talent.

6.  Some Ottawa political staffers got a chuckle out of Danny Williams' reference to the Blue Shaft, given that it's also the nick-name of a fairly popular sexual device. They got a bigger chuckle out of the Harper "Daddy" ads but for a different reason. Some are watching to see if bears pop up next in the Connie ad campaign. 

7.  From the "Separated at Birth" file, both Danny Williams and Stephen Harper said this week they expect to be on the receiving end of vicious personal attacks during the upcoming campaign. Okay, those of you keeping track of how much these two are alike just ran out of paper.  Switch to a computer where the pixels are free and the space for storing data is almost endless.

8.  Speaking of vicious personal attacks, surely Provincial Conservative cabinet minister John Hickey - a man who's campaigned for the federal Conservatives at least once - is thinking of suing outgoing fish minister Loyola Hearn for defamation.  In a recent interview, Hearn called Hickey an "idiot". 

Hickey has a lawsuit against former Premier Roger Grimes for things Danny Williams said Grimes said but apparently didn't.  Confused?  So was Hickey.  But if you sued over something someone didn't say, surely you'd be fast off the litigious mark for a pretty obvious insult hurled straight at you, for the whole world to read.

And where is that lawsuit?  Likely right next to the contract with federal government to pave the Trans Labrador Highway.

9.  Provincial Conservative Cynthia Downey ran for the federal Conservatives in the last election, once the Provincial Conservatives decided to wholeheartedly endorse their federal brethren.  For her troubles, Downey found her campaign wrapped up in the Old In-Out In-Out scheme (scam?).

Fast forward to 2008 and with her provincial leader on the Family Feud warpath, Downey is dutifully joining in, savaging the federal Conservatives for doing things like booting people out of the country after their refugee applications have been rejected.

Check the party platform Downey back last time on deportations.

Right there in black and white: "rapid execution" of deportation orders.

And on a related matter, help and old e-scribbler out here:  who used to call the Great Oracle of the Valley's talk shows about the Portnoys?

10.  And they have it on tape, most likely. How many more quotes like this are out there?

"I think Atlantic Canadians are going to be very pleasantly surprised and pleased with the performance of Mr. Harper," said Williams.

The provincial aspect of the last federal election campaign was rather curious, especially considering that the version offered in the CBC summary linked here isn't quite in keeping with events as they unfolded. 

Williams may have kept a relatively low profile for example, but his cabinet and caucus were out there flogging CAA:  Connie Above All.  And Jack Layton?  Santa Jack promised everything the Premier desired;  Santa Steve promised to talk about it.

Steve got the Provincial Conservative support.

Yeah, and this whole ABC thing isn't a Family Feud.

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Cloverfield 2

In 1988,  Jack Harris was the lively little mammal who emerged amid a battle between a Godzilla and a Mothra of local politics to head off to Ottawa as member of parliament for St. John's East.

How ironic that 20 years later, Harris is one of two political dinosaurs resurrected by the nuclear explosions of the Premier's Family Feud to wage battle across the streets and hills of St. John's East.

The lively mammal in this latest really bad remake of really bad old political horror movies turns out, to everyone's surprise, to be the Conservative candidate, former journalist Craig Westcott.

Odds are the Provincial Conservatives never saw that one coming.  They could have predicted Harris' return like the rest of us did, as far back as six or eight months ago.  Danny Williams' former law partner spent his last few years spending way more time siding with the government and asking softball questions for the Provincial Conservatives to be the least bit worried that as a federal member of parliament he might somehow dare to contradict the Premier or pose any other form of challenge. To some, Harris spent his last years in the legislature sounding more like a Tory backbencher angling for an appointment to cabinet than the leader of the province's social democrats.

And after all, that is really what the ABC campaign is about on one level:  ensuring that there are no federal politicians able to challenge the Premier as the undeniable spokesperson for the heart and soul of the nation.  Some of the Commentariat has asked what Williams would do if there was another Harper administration with no elected Conservative members in his caucus.  Rub his hands in glee would be the answer.

To get his wish, Williams only has to hope the federal Liberals wind up in second place.  If Dion forms a new Liberal administration in mid October, either Judy Foote or Todd Russell would stand a chance of a cabinet seat.  They sit in safe Liberal seats and have no contenders against them as it current stands.

Cynthia Downey is rumoured by some to thinking of running in Random Burin St. George's.  If she does crop up, then you can bet the Provincial Conservatives are behind it.   Downey won't matter much though, since any opponent can simply point to her political blindness in her run for the federal Conservatives last time as proof she lacks anything resembling political judgment.  After all, what person concerned about refugees under a deportation order would run for a political party committed to the rapid execution of deportation orders?

But all that is digression.  As it stands right now, the only real political battles in this federal election are on the Avalon and the most interesting is in the East.

The race will likely see Jack Harris in the lead early on.  He is generally popular, even though the bulk of his old provincial seat is in St. John's South-Mount Pearl. In addition though, the New Democrats can count on support from the Provincial Conservatives - i.e. Jack's old law partner - who can funnel money if needed but more importantly workers and voters into the Orange camp.  The local Dippers will likely be amazed at seeing such political riches to use.

Confirmation of strong Williams support came in the form of Ed Buckingham, a longtime Tory organizer and current member of the provincial legislature, at Harris' campaign launch late Monday afternoon. Buckingham is connected and if he is there, then others are behind the scenes knocking doors to send Danny's man to Ottawa.

Craig Westcott's appearance in the campaign will serve chiefly to get up the Premier's nose and to draw whatever resources will go into the ABC campaign from the Provincial Conservative side into two ridings instead of the one they'd counted on.  Given the history between the two - and the new chapters to be written during the campaign - Williams cannot take the chance of Westcott doing anything but being crushed utterly.

The Provincial Conservatives won't be able to take any chances in that respect, either. The federal Conservatives in the riding can count on some workers and come polling day they can likely count on more votes than some currently give them credit for. The ballot boxes are secret, after all. With no way of precisely polling the district - people lie to pollsters when they want to do something a dominant force wouldn't like - Williams will be fighting the East campaign partially blinded.

As for Walter Noel, he will be struggling to find relevance. The heat of the campaign will be somewhere else and there is simply no way by which Noel can inject himself into the row.  Should he try and step in, one of his opponents will likely deliver him some perfume, women's clothes and a camera so that he can stay busy and stay out of the way.

If voters in St. John's East want an alternative to the Conservatives, they have it in Jack Harris.  The way the votes will likely run in the East, traditional NDP voters, hard core Conservatives who haven't gotten over 1949, provincial Tories and both federal and provincial Liberals who wish that Walter would just know when to stop - a disease that affects too many old politicians - can all find an amenable choice in Jack Harris.  He is offensive to none.

For those who are staunchly Conservative or who like their politicians to be somewhat offensive to the scared cows of provincial politics sometimes, they can chose Westcott.

If nothing else, Westcott's trademark sharp tongue will lash Danny Williams every time he enters the campaign.  If the first few days are any indication, Westcott may likely lash the old boy a few more times just to get a rise out of him.

And every time Williams does rise to the bait - he conspicuously didn't make himself available at all on Monday - Westcott's stock goes up making him potentially even more electable than he is at the start of the campaign.

What a mess this Family Feud could turn out to be.

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Hedderson wrong on federal employees in province

A news release from provincial intergovernmental affairs minister Tom Hedderson seems to be a calculated part of the ongoing family feud between the governing Progressive Conservatives and the federal Conservatives, i.e. the party they officially supported in the last federal general election.

Family fights are always nasty.

In this case, Hedderson spouts some information which is - in a word - wrong. labradore has consistently pounded home the facts. The issue has come up on Bond Papers at least once.

However, when the family squabbles or maybe people feel a bit sheepish at having voted against the majority of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in the last federal election, facts go out the window.

Either way, Hedderson is wrong on the facts.

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Who got ABC cash?

The blood feud between Danny Williams and Stephen Harper may have netted Danny Williams something for the $81,000 his ABC campaign reportedly spent, but there’s no way of knowing at this point who really got all that cash.

Based on information contained  on the Elections Canada website, the companies listed as receiving disbursements from Williams’ ABC campaign don’t appear to exist.

On September 1, the Provincial Conservatives paid a company listed as “intonic.ca” $244 for something labelled as “website.”

intonic.ca gets a 404 page in response if you try to find its website using the logical domain.  An Internet search likewise netted zip-olla for a company called “intonic” let alone one that did anything related to web sites.

Another company – listed as The Inbox Factory – received over $24,000 for something called “TV/Newspaper”.

Try and find a company called Inbox Factory through a simple Internet search. A company that can co-ordinate national print and television advertising would likely be established enough to have garnered even a mention on the Internet.

Inbox Factory?

Nada.

Promoworks is a little different.

There is a Canadian company called Promoworks Inc.  It does custom geegaws for companies in the Vancouver area. There’s a similarly named company in Maryland that does the same sort of thing.

But a company that does  - apparently – media planning, superboard design and the media buy to go with it?

Not a sign.

More than $56,000 spent by ABC went to “Promoworks Inc.”.

Try and find any trace of that company on line.

This one is going to take some digging, evidently.

Yep.

None of this should come as a surprise though.  The Family Feud got off to a bad start, not realising they even had to register as a third party player and report their expenses.  Not realising that is until someone pointed it out to them.

Maybe people could ask John Babb, the registered agent for the Feud. He’s the guy who said:

“This is the election that could make and break relations between Newfoundland and Canada forever.”

There might be a bunch of good reasons to ask Babb a few questions about that whole campaign starting with that statement he made right at the start.

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The politics of strange bedfellows

Bob Ridgley is the Provincial Conservative member of the House of Assembly for St. John's North and part of a family clan that dominates a significant chunk of Conservative vote in the metro St. John's area.

Since his provincial district sits almost entirely within the federal riding of St. John's East where more and more incumbent MHAs (all Provincial Conservatives by the way) seem to be turning out in support of the New Democrat's Jack Harris, it's a fair bet that Bob will be voting Orange in October.

That's hardly surprising given that the Liberal  - Walter Noel - is a former provincial cabinet minister and the Conservative candidate is a guy who has been a perpetual thorn in the side of Premier Danny Williams.  Former journalist Craig Westcott did a game job today of defending Stephen Harper following a speech by the Premier at the Board of Trade,  but it's got to be getting harder and harder for Westcott to keep up a defense of the clearly indefensible.  He said the words but they lacked conviction. It's too bad to see a decent guy like Westcott - the contrarian's contrarian - do this kind of damage to himself.

But that's digression.

CBC News this evening included an interview with some local politicians on the federal campaign.  Energy minister Kathy Dunderdale  - a provincial Conservative - proudly announced she'd be working for the Dipper's Harris.  Not surprising given that she punted Noel to the curb in 2003.

But what of the others, like Ridgley?

While he didn't say so in a Telegram interview on Tuesday, Ridgley made clear a couple of other things. 

First of all, it's pretty obvious he is a Conservative - Provincial and usually federal - right down to being a voter in the merger election that saw Stephen Harper elected. 

Yep.  It is a Family Feud at heart and no one should be naive enough to believe that in a few years time this whole thing won't have snapped back to the usual friendships, relationships and voting patterns.

But here's an even more interesting  turn of phrase in Ridgley's e-mail response to the Telegram reporter:

When Stephen Harper was running to be the leader of the 'new' Conservative Party, I supported Belinda Stronach;  I thought she was as shallow as a saucer but I believed that she was the only one who had a chance of stopping Harper...

Ridgley keeps going, saying next that he was persuaded Harper was alright a little later on.  Ridgley's conversion to the Harper cause survived two federal elections.  Ridgley evidently kept pounding doors or whatever a key local Tory organizer does to get Stephen Harper elected despite the concerns raised about Harper, the evident problems Ridgley had at the time Harper became leader and well, just about anything else that might have given him pause.

Okay?

Well, not really.

You have a guy here who was prepared to get into political bed with someone he believed wasn't qualified for the job  - lacking in intellect is the polite version of what he said - because he believed that candidate was the only way to stop someone else from winning about whom he claims he had serious misgivings at the time.

How serious?  Well serious enough to vote for someone who to him seemed too shallow to be a national party leader.

What's the word for that sort of logic? 

Facile.

Well, yeah. 

But there's a better one.

Shallow? 

Yeah, shallow.

When that first shallow bit of logic didn't work out, Ridgley changed his mind and got into bed with Stephen Harper.

If that's not enough to make you a little uneasy, there's maybe the whole reference to Stronach as being "shallow as a saucer". 

That's gratuitous. 

It's a cheap shot.

It's a pretty low personal attack, along the lines of calling someone a quisling or a traitor or showing a puffin crapping on the leader of a rival party.

If nothing else, it was totally unnecessary in the context of the e-mail on any level and that too says as much about Ridgley's judgment as the other stuff.

It will be interesting to see how Nancy Riche, among others, reacts to having Ridgley knocking doors on behalf of Jack Harris. Does Bob share Jack's views on choice and equal marriage for example?  There's a set of questions to pose to the Blue Crew who are turning Orange suddenly.

Ridgley's backing the ABC thingy  for a very specific reason and when the reason goes away he and the rest of his "progressive" Conservatives will head back home, just as he was prepared to switch from Belinda to Steve when it suited.

Politics can make for some truly strange bedfellows.

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Random-Burin-St. Georges: a quick look at the results

 Random-Burin-St. Georges is a relatively new seat resulting from re-apportionment before the 2004 election.

However, the seat continues to trend as a decidedly Liberal seat, carrying on the trend pre-2004.

The 2008 result is not the one to look at closely here.  rather we need to look at 2006. 

That was the year the Provincial Conservatives threw their political weight behind the federal Conservative party.

The Blue team ran a staunch Provincial Conservative closely associated with the Premier. 

She had campaigned relentlessly between 2004 and 2006 against the incumbent, largely by using a refugee family's plight in a church basement as a rod with which to beat the incumbent and his party.

It apparently escaped her notice that the party she ran for had a policy diametrically opposed to her own stated position on this issue. In the end, her campaign was also caught up in the in-out scheme even though, as these results show, Random-Burin-St. Georges was not a lost cause for the Blue team.

The New Democrats ran a candidate from outside the riding in that election.  Not surprisingly, she fared considerably worse than the popular fisheries activist the NDP had run in 2004.

In that race, the Conservatives appear to have pulled voters who had voted NDP in 2004 and added a few thousand more besides.  The Liberal candidate - Bill Matthews - also increased his vote share.  Overall, turnout in the riding increased by slightly less than 4,000  voters.

What we don't see here is a collapse of the Conservative vote.  Rather, in 2008, it sank back to what essentially appears to be its core. The New Democrat vote declined by 3244 but did not slip back to its 2006 level.  The Liberal vote declined by 1100 votes.

Overall, it would appear that the New Democrats in 2008 had picked up some soft vote that in 2006 had gone to the Conservatives.  The bulk of the 2006 Conservative vote stayed home.

More than in some others, the vote pattern in this riding may have been affected by the remittance labour force from the Burin Peninsula currently working in Alberta. Without more detailed analysis it is difficult to know how much of this vote pool actually turned out and if it did, how it voted.

Even though the 2006 incumbent did not seek re-election, this is not a riding that was affected by Family Feud as obviously as in the three ridings on the Avalon peninsula.

It is interesting to speculate, though, what might have happened had the Provincial Conservatives taken an entirely different approach in 2008.

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Family Feud: the silverback swipes again

A federal Conservative statement hot off the e-mail:

Minister Hearn Challenges Premier Williams To Allow Caucus to Campaign for Conservatives

The Honourable Loyola Hearn, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister Responsible for Newfoundland and Labrador, today issued the following statement:

Today Premier Williams said he would not threaten any MHAs to adopt his position of ABC in the next federal campaign.

My comments in local media were based on a growing number of calls we have received from concerned caucus members and Progressive Conservative staffers who used exactly that that phrase.  They felt there was a clear expectation that they needed to publicly campaign for ABC, even if they didn't agree with it, or there was a threat to their career advancement within the Williams government.

If the Premier's statement is true, and he wishes to let democracy take its course, will he send another e-mail to his caucus and clarify that there is no threat?  Will he tell them he means it when he says members are free to do whatever they believe is in the best interests of their districts -- even if that means campaigning for Conservative candidates at the federal level?

If there is no threat, will the Premier commit publicly that there will be no action taken against MHAs who choose to volunteer for Conservative Party of Canada?

He can put this issue to rest by sending another memo to caucus right away.

As your humble e-scribbler already maintained, Hearn is a scrappy silverback politician.  Experienced, used to being dominant, savvy and fully of inherent political strength just like the biggest gorilla in a family group.

He'll tolerate nonsense for a while but at some point he'll be ready to rip apart any challenger.

Hearn's been working the local media this Friday before the writ drops and his language is designed to go right at the heart of the so-called ABC campaign.

With the comment on leaks a couple of days ago, Hearn and his federal Conservative brethren have already shown they know how to campaign hard when they need to and, in the caucus leak story, set the other guys to constantly responding instead of setting the agenda.  Hearn's release today will increase the pressure and counts as another shift in the political agenda.

If this campaign keeps going with the same intensity, the repercussions will be felt in provincial politics.

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Connie bitch-slapping intensifies

The Family Feud continues unabated.

There must be a federal election coming.

The latest volley is a statement released by federal fish minister Loyola Hearn this afternoon:

It's interesting to hear the Premier say today that he was simply "stepping up to the plate" to fund arts initiatives within the province, and to highlight his own commitment to the arts.

Residents of Mount Pearl may find this message a little bit confusing.  The original proposal for Mount Pearl's Lifestyle Centre included a local theatre.  With federal and municipal money on the table, the Williams government responded that they would not fund the project if the federal government was involved. 

In the end, the Lifestyle Centre became a victim of the ABC campaign, and will proceed without a theatre.

Hearn's a scrappy old silverback politician.  You don't have to agree with his politics to appreciate that he's unlikely to take the sort of pokes Danny Williams has been making without hitting back.  And it's not like Hearn has been afraid to go right up Danny's nose if need be to make a point.

But at this early stage of the campaign, it won't be too long before the Universal Rule is broken and someone's mother gets dragged dragged into the whole fracas.

Oh dear.

Fights in the family are always the ugliest.

How ugly?

Well, there's always this video of a very young, but no less irk-filled Danny Williams telling CBC's Deanne Fleet what a great premier Loyola Hearn would make.

 

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Nothing could be further from the truth

Hands up anyone who recalls a little spat between the parliamentary press gallery and the Prime Minister's Office over who gets to decide who asks questions during a prime ministerial newser?

Anyone?

Didn't think so.

One of the things Stephen Harper can add to his list of accomplishments is taking the cajones from reporters in the Ottawa press gallery.

The crowd that prided themselves on supposedly liking their meat raw and freshly stripped from the hide of an unsuspecting politician are now dutifully chowing down on whatever scraps their PMO handlers toss them.

Like the whole Daddy Steve series of photo opportunities.

Or the photo gracing the front online page of the Globe this nearly last weekend of the campaign.

It shows the PM in front of a couple of signs held aloft by what appear to be adolescent women.

The signs read "I have a crush on Harper".

Does this not strike anyone as bizarre, in the extreme?

Let's leave aside for a moment the fact the young women appear to be holding the signs carefully so that the photographer they are evidently aware of cannot catch their faces.

When was the last time you can recall a political leader stirring the loins of young women or men in this country spontaneously?

Anyone?

Exactly.  And in this instance, it is clearly nothing more than an organized event, a complete contrivance.

The Conservative Party campaign is so hermetically sealed that a young woman from a television show with her credentials intact is hustled from the room and slapped in handcuffs.  There are many media events where the Prime Minister simply does not take questions.This is not an environment for spontaneity or sarcastic protests. 

Nope.

These sign holders - with their perfect cut out letters and oddly matching design layout - were very likely officially approved participants in the photo op.

What we are looking at here is a fabrication.

They are like the stories of Harper at his high school reunion or with a family, especially babies.

They are to news coverage what those e-mails abut Viagra and some Nigerian bank official with bags of American cash are to your e-mail inbox:

Spam.

However, the taming the gallery goes considerably further than just the odd stunt photo passing as something real. People die from tainted meat.  The agriculture minister discusses the issue on a conference call with government officials and places the handling of the crisis in both a partisan (wrong enough) and a personally partisan context (even wronger).

Reporters pen apologias that make the PMO press wranglers drool in envy, they could never have written stuff that aped sincerity so well.  News rooms, we are told, are places of dark humour.  Just like cabinet ministers' offices. Reporters and editors all deal with such weighty, difficult issues on a daily basis they resort to gallows humour to help them get through.  We must forgive Gerry Ritz for he is just human like the rest of us. 

Apparently, unlike Wayne Easter or the 17 dead and their families who are not part of the circle of people hefting the weight of the world on their shoulders..

And that young woman, slapped in cuffs?  She was from the entertainment side of things and after all, it was - as one report called it - a lighter moment on the tour.  No sarcasm in sight on that one, either.

The Conservatives run television ads which contain false information.  Not a peep of comment, certainly not the torrent with which it should be met when any political party resorts to blatant falsehood as a core part of its campaign.

Then there's the puffin poop.  The smudge of guano vanishes and news reporters trumpet the very wise apology offered by the campaign and wag fingers at the naughty staffers who supposedly slipped off the leash.

In such a tightly control campaign?  Gimme a break.

And the vicious personal attack site on which the guano was now gone?  Absolutely intact and free to continue presenting its officially sanction tripe, ignored by virtually all of the news media.  Its message  - a savage attack on a national party leader's character - survived the contrived apology built around fake bird crap.

The lightweight, the superficial reporting of this election campaign strikes all media forms, public and private. The early gaffes by the Conservative party and its multi-million dollar war room went largely unreported except in a couple of small corners, while the problems in the Liberal campaign, both real and many more imaginary, were front page news.  They continue to be. Whether its the news spaces or the blog spaces, there's an unmistakable tone to the coverage and that tone is light.

It seems to go a bit beyond the normal advantage that goes with incumbency.  There seems to be a certain active collaboration, an apparent willful blindness to the obvious on the part of many news outlets.

That likely sounds awfully familiar to voters in Newfoundland and Labrador.

They saw just Friday past the announcement of yet another investigation into computer security in the provincial government's system; reported straight up with no context,  like say the last time a security breach occurred and the release was turned into its own form of luncheon meat, prepackaged for easier eating by overworked reporters.

Or the "historic" "deal" with the Labrador Innu on Churchill Falls and the Lower Churchill:

CBC:  Instead of taking a direct ownership position, though, the Innu Nation has elected to take an equivalent royalty, which will amount to five per cent of net project revenue.

Globe:  The Innu will get royalties from the new project and, as part of the same agreement announced Friday, will receive millions in compensation for losses suffered in the 1960s when the Upper Churchill project flooded their lands. They also have secured varying rights to 27,000 square miles of land, with legal title to about one-fifth of that.

The same sort of thing is in included in other national and local coverage.

A 20 minute read of the actual agreement shows something else. A trip to the memory hole turns up something else on top of that.

Even old stuff, stuff that long ago was shown to be distorted, misleading and in some aspects downright false reappears in something purporting to be a "reality" check.

The quiet demise of the Family Feud goes unnoticed, even though early reports talked it up as the hottest thing this side of Sarah Palin.

If the polls hold and the Conservatives are re-elected with a strengthened minority or even a majority, odds are that more of the surreal coverage Canadians have seen during the campaign will be commonplace. That's certainly been the case in this neck of the woods under a Provincial Conservative government.

There will undoubtedly be times when it comes to news coverage that Canadians will find themselves falling back on a line that - odds are  - the federal Conservative leader will be using quite a bit, if the pattern holds: 

Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Lower Churchill falls further behind

According to the Globe and Mail, Hydro-Quebec is negotiating its first long-term power purchase agreement in decades to ship power to New England for 20 years beginning in 2014.

New England is a major market for hydro and long-term power purchase agreements are the way to secure financing for a project like the Lower Churchill.  Thus far, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro hasn’t been able to secure a single contract – erroneous reports to the contrary -  nor is there a sign any contract is forthcoming.

Both the Premier and NALCO(R) boss Ed Martin spent most of 2008 lowering expectations for the long awaited development of the 2800 megawatt facility.  As recently as October, Martin blamed uncertain financial markets for the apparent decision to slide back project sanction by at least six months. In February, the Premier repeated a comment he made in January that the odds of the Lower Churchill going ahead were “50/50”.

Financial problems with the project – lack of secured markets being chief among them – are likely the reason the Premier keeps insisting on federal financial backing for the project, even though it supposedly one on which he intends to “go it alone:”

"It was an opportunity for the federal government to right the wrong of the Upper Churchill, whereby we are losing, like, a billion and a half dollars a year."

But Williams maintains the feud is over now, and says he hopes for co-operation from Ottawa on funding a new penitentiary, a federal ocean agency, the Lower Churchill project and transmission line.

Linking the Conservative family feud with the Churchill Falls deal is curious.  While it plays well with the local tin-foil hat brigade – see the comment on the Globe story from “Calvin St. John”, for example – the federal government didn’t play a role in that project except as a Joe Smallwood negotiating ploy. 

Linking the 1969 BRINCO deal with the federal government isn’t a sure-fire way to secure federal cash.  A more successful approach would have been to look at a deal with both Ontario and Quebec of the type that the provincial government had in hand yet specifically rejected when it decided to “go it alone” three years ago.

There’s also no telling how the Abitibi expropriation will play with investors in Canada. American investors likely won’t look favourably on it at all.

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St. John's South-Mount Pearl: a quick look at the results

The Family Feud had a pretty clear impact on the vote result in St. John's South-Mount Pearl.

The difference between the Conservative vote in 2006 and the Conservative vote in 2008 is the increase in Liberal and New Democrat vote, a smattering of votes for the other candidates and a large group (almost 3,000) that apparently didn't vote.

These would be almost entirely Provincial Conservatives who were constrained in their choices by activities within their own normal political camp.

The New Democrats were primary beneficiary of the Feud with an increased vote of 5810.  Some 2927 didn't vote, apparently.  The Liberal vote share increased by 2635.

Overall turnout was slightly above that of 2004 - when there was another spat within the Conservative party - but the total count of eligible voters increased as well from 2004 to 2008.

Liberal and New Democratic vote share did not change appreciably from 2004 to 2006.  The increase in Conservative vote in 2006, compared to 2004, can be attributed to a suppression that resulted from internal problems between the Provincial and federal Conservatives.  In 2006, the Provincial Conservatives supported their federal brethren openly.

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Loyola new ambassador to Dublin next?

Looks like Loyola Hearn is up for a new job.

With former Prince Edward Island Tory Premier Pat Binns shifting from his comfortable digs in Dublin to more comfortable ones in Boston, that leaves a diplomatic post open. Binns went to Dublin in 2007 to replace a career diplomat who’d been in the job of about a year.  Binns’ relocation looks to be a bit premature.

Word around Ottawa for some months now has one of the architects of the Conservative Party merger heading to the Emerald Isle to replace Pat Binns. Yes, folks, if the rest of the little scenario plays out, Loyola Hearn will be the new Canadian ambassador to Ireland.

Loyalty to Stephen Harper certainly seems to have its rewards so it wouldn’t come as any surprise if the next diplomatic appointment sent Hearn to his native soil.  Hearn stuck with the party he helped create and its new leader through the family feud. 

Now that the feud is officially over its would be only natural for the leader of Canada’s other Reform-based Conservative Party to endorse the appointment.

Wonder what Danny would say about that appointment given the harsh words he used to have for Loyola?

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Advance Poll turn-out comparison #elxn41

For the vote geeks out there, take a gander at this lovely chart showing turn-out in advance polls held in federal general elections from 2004 to 2011 for each of the ridings in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Some of the media reports have compared the 2011 advance polls votes to 2008.  That would be a misleading comparison since the federal Conservatives suffered from an unusual problem due to the Family Feud.  If you look at the two before that, you can get a better feel for recent trends.  2006 was a year of change nationally and it marked the last time the provincial Conservatives actually worked closely with their federal cousins.

Here’s what you can see:

Turn-out is up in every riding but the magnitude of the change is more dramatic in some cases than others. 

The easy number is in St. John’s East.  Lots of media reports have noted it had the highest advance poll turnout at 4474.  That corresponds to a 56% increase over the next largest turn-out in 2006. The rest of these numbers compare 2011 to the next largest turn-out.

St. John’s South-Mount Pearl is up 91% compared to 2006.

The lowest change in turn-out is Bonavista-Gander-Grand Falls-Windsor, up 2.3% compared to 2004 and Random-Burin-St. George’s, up 3.5% from the same election.

Avalon is showing a 47% increase compared to 2006.  That’s almost exactly the change in Labrador (48%).

What does it all mean?

That’s hard to tell. 

Look at the anomalies first.

On the face of it, there’s no reason why St. John’s East should show such a dramatic increase in total number of votes cast. The incumbent appears to be safely in his seat.  There is no heated contest in the riding.  While it looked potentially like a harder fight before the writ dropped, the reality has been that incumbent New Democrat Jack Harris could be vacationing in Las Vegas with his future Quebec caucus-mates and he’d still slaughter his competition. If there was some sort of surge toward the NDP, this would be a real sign since the seat is already orange.

Ditto Labrador.  There’s no sign of any dramatic change in the riding.  When you look at the riding with almost exactly the same rate of change – Avalon – it gets weirder.  

Avalon is the scene of a vicious fight between Scott Andrews for the Liberals and former Conservative incumbent Fabian Manning who Andrews beat in 2008. One would expect numbers there to be up way compared to another year when they had a hard-fought contest. 

So while those three seats looking odd, the other four seats,  the voter turn-out pictures look like what you would expect.  In the ridings where there’s been a really small change in turn-out, there’s no sense of a hard contest and the change in turn-out reflects that.  The numbers for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte are up, but only 25%.  Again, that reflects a strong Conservative campaign, most likely, but it is hardly a sign of big change. In the absence of any other signs of revolution, this vote change looks relatively normal.

In St. John’s South-Mount Pearl, the blood feud between the New Democrats and incumbent Liberal Siobhan Coady has been intense since before the election started.  Seeing turn-out up by 91% is no surprise in what appears to be a tight race between two highly motivated and highly organized teams. The Conservatives don’t seem to be a factor, at least if the only publicly available poll is anything to judge by.  Any jump in turn-out is likely not coming from the Rain Man’s effort to get back in elected politics.

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CTV caves in face of ABC campaign

From Danny Williams comments on a voice of the cabinet minister call-in show on Sunday evening:

A couple of weeks ago when they were out in Harbour Grace, or Grace Harbour, as the Prime Minister referred the community to, you know, there was something came out of that whereby spokespeople for the Conservatives and for Mr. Manning came out and said that businesses were being threatened, that contracts were being threatened, that if people didn't vote ABC that our government was going to do something to them. CTV reported that and CTV actually had to retract that publicly on their network when it was found that those claims were unsubstantiated.

The original story is linked from this Bond Papers post: "Family Feud?  Try blood feud."

Let's see if CTV and Bob Fife want to comment on this.

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Family Feud: Hollywood style

In 1989, a younger Danny Williams campaigned to make Loyola Hearn premier of the province.

Almost 20 years later, the feud between the two Conservatives - one provincial and federal - is as vicious as a Hollywood divorce.

Hearn called some of Williams' rhetoric both "truth-twisting" and "underhanded."

Hearn said worse in another place as noted by CBC in its coverage of the Premier's scrum:

Williams was reacting Friday to comments Hearn made on a public call-in show after his Thursday announcement, calling the premier a dictator and accusing him of being "as gutless as a capelin."

"As well, if anyone would recognize a dictator he certainly worked for one, so he'd know a dictator I can guarantee ya," Williams said.

 

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Smart politics versus not-smart politics

In his battle against Reform-based Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper over Equalization, Reform-based Conservative Party leader Danny Williams didn’t have any political friends left.

Not surprisingly, Williams failed.

Ditto, the family Feud, known to some as the ABC campaign.

Senior political reporter and columnist Chantal Hebert made the point rather bluntly in her column in the Wednesday Toronto Star:

At the federal-provincial table, Williams is ultimately a loner.

You can see that very point as far back as October 2004. Remember the famous storm-out?  Well, let’s just say it had less to do with negotiations and more to do with a potential dressing down from other Premiers who had finally cottoned on to the federal transfer deal Williams was trying to finagle.

By contrast, though, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall just got Stephan Harper’s Conservatives to turn down a hostile take-over bid by BHP of Potash Corporation.

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Don’t step in the media spin: 2011 election version

Check the conventional media and you’ll see plenty of unfounded media torquing of what is really nothing other than a return to normal in Newfoundland and Labrador after Danny Williams one-time effort to suppress federal Conservative votes.

Take, for example, this breathless line from a posting on CBC’s politics blog with a title that talks about a “political sea change” (give us all a frickin’ break):

The big question now is whether Newfoundland and Labrador voters will embrace Harper's party once more. The provincial Tories may be on board, but the real test is the voters who abandoned the Conservatives two years ago.

Anyone who has looked seriously at Williams’ family feud in 2008 will see  - in a heartbeat – that his ABC campaign was really just focused on his own Blue-type voters.  Your humble e-scribbler has been making that point since 2008.  You’ll find a generally similar analysis from Memorial University political scientist Alex Marland in the Thursday Telegram.

The 2008 general election did not involve  - on any level at all  - a general rejection by voters in Newfoundland and Labrador in the way that last sentence from the CBC blog post suggests.

Nor did Danny Williams actually shift local voting behaviour outside of the Blue people who suppressed.  As Marland puts it, Williams’ effort would have been much more impressive if he had turned seven seats blue.  All he really did is feed general suspicions about the Conservatives and Stephen Harper.

And that’s what makes that other comment – about embracing “Harper’s party once more”  - nothing other than complete, unadulterated bullshit.

To go step further, voters in Newfoundland and Labrador have really never embraced the federal Conservatives in the current for progressive variant.  The Tories picked up three seats in 1997 compared to their usual two but that was tied to problems with the provincial government government.  Brian Mulroney did exceptionally well in this province in the 1980s but three of seven seems to be about the best the Tories have done in Newfoundland and Labrador since 1949.

The one exception is 1968.  Normally safe red seats went blue en masse as the country as a whole bathed in the gushing hot springs of Trudeaumania.

But there again, the federal vote was actually nothing more than a reflection of the brooding rebellion against Joe Smallwood.

As for the speculation about what Stephen Harper may announce on his campaign stop in St. John’s on Thursday, that’s actually nothing more than what one might expect from a bunch of provincial and federal Conservatives who are campaigning very hard for their usual, mutual benefit.

There is nothing odd or bizarre about it.  There is no shift in the political plate tectonics, no orgasmic outpourings for Steve nor any sign of an impending tsunami of pent-up anything that would clear the landscape of politics within the province.

All that is happening is that voting patterns are returning to normal.  The fact the Tories have lined up a raft of former provincial cabinet ministers plus a couple of others is really nothing other than a sign that Danny Williams no longer sits stuffed link a bung in the cask of political ambition among people who run with the Conservative Party in Newfoundland and Labrador.

And any pledges Stephen Harper makes in the province on his campaign swing?

It will just put him in line with the other party leaders all of whom have already made the same commitment to a loan guarantee for Muskrat Falls.

That project is no closer to reality, though.  The decision to double provincial electricity rates  - guaranteed- for local ratepayers, saddle them with a 50% increase in gross public debt  and ship power outside the province at taxpayer-funded discounts rests solely on the shoulders of provincial Conservatives.

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Maybe next time we can make s'mores

Walter Noel is becoming something of a legend as a political pyromaniac.

He's seems intent on constantly setting fire to himself or, to be accurate, the smoldering remains of his political reputation.

His staunch defense of spending his constituency cash on gifts of perfume, crystal and clothing serves as gasoline which Noel insists on pouring over himself throughout this campaign.

He'll happily splash anyone else within reach, as well, as he did this week with both his opponent Jack Harris and his fellow Liberal candidate Judy Foote. Those two have been able to douse any fires with simple, straightforward explanations. 

The problem for Noel - and the flamethrower he brings to his self-roasting  - is his repeated excuse that his spending was within the rules and approved by the "highest officials of the House of Assembly."

Sure, Walter. 

We already know the "rules" were all but non-existent and one of those "highest" officials is currently facing criminal charges.

Noel has even gone so far as to claim his bone-headed actions in defended the misspending are brave or some such bit of silliness.

Well, the flames were barely fading from his latest round of bravery when the Telegram dutifully reminded everyone in the Saturday edition that Noel managed to blow an entire year's worth of public money in a single six month spree between April and October 2003. The genesis of this latest story was a news release Noel issued defending himself on the whole issue which itself resulted from some other media story generated by yet another brave defence by Noel

Amazing.

Noel's top expense that year was advertising: $3,261. He spent nearly $2,950 on over 50 restaurant and food claims - an average of about two per week. Brochures cost Noel just over $2,000; donations, nearly $1,800 more. Noel was also reimbursed for $1,367 in alcohol-only purchases at liquor stores.

Bear in mind that at the time Noel was a provincial cabinet minister with access to another sizeable expense account. We can only wait for the juicy revelations that come from the Telegram's investigation of that spending as well.

In itself, the spending is something voters might possibly have been able to get over in time.  Noel's repeated use of what amounts to easily refutable excuses - the "highest officials" crap - calls into question his judgment.

And his vehemence doesn't just make one a little uncomfortable. 

Coupled with his ludicrous plan to study building a tunnel to Bell Island, his unsubstantiated claims about his part in the 2004/05 offshore transfer deal, his pseudo-separatist dalliances, and his ranting about the "socialist" hordes in the New Democratic Party and their overspending way, his repeated defence of his own overspending suggests Noel is completely out of touch with anything vaguely resembling reality, political or otherwise.

Three things follow from all this:

First, the Liberal Party in Newfoundland and Labrador needs to tighten up its candidate vetting process and candidate selection process.  Big time.

Second, Noel's political future is deader than dead to the point that his vote count in this federal election might wind up being barely above his 1974 first effort.  Incidentally, that's when he ran on behalf of the "socialist" hordes.

Third,  Noel's only political value to this race - and it is sad to see it happen - is to give the only bit of light entertainment to a race otherwise made boring now that Danny Williams has abandoned his Family Feud campaign entirely.

If Noel wants to keep setting his own political ass on fire, there's not much any of us can do except sit back and shake our heads.

Oh, yes.

And maybe next time we can make s'mores.

That's about the only way Noel's candidacy can be said to have contributed anything to the current election.

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