Seabiscuit?

"We're right on their heels."

Somebody's having fun! As elections should be.

F-35 insanity: The movie reel

Is this a "tactical retreat" as the Globe very generously frames the Fantino backtrack on F-35s this week? Is Harper admitting he was wrong? It's hard to believe anything this government says on this file. Their approach has been heavy-handed throughout. From the first day of the ludicrously showy roll-out, the choice of the F-35 has been presented as an inevitability. They did extensive public relations efforts across the country. They presented the F-35 as imperative for the aerospace industry and attempted to use it as a political hammer in the Montreal area (so much so that the Bloc rolled over at one point). They bludgeoned critics, from Alan Williams to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, all of whom have been proven correct at every turn. Politics and p.r. have been the Conservatives' priorities.

After a very tough month, with unprecedented backlash over their plans for internet surveillance, when they are mired in the robocon investigations, as a budget approaches, they now shift and suggest they're getting religion on the F-35. We'll see. Their silly, hypocritical conduct throughout the course of this very serious purchase has left them with very little credibility. See delightful video above.

A Liberal spark in Toronto-Danforth

A Liberal spark? What on earth is she talking about? Well, cynics, this post is not for you. Beware, earnestness ahead.

I have posted two communications pieces here that Toronto-Danforth Liberal candidate Grant Gordon has produced for his campaign. There's a video where he gives an impassioned pitch about why he's running and what he wants to accomplish. There's also an embed of the most recent literature that the campaign is distributing.

In both pieces, I would submit, Gordon is speaking great language for Liberals. Gordon is speaking the language of empathy, community and responsibility. Watch the first bit in the video, where he says: "We need to help people, right here, right now...We have to be a community. We have to help each other. We have to show Stephen Harper what true Canadian values look like. People helping people." Canadian values! Yes, progressive Liberals speaking about what Canadian values are! More please!

Then he goes on, in the video and in the literature below, to articulate what those values mean. How he's going to take actions that put those values to work in the riding: Addressing the problem of kids going to school hungry; a mentoring program for youth unemployment; a 'Buy Local' campaign (among other targeted solutions) to aid small businesses who are struggling in the riding.



This focus carries through in the lit piece as well. The "People. Planet. Profits." slogan captures well what Liberals are about. Blessedly, there's no talk of centrism here, no resort to typical tired platitudes. This is Campaign Lit 2.0 that is fresh. What the heck are the empty half pages about, I asked myself. I think it's that he's not trying to jam essays that won't be read into your mail slot. It's like a visual puzzle people are invited to figure out. He can get the message done in half the page. With clarity. It's fun. "What planet is Mr. Harper planning to live on?" "Does Mr. Harper give a buck about your family?" "Created the FLICK OFF global warming campaign...will tell Mr. Harper to FLICK OFF on a daily basis."

What is going on here? Is it possible that someone in Canadian politics is trying to make people interested in voting again? Challenging them. Giving them something to raise their eyebrows about. Yes, by all means, more fun in our politics please! And that's not to say it's fluff. The serious messages on the environment, child care and pensions come through. But it sure helps when it's not a chore to take a look when people constantly tell you how busy they are and how they don't have time for politics. It's not the same old, same old.

This is also not to say that this candidacy is just about communications strategy. All of that is a reflection of the candidate, sure. But if you watch and listen to Gordon, he's done a very good job in this campaign in showing that he could be a solid MP. He seems comfortable, has an ability to connect with people, there's some natural politico skill there. He's a real community guy. It's not an accident that all the campaign videos are shot on the street, he's comfortable there. I don't think the Liberals could have hoped for better in terms of a candidate running in Toronto-Danforth post-Jack Layton.

Wanna do politics differently? Challenge the national conservative narrative boldly and in a positive, interesting way? These are the types of people we should be electing from the progressive side of the spectrum.

A fresh new voice - Grant Gordon - Campaign Literature

Elections Canada's new Robocon hires

"Elections Canada hires 14 new 'frontline' staff to examine more than 31,000 complaints on voter suppression issue."

Ramping up staff, part of that flexing of whatever is needed:

"The Commissioner of Canada Elections has the authority, during periods of high volume, to contract additional resources or call upon other law enforcement agencies, such as the RCMP, to lend assistance and expertise," Enright said.

Who knew the Conservatives would be creating jobs in the election fraud examination field...

Charitable activities?

Why hasn't the Manning Centre's charitable status gotten more attention? CRA's own guidelines on political activities raise some interesting questions. For e.g.,

Under the Income Tax Act and in common law, an organization established for a political purpose cannot be a registered charity. The courts have determined political purposes to be those that seek to:

further the interests of a particular political party or support a political party or candidate for public office;

If you review the Manning site, their School of Practical Politics is devoted to training conservative political activists:

With voter turnout at an all time low, the political process needs to be demystified and reinvigorated. By drawing on years of political experience, and some of the brightest minds in the conservative movement, the Manning School of Practical Politics aims to: Train future political leaders at the grassroots level, Teach key campaign skills to improve the quality and effectiveness of grassroots activists and Help more conservatives get elected

The Manning Centre believes that the conservative movement’s most important resource is its people, and that as a movement we must invest more in our grassroots activists and our future leaders.

See also this page.

Their conference on the weekend included such agenda items as "How can we win political campaigns promoting a reduced role for government?"

Recall during the Ontario provincial election when that one video of David Suzuki walking with Dalton McGuinty caused such a huge ruckus from right wing commentators over the Suzuki Foundation's charitable status. Seems like the Manning Centre, with the goal of helping more conservatives get elected, among other things, might warrant some scrutiny of its own.

Update (6:00 p.m.): Dave recently raised the issue of the Manning Centre's charitable status as well, in the context of a Manning op-ed a few weeks back.

Building democracy

Update (3:35 p.m.).

Here was Preston Manning speaking to the media yesterday on voter suppression:

Speaking to reporters, Manning said all parties should be worried about robocall vote-suppression during the 2011 election that directed some voters to the wrong polling stations and which has Elections Canada investigating complaints of voter fraud.

“I think it’s deplorable, those types of tactics. I’ve spent my life trying to get people to participate more in the political process, for them to vote more, and the fact that people are trying to work in the opposite direction is deplorable,” Manning said.

What happened at the Manning Centre for Building Democracy last night:

Biggest headline of the night is probably @stphnmaher getting kicked out #mnc12 #ipca
— Matthew J. Rowe (@MatthewJRowe) March 10, 2012

One of the principal reporters who has brought the vote suppression tactics that Mr. Manning deplores to the attention of the Canadian public was booted from Mr. Manning's conference. Hypocrisy? Check. That's one heck of a democracy centre he's got going there.

Let's take a look then at the most recent McMaher reporting from Thursday night then, to see what might be getting under the skin of the Manning Centre types. How about these two paragraphs?

In the federal election, RMG worked for 98 Conservative campaigns and worked for the party's national campaign, too, although the party will not say how much it paid to any of its vendors. Knowledgeable insiders estimate RMG does $10 million to $15 million worth of work for the party in a year.

Local campaign managers and candidates normally had no control over the work of RMG, even though they were receiving services from it for which they were billed, sources say.

That $10 to $15 million amount that is reported there, based on knowledgeable insiders, is pretty astounding. Given that the paragraph indicates that "the party will not say how much it paid to any of its vendors," these numbers could raise eyebrows, even within the Conservative party. Is it an expenditure made by the Conservative Fund and reported to the National Council of the Conservative Party? Presumably it would be made by the Fund if RMG is their main fundraising source. [Conservative Party Constitution 9.2 "Conservative Fund Canada shall submit quarterly financial reports and an annual audited financial statement to National Council."]

$10 to $15 million is a very large expenditure for a political party in Canada to be making to one company alone. If it is a spending decision made by the Conservative Fund, consider that the Conservative Fund is said to be run by Harper and his hand-picked board: "The party's fundraising arm, the Conservative Fund, meanwhile, has only a handful of members, all appointed by Harper. "The reality is that the leader controls the party through the Fund." (This also raises all kinds of governance questions about the Conservative party that could be delved into.)

Further, consider the $10 to $15 million numbers in light of the filings made by the Conservative party in 2011 indicating that they raised about $23 million last year.

Note also, from this report, an estimate of how much RMG made during the 2011 election:

The call centre earned more than $1.4 million, billing close to 100 local Conservative campaigns for services leading up to the May 2011 election, according to returns filed with Elections Canada.

If RMG is making $10 to $15 million a year in work with the Conservative party, the election dollars represented just a small fraction of their income from the Conservatives. The more lucrative work is whatever they do the rest of the year and beyond the election. Since RMG is a private company, there is no way to gauge what percentage of their revenues is represented by the work they do for the Conservative party.

On that second part of the excerpt above: "Local campaign managers and candidates normally had no control over the work of RMG, even though they were receiving services from it for which they were billed, sources say." That might give more impetus to the new in-and-out questions that have been raised to date. There may be an issue, again, over whether the expenditures should have been attributed to the national party rather than the local candidate accounts.

Update (3:35 p.m.): Maher tweets:

As has been reported, I was ejected from a Manning Centre party last night. Today I'm told it was a misunderstanding. Case closed.

— Stephen Maher (@stphnmaher) March 10, 2012

Friday night

Have a good night!

Early evening robocon

Polling on election fraud allegations...it's going to happen, might as well take a looksy: "Canadians split on who's to blame for robocalls: poll." From Ipsos, it is said to be a "blended telephone and online poll this week of 3,154 Canadians..."(1001 telephone/2153 online). While the headline is playing up a "split," this isn't good news for the Conservatives given the high threshold in the statement that respondents are asked to express agreement or disagreement with:

In the survey, people were told there had been accusations that some people working for the Conservative party in the last election "made calls to supporters of other parties and either pretended to represent their party of choice and deliberately harassed them or to deliberately confuse them about which polling stations to vote at on election day." The pollster also told respondents that Harper and senior Tories had said they had "nothing to do with these calls."

The survey found that 50 per cent of Canadians agree with the statement that "these accusations are true and the Conservative Party had a co-ordinated campaign to deceive Canadian voters with misleading telephone calls in the last federal election."

By comparison, 47 per cent disagreed with the statement, while the remainder said they did not know.

50% are willing to express agreement with a very certain statement pinning responsibility on the Conservatives for a co-ordinated fraudulent campaign. Beyond the facts that are piling up and pointing to one party, that probably speaks beyond the current events to the Conservatives' track record on democratic issues and an unwillingness in a majority not to give them the benefit of the doubt. A political party that cares about its integrity and public perception shouldn't be happy with that 50% result or the notion that there's a "split" in the poll.

That 47% would not agree is not necessarily a flat no, exoneration result. I would imagine saying yes to a co-ordinated campaign to deceive people out of their vote could be a hurdle for many people still piecing it together.

There is another response in the poll that bolsters the view that many may just be in holding mode: "Sixty-eight per cent of those polled said if the Conservatives are found to have conducted the misleading robocalls, there should be new elections "in the ridings where it happened." By comparison, 32 per cent disagreed with that course of action."

In any event, as we know, facts are what are important in this unfolding mess and opinions won't factor into those ongoing investigations. Today's latest on what those facts are turning up is more bad news for Conservatives:

Automated phone calls that directed people to the wrong polling stations in the last federal election may have overwhelmingly targeted older voters, the Toronto Star has learned.

Elections Canada investigators sifting through a flood of complaints that have emerged about dirty tricks in the spring 2011 campaign have started to notice this pattern as they call individuals to verify details of the suspicious phone calls they reported receiving.

Most of those who received an automated phone call telling them their polling station had been changed say they were contacted early in the campaign by the Conservative Party and indicated that they would not be supporting their local Tory candidate.

Dave is piecing it all together on why that news about targeting older voters is important, go read.

Late night

A little late night horror story for you. John Doyle had a great column on the movie, which will be on HBO this weekend.

Much of Game Change (airing Saturday, HBO Canada, 9 p.m.), a must-see, devastating portrait of Palin and the McCain campaign, is about the allure of celebrity and the injection of showbiz stratagems into U.S. politics.

But is it all true? Or is it fiction? “Yes it’s all true,” Danny Strong, the movie’s writer and co-executive producer, said on the phone last week. “Everything in it is verified. The book on which it’s based [the bestselling book of the same name, about several American presidential campaigns, by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann] is based on eyewitness accounts. The book has not been debunked, as the Palin camp has claimed.

Conservative phone call harassment on tape

Listen to the tapes here. A former employee of RMG said things like this: «Oh, vous n'êtes pas un conservateur? Nous ne voulons pas parler à un socialiste ou à un séparatiste.»

The former employee of RMG has been let go, here are the apologies:

Le collecteur de fonds Don Duke s'est comporté de manière «inacceptable», reconnaît le Parti conservateur. Et la société Responsive Marketing Group (RMG) s'excuse «sans réserve» aux membres de la formation qui se sont frottés à ses méthodes musclées.

Note one of the calls mentions Ignatieff, so this could have been during the election, it's not clear.

It gets worse...

Late night

The historical backstory behind the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster. What a great little film. (h/t)