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...The Manning Centre's Pre-Election Campaign School?
First off, remember this letter to The Globe's editor to UVIC public-admin guy John Fryer earlier this week:
In January, 2010, my UVic inbox had an e-mail invite from a democracy centre to attend a campaign school. Intrigued, I signed up for the three-day event.
Topics covered included voter identification. Discussion ensued about suppression techniques. Instructors explained voter suppression tactics were borrowed from those used by the U.S. Republican Party. Many kinds of suppression calls were canvassed. Another instructor gave detailed explanations of how robo-calls worked, techniques for recording messages, plus costs involved. He distributed his business card upon request.
Instructors made it clear that robo-calling and voter suppression were an acceptable and normal part of winning political campaigns...
Well, now, via Emma Pullman's recent piece in the VanObserver, we apparently find out just who, precisely, attended this elite 'school':
...Roughly 35 people attended the Manning training. According to Fryer, many of the attendees were attracted to the training to help defeat Liberal incumbent MP Keith Martin in Esquimalt Juan De Fuca. The event’s star-studded slate of speakers included former Press Secretary to Stephen Harper (and current President of Sun Media) Kory Teneycke and...
And who?, you may be asking....
Well....
Are you ready?....
OK....
Here goes....
...The event’s star-studded slate of speakers included former Press Secretary to Stephen Harper (and current President of Sun Media) Kory Teneycke and David Akin, the National Bureau Chief for Sun Media....
Gosh.
If he was, indeed, there inquiring minds sure would like to know if Mr.David Akin was a student or a member of the finest of that very fine group of 'instructors'.
Regardless, one can only wonder of the subjects up for discussion at the Manning Campaign School was 'Making Big-Media Hay with Last Minute Bogus Wedge Issues'
Like, say, this one:
OK?
.
3 comments:
One of these days these idiots are going to discover that it's a lot easier to shine the sun in dark places now that us lowly commoners have the internet.....
cherylb--
I'm just wondering....
Which of us interwebz commoners will receive the first threatening letter from someone who's undergraduate degree is in neither science, nor arts, nor education?
Hi Ross: I'm all about transparency and accountability: Posted this the day before the Van Observer piece:
http://blogs.canoe.ca/davidakin/politics/the-manning-campaign-manual-on-voter-contact/
Posted this on a related topic a year.
http://blogs.canoe.ca/davidakin/main-page/journalists-speaking-engagements-and-other-errata/
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