Robo/Real Call Raw Cheese Story....All Politics Is Local

TheyCalledHimMr.Tip

Ol'PolWisdomVille

Which means that Cathie's question is a good one...

What did 94 Conservative candidates know, and when did they know it?

I, for one, would sure like to know.

But.

At this point it is worth recalling the Marty Burke Email chain, wherein the local Conservative Party Pols in Guelph (yes, Guelph!) started chafing under the National Party's freaky control almost as soon as the last spring's election campaign began.

The chain, which was first published in the Guelph Mercury, started like this:

...An email from Burke to those running his campaign suggests leaving national headquarters out of the loop while considering submitting an opinion piece in Burke’s name to the Guelph Mercury.

“Finally, let’s be realistic,” Burke wrote the morning of March 23, two days before the Harper government fell on a non-confidence motion. “Once we have a piece reviewed by all six of us, I reckon we have a good message. I am willing to submit it without vetting through Ottawa.

“We have already seen how unwieldy that process is,” Burke wrote....

And then all the local characters chimed in before concluding that they need not worry because their man in Ottawa was actually a local boy:

...The original email referring to “Ottawa” as “unwieldy” was sent to communications director Michael Sona, campaign manager Ken Morgan, events manager Paulette Padanyi, Conservative riding association president John White and campaign volunteer Andrew Prescott.

Nine minutes later, Prescott emailed back and wrote that “ALL media calls should be going through Michael.

“Remeber, (sic) while he may physically be in Ottawa at the moment, he’s the GUELPH Comms guy, he’s not “Ottawa”.”

Padanyi replied six minutes later.

“Agreed — we were told in media training at last Saturday’s Campaign Training session exactly that — ALL media must go through the “press secretary” — in our case, Michael,” Padanyi wrote...

So.

Given all that, you might think that the local boy, in the end, may have helped the locals go rogue, right?

Wrong.

...The email exchange also includes a note from (Michael) Sona urging other campaign insiders to maintain a link with national headquarters.

“I am in National Caucus with the Minister until noon, so I would like until then to be able to see what the PM has to say to us in Cabinet before we submit this article,” Sona wrote...

My point?

If things were like this in other ridings it would strongly suggest that the young local Pols who were scooped up and sent to Ottawa, many of whom are/were very young, were soon fully indoctrinated and under National Party control.

Regardless, whether or not they later became/will become scapegoats (with or without cheese curds).

OK?

.