Has An Old Fed-Lib Turf War Re-Erupted In British Columbia Election Campaign?

TheLotuslandianAirIsSuddenlyThickWith
WizardsVille


There was an interesting back and forth on the Twittmachine today wherein longtime Fed-Lib Wizard Warren Kinsella appeared to endorse Adrian Dix for Premier of British Columbia:

Ya.

I was a little surprised also.

But then I headed over to Mr. Kinsella's website and saw the following:

...Personally, I’d like to hear from the B.C. Liberal’s top-secret pollster and advisor – this guy – about what he thinks.

Oh, goodness! Did we just out Nick Kouvalis as being part of the B.C. Liberal election campaign (of Ms. Christy Clark)?...


Gosh.

The last we saw of Mr. Kouvalis in B.C. it was during the BC-Liberal leadership campaign when he worked for that most progressive Horse 1A (i.e. George Abbott) and may or may not have had something to do with kitties and websites and faux feline-type Liberal sign-ups.

Or some such thing.

Anyway....

Personally, I'm wondering if all of this could, by chance, have anything to do with the fact that, back in the old pre-HarperCon halcyon Fed-Lib days, Mr. Kinsella was a staunch Chretienite and Ms. Christy Clark's husband, Mr. Mark Marissen, was a big backer of (small)Paul Martin Jr.

Which might seem innocuous except for the following, which was written by Paul Willcocks for BC Business back in 2007 about something that occurred five years earlier:

...There is no denying the Marissen team played rough. The most infamous episode saw the Martin forces take over the riding association of MP and Chrétien supporter Herb Dhaliwal in 2002, while Dhaliwal was out of the country and his wife was dying of cancer. The takeover not only locked up delegate support for Martin; it killed Dhaliwal’s chances of running again. He blames Basi and others on Marissen’s team, complaining of questionable mass sign-ups of instant Liberals. The riding association swelled from 250 to almost 3,400 members during the campaign to get rid of Dhaliwal. Liberal insider and Chrétien loyalist Warren Kinsella called it the worst kind of political thuggery, grim enough to make him consider quitting the party. “It always seemed rough, a take-no-prisoners knee-cap approach...

Now.

Again.

Perhaps I'm way, way off base.

And if so, I'm sure that Ms. Kinsella will soon expound effusively on why, exactly, Mr. Dix should be the next Premier of British Columbia.

OK?


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Of course, for those actually (to use Mr. Willcocks' bloggerific phrase), 'paying attention', his 2007 BC Business piece also contained the following: "...Dave Basi and Bob Virk are former ministerial assistants to provincial cabinet ministers, charged with accepting benefits to provide a BC Rail bidder with inside information. Both were also lieutenants in Marissen’s federal Liberal operation. Basi, in particular, had a reputation as a go-to guy when it came to signing up new party members to help in a close vote. Dhaliwal blames Basi for the takeover in his riding..." Honestly, it never ceases to amaze me how little is actually said about what really did (or didn't) go down in this abundantly cautious province....


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