Will All Of Small Paul's Riding Association Chickens Soon Come Home To Roost?

TheMemoryOfMyMemoryIs
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Couldn't help but notice the following most interesting passage in Laurence Martin's latest Globe piece on internecine political party wars:

...There followed on the Liberal Party side the Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin wars. Mr. Chrétien won two majorities, whereupon the insurrection of Martin rebels began. He won a third, only to see his antagonists gather in greater numbers and force him out. There's a book coming out on Mr. Chrétien next month by Bob Plamondon called The Shawinigan Fox. It has revelations, which I've read, about the feud. Warning to the Martin crowd: Duck!...


Gosh.

Whatever could that be all about 'inssurection of the Martin rebels' thing possibly be about?

Hmmmm....

I seem to remember something.

Something from 2007...

Something written by a by-then-already-blogging proMedia guy named Paul Willcocks.

Although this bit was published in BC Business; the passage I'm thinking of goes like this:

....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 (David) 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. It’s a B.C. style,” says political scientist Norman Ruff. Marissen’s organizational skills helped shape the battles, he adds. “He conducted politics like a military campaign.” But Ruff agrees that the federal Liberal party was a comfortable, closed club in the province. (“If it was a club, it was a small one,” adds a Liberal strategist who watched the battles from outside the province.) Marissen downplays the conflicts. But Christy Clark, no slouch at politics, is blunter. “Does anybody think that politics is just about being nice all the time? Politics is about winning,” she says. “In politics, in order for somebody to win, somebody has to lose. When winning requires you to be tough, that’s the style Mark will adopt.” But only when he has to, Clark adds...


Duck, indeed.

But only when you have to, of course.



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Tip O' The Toque to Owen Gray for the heads up on the Martin (Lawrence, not Small Paul) piece.
Initially, I thought of using a 'TheBoyz Are Back In Town! sub-heading for this post, but ultimately decided that might be a little too on the nose....And besides, I didn't want to have to deal with the Earworm fallout....Ooooops....Which always brings to (my) mind (anyway) that part in 'Once' where the buskers tell the guy that they 'only play Lizzy'...
And my apologies, sincerely, to any and all Anon-O-Mice who become cranky upon landing here...'Tis something I will do my best to correct in the future...

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