Blue Like You

Archive for October 11th, 2007

Check out MDL - Click on Strategists debate faith-based school funding with Bernard Lord, Joy MacPhail and Martha Hall Findlay.

Now that the dust has settled, anyone who was taken in by the FB-funding issue is going to feel somewhat manipulated when they watch this video.

Duff talks about fears of Muslims and immigration as an undercurrent in Ontario.

Joy MacPhail - All Canadians were poorly served by Ontarioans and their malaise.

What is Martha trying to say? That the discussion was positive? That they might consider it?
Joy calls her up on it.

Duff brings up the push for elimination of funding for Catholic Schools.

Bernard Lord calls it an ‘inconsistency’ in Ontario.

In the previous clip (“A discussion of the future of the Ontario PC Party”), Peter Shurman says he never liked the term ‘Faith-Based funding’. He prefers ‘Inclusive Public Education’.

More at Daimnation! - Warren the K reveals his secrets.

What a bunch of lemmings.

It was a hollow victory, Dalton. Very hollow.

John Tory must not have read Warren Kinsella’s “Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics”.

Tip #1 in the book by the Prince of Darkness is - The Press is the enemy. He quotes U.S. television host and former political staffer Chris Matthews from his best-selling book Hardball:

“…Failure, misery, disaster - that’s what makes the bells go off in a journalist’s nervous system: the kind of story where somebody gets hurt”.

Kinsella’s advice: “Don’t be the one who gets hurt.”

I think part of the reason for last night’s massacre lies in character of John Tory - open, honest, forthright, accessible, compassionate, principled, reliable, responsible and candid.

He also loves to talk, which is great if you’re the executive of a large corporation.

Not so good if you’re a politician on the wrong end of a media feeding-frenzy.

Admittedly, Tory threw out the chum himself when he proposed his faith-based funding policy and didn’t take an immediate cue that this was not going to be popular. He stood by his principles right to the end; wavering only to admit that a free vote was a more democratic way of handling it.

But McGuinty’s handlers knew what to do - Keep your guy on message, and away from any potential disaster in terms of a media “Gotcha” moment; either with reporters or the public. So all we saw of Dalton McGuinty was carefully crafted scripts and tightly controlled media sessions where he kept hammering away on the importance of safeguarding ‘public education’ and ‘public health’.

Oh, his goons did accidentally allow one little gaffe, but somehow it got overlooked in the Tory carnage. For the most part, they were in control - no matter what it took to accomplish that goal.

For the most part McGuinty was safely tucked away in classroom settings, challenged only by the tough questions of fourth-graders. No one was permitted to embarrass him with his record of broken promises.

There are other little subtle tricks like suggesting lines of questioning to reporters just before your opponent’s media scrum. Getting unions onside isn’t a bad idea either.

Global’s Sean Mallen provides some insight on the former:

But back to the McGuinty bus. His media team is full of former TV reporters, one of whom is regularly calling me and other Global reporters on the tour to gently inquire into the subjects of our stories and suggest an alternative, more Liberal-friendly interpretation. Another former reporter, now part of the Liberal spin machine, has been sending me emails advising of a potential “gotcha” question for NDP Leader Howard Hampton.

It is all part of the game in the campaigning of the 21st Century and all parties are doing it. Our blackberries hum all day with party news releases parsing and critiquing every word uttered by the other guy. But the Liberals seem to have the largest and most aggressive media management strategy. It is a rare John Tory event that is not prefaced by an email to our blackberries from the Liberal War Room, suggesting a line of questioning.

Brilliant strategy - And straight from Kinsella’s book.

By contrast, John Tory seems to be too open and honest for politics.

Or perhaps just too naive.