Saturday, October 19, 2019

Did the Kinsella Gambit just make Mr. Bernier relevant for the long term?

So it has been revealed that the Conservative campaign allegedly hired Warren Kinsella, a known political fixer, to work to undermine Mr. Bernier and his party by using "dirty tricks".

Mr. Scheer does not confirm or deny it and it probably will not have a really big impact on the election in the short term.  However, he should know that it will not go away.  There is only a day-and-a-half left in the campaign but he will be dogged with questions about this until the end.  When you are running a campaign you never want to be tagged with the idea that you might have run a dirty tricks scam on one of your opponents as being the last thing discussed about your campaign.

One impact it could have is this could push the needle over just enough for Mr. Bernier to win his seat.  He is in a tough fight with a Conservative and this may get him enough sympathy to swing the seat in his favour.

That would not be good news for the Conservatives in the long term because it would mean that Mr. Bernier would still be around, his party would still be around and he will be able to take the time to continue to build his party.  Regardless of who leads the Conservatives after October 21 that would not be good news.  A seat in the Commons and the time to use that seat to build an actual party for the next election is not something to give Conservative strategists warm and fuzzy feelings.

He still has to win the seat.  If he does not he fades into obscurity.  If he does then he has an opportunity to make himself more relevant in the future, provided he has the political smarts to do so.

I am certain that the Conservatives did not have that outcome in mind when they allegedly decided to hire Mr. Kinsella.

1 comment:

Jackie Blue said...

It also vindicates Justin Trudeau as the victim of a relentless dirty tricks smear campaign to damage his reputation at home and globally. Even way back when the SNC BS started I could smell the odor of "Hillary's Emails" wafting over the border. I even called it "Trughazi." Kinsella's involvement with JWR and now this story only confirms that he's the poor man's Roger Stone moonlighting on a gambit to help the CPC destroy Trudeau. There has been some talk that someone in the LPC may have infiltrated or been shadowing the CPC to figure them out. Bernier has filed a complaint with Elections Canada. It remains to be seen what, if anything, the Liberals will do. Perhaps if they're smart (and they are) they'll adopt Trudeau's/Ali's rope a dope strategy and just let the two wingnuts fight it out.

What I said back in the spring is that I hope Butts, Telford and Trudeau have the Clintons on speed dial to compare notes about manufactured scandals and "the vast right-wing conspiracy." I even wrote Trudeau a letter of support saying that these concocted and overinflated nontroversies look very much like what was done to Hillary Clinton. Even the blackface thing echoes the 2016 astroturfed #walkaway campaign aimed at persuading black Democrats to "leave the plantation" (!) and either vote Republican or stay home, based on revelations of old photos showing Hillary at an event to honor Robert Byrd (thus painting her, and by extension the Democrats, as racist). But it all pieces together finally, and lo and behold, Kinsella is the (lowest) common denominator in all of it dating back to Gropergate. "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do..."

Whether or not Trudeau and/or the Liberal Party opt to pursue action themselves against Scheer/CPC, or just let Bernier have at it, I'm confident now at least that Trudeau will have plenty of mitigating evidence to clear his name in the court of public opinion when he writes his post-political memoirs sometime in the future. If I could, I'd suggest him a corny title: Based on a Tru Story.