CONSERVATIVE TV ADS ARE BRILLIANTLY BRUTAL

I’m a little disappointed at the craftsmanship, the tone, the acting, and the messaging.

Disappointed in a professional sense, in that I come from a history of political marketing, promoting, and advertising.  But that said, from a personal point of view, I’m equally encouraged that the failings alluded to in the first sentence are all to be found in the latest round of Conservative election television ads.

The usually sure-footed Tories have completely lost their way in an area where they were once kings.  They now look like the cut-rate hired help.  I suspect when they kick Pierre Poilievre out of the leadership of that party, they’ll be putting the boot to his communications guy, Sebastian Skamski, as well. 

So these ads, while terrible, are beautiful.

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MANNING SQUAWKS ABOUT FEDERAL VOTE

When Preston Manning speaks, people listen, that is until they cringe.

The populist evangelical western fear-monger has the kind of voice that ranks right up there with nails on a chalkboard, and it would be a real treat to hear him and American Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. having a conversation.  That is, of course, before your teeth started to hurt and your eyes started to bleed.

The son of one of those strange bible-thumping preacher-premiers that only Alberta can produce, Preston seems to have picked up the Social Credit mantra of his father Ernest and carried it forward into the present day.

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SMITH AND BYRNE

One is an angry Alberta populist, and the other is, well, just angry.  The first was an old-school prairie radio talk show host in Alberta, the other was someone who attended two post-secondary education entities, but left both before graduation.  The former is the former leader of the Wild Rose Party in Alberta, about as close as we can get, and it’s pretty damned close, to the red-hatted morons of MAGA.  The latter served as a chief advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but was chased out of the party after losing a Conservative Party power play with Eganville’s Ray Novak.

One is Alberta premier Danielle Smith.  The other is Pierre Poilievre’s chief strategist and former romantic partner, Jenni Byrne.

Both have their political origins on the far right of the political spectrum, where dystopian anger is the watchword.  Both are MAGA acolytes.  One kisses Donald Trump’s fat ass, while the other has the red hat and wears it.  

Both are dangerous to Canada.

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FEDERAL ELECTION APRIL 28, 2025

April 28, 2025.

Not long ago, I shared my thinking on the political lay of the land federally, and in my view, it was pretty bleak.

The wolves outside were huffing and puffing, puffing and huffing, and there was a very real prospect that they were going to blow the entire bloody house down.

Trump in the White House again, and a massive Conservative majority government led by Pierre Poilievre up north, where we are.

Poll after poll after poll as much as confirmed the scenario, until the polls started to change, and not even incrementally really, but dramatically.  But those changes in polling results are something I’ve seen plenty of times before, so I wasn’t ready to go out and buy party balloons and streamers.

And then poll after poll after poll started to come together to form what appeared to be a verifiable trend, that the Liberals were closing ground on the Conservatives, in many cases bouncing back from a 20+ point deficit to within 6-7 points of the leading Tories.

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BQ’S BLANCHET PLAYS THE GAME. JUST IGNORE HIM

The Bloc Quebecois’ Yves-Francois Blanchet is just the latest in a long line of hysterical Quebec nationalist politicians the rest of us have had to endure seemingly forever.  Somewhere in that province there obviously lies a comedy factory that pumps out these self-indignant, perpetually pouty politicians who calculate the ways and means of Quebec separation from the rest of Canada.

It’s almost funny, except for the fact that it’s not.  It is, though, exceedingly tiring.

To have people like this in our federal parliament is an indication that either Canada is the most tolerant and placating place on the planet or that we have some institutional dysfunction within our federal system.  I’m not here to complain about that system, because democracy can be inconvenient like that.

I’m here to complain about Blanchet.  Because people can be a pain in the ass like that.

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