It looks as if Loyola Sullivan has refused to run against his former bosses ABC campaign in St. John's South - Mount Pearl. The Fisheries Ambassador was the Conservatives best hope for a competitive candidate in the riding where Liberal Siobhan Coady is hoping three is the charm.
The Conservatives are also without a candidate in St. John's North (East) where several former high profile Conservative supporters have declined to run. There are several reasons. First of all, Conservatives in this province are mad. They campaigned and voted for a platform of lies in the last election. They hate looking like fools and being taken for granted. Another factor in this riding is Jack Harris. It is expected that the popular former Provincial NDP leader will be running for his federal party. Harris's biggest problem will be managing volunteers. Third, there is the little issue of the ABC campaign being spearheaded by uber popular Progressive Conservative Premier Danny Williams. Who on the local scene would want to lock horns with the Premier over Stephen Harper?
Fabian Manning is hurting as well. Even the staunchest supporters in St. Brides are concerned. Manning was elected on a reputation for standing up for his constituents. He was evicted from the provincial PC caucus for standing with the crabbers against the provincial government. That reputation all but disintegrated when he decided to screw Newfoundland and Labrador by voting with his new master in unilaterally changing the Atlantic Accord and breaking promises made by Stephen Harper to remove non-renewable resources from the equalization formula. Manning has been busy doling out money in his riding in the hopes that people have forgotten his transgressions but the polling is showing Manning is in trouble.
The other issue he is facing is that the raggedy arsed artillery, the ones needed to win a campaign have gone underground. Manning is in the position of having to create a new organization without his normal PC/Conservative base and that spells disaster. Fabian is learning that the Progressive part of the Conservative Party has jumped ship with their provincial leader.
Some parts of the Conservative vanguard in the province are saying wait and see what happens at the ballot box. That despite Danny Williams, local Progressive Conservatives are really still supporting the Conservative Party. They just are afraid to do so publicly. More tripe.
A CBC news report confirms that the Conservatives are facing a "horrible political environment". If you have the time read the comment section and follow the hatred that Conservative spinners in Alberta, Ottawa and perhaps even Fabian Manning's constituency office are anonymously passing off in a very desperate attempt to right the Conservatives fortunes here. Folks whose role it is to counter-spin, jam the polls, flood the open lines and get black space for the Conservative cause in the letter to the editor pages.
Enter Steve Outhouse, political hack and Conservative fixer. Today he was whining that the Premier's has already started his ABC campaign and the writ has not been dropped. I thought the ABC campaign began in earnest in the spring of 2007. I have seen no evidence of a cease fire over the past year and half. The Premier has campaigned across the country against Harper. Nothing new here. My interpretation was that his past campaigning will pale in comparison to what he has planned for the election when it is called. Steve Outhouse says, we have friends in the government (I seem to remember Hearn saying something like that last spring) an MHA who told us the following.
It is the old poison pill trick designed to create paranoia in the ranks. It is the type of tripe the Conservatives are famous for. They hope that some poor sod who may have said at some point in a caucus meeting that the war has to end becomes the victim of a whisper campaign. That the Provincial Progressive Conservatives will start looking inward for "traitors" as opposed to putting all of their energies into the ABC.
Outhouse just took a page from their own "Run Out of the PMO" Handbook" and credited it to the Williams office to try and sow some dissension. The leak is a fabrication and the source is questionable.
As for the allegation that "there are already people on the public payroll implementing the campaign – at taxpayers’ expense – and directly through the premier’s office", can someone explain to me why it is okay for the Director of Communications in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to be using Federal Government tax dollars and time to promote partisan Conservative spin, rumor, gossip and all out lies but it is a problem if the Premier's political people are preparing for battle as well?
Outhouse reeks of hypocrisy and desperation.
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