Longfield Dares Other Guelph Candidates to Take Only Guelph Money

In a peculiar moment in last night's debate, Liberal candidate Lloyd Longfield challenged his fellow candidates to only take money from local donors in terms of fundraising. There's been a lot of money talk this campaign, but is there a serious influx of outside Guelph cash in the campaign in the Royal City?

Robocall Townhall Shows Community Still Worried

Are you worried about another robocall scandal? Judging from the turnout at a townhall at St. James Anglican Church here in Guelph today, a lot of us are. Between 80 and 100 people showed up for the event organized by Fair Vote Guelph and the St. James' Environment and Social Justice Committee, and on the eve of the start of the last parliamentary session before the 2015 election, it sure sounded like there was still a lot to be concerned about even after the conviction of Michael Sona last summer. A combination of politicians, experts and ordinary citizens came out to remember how we got here, and what we should be on the look out next.

Marty Says Mea Culpa

Yesterday's conviction of Michael Sona managed to do the impossible, prompt a response from Marty Burke. Burke was the Conservative candidate for Guelph in the 2011 Federal Election, and it was under his auspices that Sona, in party with others, allegedly launched the robocall scheme to misdirect nearly 7,000 to a fake polling station. Burke fought tooth and nail to keep himself and his name out of the media during the entirety of the investigation, arrest and trial of Sona and the robocall crimes, but now that it's all over (for now?) Burke is talking, and apologizing.

Who Wants to be Guelph's Conservative Nominee for 2015?

Now to me, this is the most interesting federal race of 2015. Considering that the last Conservative candidate was involved in a nationally televised investigation into an alleged attempt to defraud voters of their ballot, it should be unsurprising that the local riding office might have difficulty finding a new candidate, but that doesn't mean they're not going to try. Starting now. Over a year in advanced of the next election.

Editorial - 12 Angry Mentions from the Sona Trial

 

It was a long time coming, and to say that it was something of a disappointment is an understatement. Although many people wanted the trial of the century, what's clear is just how tenuous the case against Sona is, and maybe how badly this investigation's been bungled if this is the only case that can make it trial. In the details though, the case being tried in a Guelph court and scheduled to wrap up Monday with closing arguments has been fascinating. There's been personal betrayals, tall tales, stunning silences, and a startling lack of curiosity. In some ways, it's not a matter of how can anyone have gotten away with this, it's how could they not get away with it. In the case of the robocall trial there's no real certainty, even of the guilt of the accused. Here are a dozen of my observations from the trial.

Sona Trial Begins With Testimony from Burke Campaign Team

For local politicos, this was the biggest thing to hit the Guelph scene since we had back-to-back federal elections in 2008. I know, we lead a dull life, but for everyone who have wanted to see some kind of justice come out of the 2011 attempt to defraud voters of their right to vote, all hope now rests on Courtroom #2 at the Ontario Court of Justice in Guelph. Michael Sona, the communications director for the Marty Burke campaign, arrived for the start of his trial in fine spirits. He said he felt "great" and was looking forward to seeing how it all played out. What played out Monday was a recital of uncertainty as the first three witnesses called to testify teetered between throwing Sona under the bus (again) and exonerating him by omission.

Of Pantywaists and Politics

At this point, I think maybe Marty Burke likes to write letters to the editor as a way to irk those of us still sore about his campaign of silence back during the 2011 election, a soreness that remains stinging in the wake of the robocall scandal for which Guelph was the epicentre, and on which Burke has yet to really comment on the record. And that brings us to Burke's latest screed to be published in the storied pages of the Guelph Mercury, and it's nice to see that in spite of everything that Burke is still doing the good work of the Harper political machine, which is to pile on Justin Trudeau.

Sona What?

National Post Editorial Cartoon

 Obviously, it was big news earlier this week when it was announced that Michael Sona would be charged in relation to the robocall scandal that has many Canadians concerned about the safety and validity of their democracy. The single solitary charge under the Elections Act, that Sona alleged to “wilfully prevent or endeavour to prevent an elector from voting at an election,” will be heard in court early next month, but astute politicos are wondering what the long term implications may be.

Sona's Talking (For a Change)

It appears that Michael Sona has shirked all national media - newspapers, TV shows and newsreels (that last one might be apocryphal) - in order to clear the air with, of all things, the University of Guelph student paper, The Ontarion.

Now that's not a knock against The Ontarion, it's bred many a fine journalist over the years, myself included. But surely Michael Sona - that is the same Michael Sona that was communications director for the Conservative Marty Burke campaign in last year's Federal Election, a campaign during which Sona guarded his candidate from the local media like one of the 300 Spartans facing down the army of Xerxes - wouldn't go to a local media source to tell his story, right?

Apparently, I was wrong.

Sona Gets a Bygones From Elections Canada

Michael Sona, a Conservative Party staffer and communications director for the Guelph campaign of Marty Burke last Federal Election, was the first to be thrown under the bus when the robocall scandal broke last March. But it seems that the indictment in the court of public opinion might may been a bit premature. 

Today's news is that Elections Canada investigator Al Mathews seems to have misquoted Burke campaign volunteer Matthew McBain, who you'll remember was asked about Sona's possible involvement in the robocalls when another staffer said he directed Sona to McBain when he asked about “looking about doing some stuff that might not be okay." 

McBain had responded that he had thought that Sona was interested in doing something more akin to prank calling, than a widespread effort to disenfranchise Guelph voters, but to clarify, Matthews said that a report he released unintentionally implied that Sona was talking to McBain about the latter and not the former.

Who Is Pierre Poutine?

Not that one, the other one.

It's the most pressing question of our time. Bigger than "Who is John Galt?" which is now so ubiquitous that Lululemon put it on a bag.

On a recent post on #CDNPoli, blogger Brian-Michel LaRue, "a 29 year old Canadian-American from Montréal, sometimes journalist, sometimes DJ, professional traveler, quite the amateur photographer and writer," revealed Pierre Poutine as Andrew Prescott, local blogger and deputy campaign manager for Marty Burke in last year's Federal Election.

Well, case closed then.

Oh, Marty...

Because the robocall situation, at present, isn't wacko enough, former Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke has gone to the police. For being harassed. By reporters.

Since the story about the robocalls broke out into a full blown national scandal, with Guelph as its epicenter, everybody's wanted words with not just the architects of the Burke campaign - like Michael Sona - but with the man himself. True to form though, as he was during last spring's Federal election, Burke has been unreachable. That's no mean feat in this day and age with phones, cell phones, and e-mail.

But when all else fails, you can always try and talk to someone in person, and knock on their front door. Which is what reporters from the Guelph Mercury and on up the journalistic food chain to the Globe and Mail have been resorted to doing. Burke interprets this as harassment, as if he were a private citizen plucked out of the blue to be the centre of a massive conspiracy. Burke may be innocent of any of the robocall shenanigans, but he's more or less set himself up as the default spokesman for the Conservatives in Guelph and has remained an active letter writer in the local paper. But he seems only willing to talk on his terms, and for a public figure, especially under the present circumstances, that's unacceptable.

Sona Breaks the Silence

It took nearly a week, but Michael Sona is finally talking about the robocall scandal that either got him fired or forced to resign from his job as an assistant to a Toronto-area MP. Of course, completely in keeping with Sona-style, the silence was broken in the form of a brief statement e-mailed to CTV News. This is the complete statement below:

I wish to address the allegations and accusations levelled against me in the media over the last six days. I have remained silent to this point with the hope that the real guilty party would be apprehended. The rumours continue to swirl, and media are now involving my family, so I feel that it is imperative that I respond.

I had no involvement in the fraudulent phone calls, which also targeted our supporters as can be attested to by our local campaign team and phone records. On Thursday, I offered my resignation to my employer. The role of a staffer is to assist their employer in their responsibilities, and that was impossible to accomplish with the media continually repeating these rumours. It is for that reason and that reason alone that I resigned from my position.

Michael Sona

It's a good thing most police forces don't offer the Michael Sona Course in Crime-Solving: keep your mouth shut and the guilty parties will feel so bad for your silence, they'll just surrender themselves. Actually, I believe your silence was what prompted the media involving your family (and me) in the first place, because if you just left a forwarding number then...

Anyway, and in all seriousness, I'd like to take a moment and offer Michael Sona some friendly advice. Come out from behind the electronic statements and talk to us. If you truly had no involvement in robocall-gate, and I do believe in innocent until proven guilty, then it's in your best interest to share everything, and anything you know. Get out in front of this, and be open and honest and share what you know. Horrible stuff grows in darkness and you being MIA from the national debate casts a long shadow. 

Throw yourself on the court of Lisa Laflamme or Peter Mansbridge. You don't think they'd give you the time of day? Are you kidding? If you told the CBC you'd only be interviewed by Alligator Al from Mr. Dressup, they'd find a way to make it happen! Better still do the Rick Mercer show. After all, American politicians on the cusp of a permanent screw-up do Saturday Night Live and all is (mostly) forgiven.

The point is that e-mail statements are so 2011. And if you learned nothing else from working on the Marty Burke campaign last year, its that the media don't stop because you say so. And they don't go away if you stick your fingers in your ears and hum really loud.

The View from Under the Bus

In political parlance, one is "thrown under the bus" when they take on, either on a volunteer or voluntold basis, responsibility for a mistake or miscalculation of a campaign. I think given the events of the last couple of days, it's pretty clear that Michael Sona is being thrown under the bus as the robo-call controversy from last May's Federal Election has erupted with new vigour.

Obviously, I'm no fan of Sona's. He was one of the prime architects of the Marty Burke campaign's deflect-a-thon as the Conservative candidate's Communication Manager here in Guelph. Sona was one of a number (seven being the number I was told) of CPC operatives from Ottawa HQ parachuted onto the Burke campaign to help seal this riding's deal for Harper. For Sona and his associates though, the election in Guelph was fait not accompli as their strategy of minimal public engagement outside of campaign events and door-knocking only severed to separate Burke from the electorate he was trying to court.

But I don't want to re-live the campaign. My comments on it stand, and I know others see the campaign differently believing that media members believing themselves ignored and marginalized are either media elitists upset by the snub, or perceived as too liberal to be dealt with reasonably. I think though that everyone can agree that the optics at the special ballot on the University of Guelph campus didn't look good for Sona. The accusation that he caused a ruckus, shouting about the legality of the poll before making a motion to grab the ballot box, made him a national headline; a notoriously active member of the party at best, a Rovian in training at worst.

Top 10 Local/Provincial Stories of 2011

 10. Get on the GO

An event years in the making, the GO train finally returned to Guelph on December 19th, but it was not without some controversy. Still, 2011 demonstrated a dramatic leap forward in public transit for the City of Guelph. Guelph Transit announced new routes and schedules that will take effect on January 1st, summer cuts to service were repelled in budget deliberations and stat holiday service was restored for many holidays in 2011, and for the entire year in 2012. If some real progress could be made on finishing the transit hub, and if council could resist the urge to not increase transit prices on a yearly basis, we might be the closest we've ever been to a transit utopia. But perhaps true perfection is being left that one, small thing to complain about.

9. The Struggle to Balance Budgets

If you're feeling mathematically exhausted, it might be because this year had two budget processes in them. Whether the 2011 budget deliberations last winter or the 2012 discussions last month, the City struggled with balancing spending, maintaining services and keep tax increases, if tax increases were necessary, as low as possible. In the process some odd sorts of financial arrangements have been made or attempted. Among them the approval of borrowing from the City's savings in order to cover operational costs for the 2011 budget and the proposal to sell the City's street lamps to Guelph Hydro to cut costs in the 2012 budget. For both years, some trimming here and some new spending there has meant a rather steady increase of three per cent per year, and all the while the debate rages: do we pay too much in tax as compared to our municipal neighbours, or too little? I guess we will see what wonders awaits when we hit the ledgers for 2013.

The Story After the Story

If you read this week's "Guelph Beat" in Echo Weekly, you might have taken it as an afront to the anonymous poster who, on this blog a few weeks ago, called into question my credentials to cover local politics. I was afraid that that's how it might read, though that wasn't my intent. A thick skin is necessary in this business. Not everybody is going to agree with you all the time, and the nature of the internet makes it easy for people to lash out with impunity. So notes of this nature are to be expected, if not encouraged. The galvanizing nature of modern politics makes it more inevitable than ever.

What's interesting is that the post came after I had officially left Marty Burke and the 41st Federal Election in the past. More than enough had been said about Burke and the way he waged his campaign, and the two sides of that argument were never going to concede anything. I was prepared, and am still prepared to let sleeping dogs lie. You may have noticed this week that Burke's restarted his letter-writing to the Mercury that had rather insulting language in regards to the current status of his former opponent Frank Valeriote. Despite the fact that it constituted about as much direct contact between Burke and Mercury as the entirety of the campaign, and no matter how much the reptilian part of my brain wanted to comment, I let it go.

Still, the piece in this week's Echo, despite being kind of self-centred, struck to the heart of something I've been experiencing as of the last campaign. The poster referred to in my column basically supposed that my coverage should be marginalized because a) I'm not part of a party, and b) that by working freelance and using Blogger, I cannot, and should not, be considered a legitimate news source (Even if the Guelph Mercury itself disagrees.)

I hope the piece stands by itself as a warning that our politics are entering dangerous territory, where the media is being treated by the party in power as an enemy to be obfuscated, and that anyone that disagrees with you is someone who should be pushed into silence. The total war to politics is become more and more a real threat with each passing poll.

In case you missed it, here's this week's enhanced "Guelph Beat."

So I was thumbing through NOW (like I usually do) and I came across a letter regarding a past issue about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his push to privatize the city’s garbage pick-up.

“I read your article on the garbage debate and sensed a little bitterness toward our mayor,” wrote Mike Holt. (Of course where he got an idea like that, I’ll never know.) “I, for one, am very proud of the citizens of Toronto for electing Rob Ford and feel he is doing a wonderful job. I savour every defeat of the socialist councillors and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.”

He continued, “First Ford, then a majority for the federal Conservatives, and in October a landslide victory for the PCs in Ontario. I have never been prouder to be a Canadian.”

A couple of things concerned me while reading these words. One is the fact that in order for this man to be a proud Canadian, the majority of Canadians must support his political views, and two is the continuing notion of total warfare in politics that I’ve been seeing ever since the commencement of the last Federal Election.

To bring this back to Guelph, someone posted a comment on my blog, Guelph Politico, shortly after I adjourned for the Victoria Day long weekend. The comment was attached to a story I wrote about Conservative candidate Marty Burke a couple of days after the May 2nd election. I don’t think I had given a second thought to Burke or his disastrous campaign since hitting ‘Post’ on that article, but what was it that Al Pacino said famously in The Godfather Part III…

“Just curious as to what you feel qualifies you as any type of political expert?” asked the anonymous poster. Well there’s this monthly cheque I get from Echo Weekly. But seriously, what? Am I being called out? Because that’s what it feels like. But the poster goes further.

“Have you a graduate degree in political science? Have you worked behind the scenes for any of the parties? Are you a party member?” he or she asks.

First, I do not have a degree in political science. I have a plain old BA in History from the University of Guelph, where I also did take a several political courses. You know who else got a BA in History from the U of G? David Akin, an Ottawa reporter for CTV, Global and now host of The Daily Brief on the Sun News Network. Like me, he cut his journalistic teeth as Editor-in-Chief of the student paper The Ontarion.

As for the other two questions, no, I’ve neither worked behind the scenes for a party, nor have I been a party member. Do I have to be in order to better understand politics? One of the reasons I’ve never signed up for a party is because I enjoy by status as an independent. I find it better to keep my political options open, at the very least to make it easier for me to appear impartial as political reporter and commentator. But honestly, I’ve never in my adult life found myself drawn enough to a particular party to be a member.

“Or have you just taken the five minutes it takes to fire up a new blog through blogger, and viola you consider yourself and therefore implicitly demand others respect your opinion because you’ve actually taken 20 minutes and written an article? [sic]”

Well I’m not sure that sentence entirely makes sense, but I get your gist. And it actually took me 10 minutes to set up the blog and that includes choosing the template, and adding the words “Guelph Politico” to a picture of Guelph’s skyline I took for the banner. Oh, and then there’s the over 500 posts I’ve generated in nearly three years, and the hours I’ve invested in writing and doing research and searching out contacts and going to various events.

And I don’t demand others respect, I just seem to get it. Here are the names of a few people that have treated me like a journalist: Frank Valeriote, Liz Sandals, Mayor Karen Farbridge, the entirety of the 2006-10, and the 2011-14 city councils, Jack Layton, Elizabeth May, Stephane Dion, and numerous candidates in elections at all levels of government. And that’s just politics.

“Sorry Adam I see so much horse shit in your articles, plain lies in fact. You’re actually very lucky no one has decided to sue your ass yet.” Well, if they did decide to “sue my ass” as you say, I hope they enjoy their settlement win of X-Men comics and old Babylon 5 tapes (RIP Jeff Conway, AKA: Security Chief Zack Allen).

I won’t bother to ask Anonymous to point out the “plain lies” I’ve perpetuated. “Lying” has become a blanket term used by people of all political stripes to attack people that disagree with them. My conduct and my credentials have never been called into question until this past election cycle, and I’m sorry to say that it’s because of the growing stte of poisonous partisanship.

Speaking on violence after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy said that hatred forces us to look at our brother like aliens, “Alien men with whom we share a city, but not a community.” He asked people to remember that “that those who live with us are our brothers,” and that perhaps “we can begin to work a little harder, to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.”

May the same be said of us after a nasty election.

So Can I Interview Marty Burke Now?

No, really. I realize that Burke's overwhelming silence during the campaign had a lot to do with prevalent Conservative strategy where in the candidate need only keep their head down, limit their public comments, and keep to the party talking points, and election should be a foregone conclusion. But the election is now over, what does Burke have to lose by opening up to the press and the people, and give us his point of view on the campaign that was?

Instead, the response from Burke post-election has been remarkably muted, or it would be remarkable if silence had not have been the general theme during the campaign. Requests by the Guelph Mercury have gone unanswered, and Burke even failed to make a call of concession and congratulations to re-elected Guelph MP Frank Valeriote, even after both Bobbi Stewart and John Lawson offered their's in person Monday night.

The worm has quickly turned though. Many Conservative supporters, including Dick Chapman who e-mailed me, ask what the point is of Burke talking to the media when we were clearly biased for Valeriote. This argument didn't work for Sarah Palin, and it doesn't work for Burke either. Heck, the right can't even trust their own news network to not step on any toes in delivering flawlessly positive campaign coverage. Like it or not, the media is how you reach more eyes and ears than can ever be possible in one-on-one meetings, no matter how prolific you are at banging on doors. 

However, there was one media outlet in town that Burke had no problem reaching out to: The Guelph Tribune. In one of his characteristic e-mails, Burke told the Trib that Guelph really lost out by not electing him. “The pity for Guelphites, unfortunately, is that their already weak voice has been diminished further in Parliament. Backbench MPs in last place parties have difficulty getting glasses of water, let alone getting things done for their riding,” wrote Burke. “Canada’s so-called natural governing party has been reduced to a small rump – dead last in the parliamentary pecking order.”

For all the people writing on comment boards and blogs about what a great guy Marty Burke is, I'm waiting to see that translated into his own actions."Backbench MPs in last place parties have difficulty getting glasses of water?" Classy, Marty. Very classy. It makes you wonder though, where exactly did Burke see himself in the pecking order in his own caucus if he had won? Did he see a cabinet position in his future as reward for winning Guelph for the home team? If the final vote is any indication, it seems that Burke's argument that Guelph would be better represented by someone in the majority government, was soundly rejected. Not just by the people that voted for Valeriote, but the combined two-thirds of voters who put an 'x' next to someone else's name, other than Burke's, on the ballot.

And to Burke's point, I don't think Valeriote's going to have any trouble finding water in Ottawa. Where would Guelph's distinct voice be heard louder: in a small caucus looking to rebuild, or in a chorus of 160-some-odd others under a powerful leader committed to his own, pre-established agenda? Unitl this last Parliament I have always lived in a riding where the MP was part of the sitting government, and I have to say, I saw a lot more public interaction between the MP and his constuents while our representative was a member of the Opposition than when he or she was not. 

As for Marty Burke, I'm not sure what political ambitions he has left; Guelph is his third loss in three ridings and three elections. The next election will probably see another candidate step forward for the Conservatives, though attention will probably not be paid as completely in the next round. Despite high-profile guests and a campaign of calculated engagement, Burke was still unable to make a case to upset Valeriote, and indeed, the margin of victory was greater for the Liberals, despite the fact that Burke did manage to get more votes.

The lesson is that unless you've got name cache, or are riding an unprecedented wave of national support for your party, an election victory, on a per riding basis, cannot occure without engaging the media by being available and by going to the public through all-candidates debates and forums. One cannot win on their own support alone. And if local Conservatives pick up on one thing, than maybe its better going with the enemy you know, than being your own worst enemy.

More Mail From Dick

I wonder if this is going to be a regular Thursday thing. You may remember that last week I was e-mailed by a man named Dick Chapman, who said, among other things, that I was a mouthpiece for the Toronto Star, neither a writer or journalist, and was someone without honour. Apparently, that hasn't stopped him from offering me further advice:

Adam;

Now that the election is over and the decision has been made there can be a time of reflection about why you did not receive any replies to your requests! The main reason was as a reporter for the Mercury the committee had nothing to say as the newspapers anti Marty stance! It was obvious that Frank Valeriote was the favourite of the paper and Marty's views and information were twisted and misreported constantly! So why should anyone answer your questions! As far as I am concerned the smear campaign that the Mercury and Valeriotte [sic] carried out worked somewhat, but a lot of people supported Marty! A true Canadian Hero!!!

I responded again to Dick, but I think this time I was a little more snippy. (I didn't pause to take a "chill pill" to borrow a phrase from Marty Burke.) The Catch-22 of this Conservative argument, one tried and tested by their ideological brethren in Republican Party south of the border, is that the media always has a liberal bias, so why bother interacting with them by giving them fodder for the fire, or "smear campaign" as Mr. Chapman says. Here's my response.

Hi Dick,

I respectfully disagree. You might not believe me, but I was eager to meet with Mr. Burke and talk to him about the issues and his candidacy. If I, or the Mercury for that matter, were conducting a "smear campaign," as you say, why would we expend so much time, effort and energy in trying to get Mr. Burke on the record. If it was a smear campaign, why try and talk to him at all.

And again, I point out, that the six other candidates and Mr. Valeriote made themselves available to press no matter their perspective of so-called press bias. Why should anyone answer my questions? Because it's the responsibility of political candidates to answer questions, both from the media, and from their constituents, and in Guelph, I am both. And as far as I'm concerned Mr. Burke lost, in no small part, because of his refusal to be open with the public beyond those whose support he already secured. He missed several debates, and only responded to press inquiries through e-mail or his communications director.

A lot of people supported Marty Burke, yes, but how many he more could he have won over? And please, I realize that Mr. Burke served his country with distinction in the military, but that hardly qualifies him for office. He may be a Canadian hero, but most people in Guelph decided that that wasn't enough for them to elect him as our Member of Parliament.

Again, I appreciate your passion, but if the Burke campaign wanted better coverage, they should have made themselves more available to the press.

Thanks for reading,

Adam

V For Valeriote

During the CJOY debate last week, a caller phoned in with a question for Frank Valeriote that asked why, in the wake of an unlikely Liberal victory, should Guelph voters put their support behind the incumbent? But why follows why not? The question itself is loaded, implying that the only way one can be effectual in government is by being a part of the party in power. I'd like to think that in the last two-and-a-half years Valeriote has proved time and again that an Opposition MP can be very effective, if not as effective, as an MP that's part of the governing party. And that's why Valeriote was given a mandate and a return ticket to Ottawa on Monday night.

Our system of government is supposed to work by choosing the person you think will represent you best in Ottawa, not necessarily party leaders and party ideology. That comes into it too, of course, but it seems that Guelph decided that having an opposition MP was alright by them, and why not? Valeriote is an accomplished man that many people in Guelph respect, and even if they don't agree with him politically, he made a strong case and was indeed highly visible and highly active locally as a Member of Parliament.

By the numbers, Valeriote won with 25,574, or 43 per cent of the vote. This represents a 10 per cent increase over the last election, which saw Valeriote win with 18,977. Marty Burke finished with 19,252 votes or 32 per cent of the vote. While not enough to beat Valeriote, Burke did best Gloria Kovach's 29 per cent share of the votes, 17,185 in total, from the 2008 election. The NDP's Bobbi Stewart finished a respectable third with 16 per cent, or 9,836 votes. Green's John Lawson finished in fourth place with 3,711 votes, or six per cent overall, with each of the other candidates getting triple digit numbers: Philip Bender (192), Kornelis Klevering (171), Karen Levenson (123), and Drew Garvie (104). 

So what does this mean for Guelph? Well, right off, I guess the Harper Government will probably not be compelled to fawn over us anymore. If they can't win Guelph under these conditions, how can they ever win Guelph? 

Who's to blame for that? Well, Marty Burke need only look so far as the mirror. He was almost a complete non-entity in his own campaign, even being notable for his absence in the article about his election night festivities. Not only was he not at his campaign HQ (at least while the press were there), watching the returns come in, he didn't offer Valeriote his concession either. It was really the perfect end to the Burke campaign; a campaign of obfuscation and such careful strategizing that Burke practically strategized himself out of contention, only really being carried by the unwavering support of the Conservative base. 

Burke's response to the CJOY question was basically that people should vote for him because it would mean he would be an MP in the government, not the opposition. In the end, the Burke campaign was about only two things: getting Harper a majority by electing him, and that he was in the air force for 23 years. I'm still not sure what he, personally, stood for. I hear comments from people talking about what a great guy he is, but that's hard for me to determine for myself when he didn't talk to anyone I know in this campaign. And by "I know," I mean press people. Even the Mercury only ever got the e-mail treatment, and if people can't hear your voice or read your words, especially when they only come out of the Blackberry of your communications director, don't be surprised if the voters don't respond. 

Anyway, I think that's a wrap for the 2011 Federal Election. I honestly didn't expect to get sucked in the way I did, but I'm kind of glad I did. What's next for Politico? There are a couple of local stories I've had on the back burner for a while, and once I get those posted I'll probably take a bit of break. It looks like I might be a permanent part of CFRU's new local politics show, and there'll be more details on that when it happens. In the meantime, stay tuned to Guelph Politico for all the latest political scoop and commentary. And now, to bed!...

Hate Mail

Now for the part of running a blog I love the most, reader interaction. Well, maybe not in this case. Someone named Dick Chapman sent me this brief e-mail this morning. There was no salutation, and no valediction, just a two line splash of cold water that calls into question my capability, my integrity and accuses me of bias all at the same time. 

When I receive this e-mail earlier today, I knew I wanted to share it, along with the response I wrote, but I'm not sure why. In the end I think because it's my own valediction to the struggles in this election of getting the Conservative candidate on the record. I've got one more piece in my about Conservatives in general and their relationship to the media, and that will be all I have to say about that. 

In the meantime, read as I get raked over the coals and I tried to walk tall in the eyes of Dick Chapman.

E-mail From Dick Chapman

You are neither jounalist [sic] nor a writer with any honour! You are just a Toronto Star mouthpeice who doesn't know what he is talking about!

Marty has more integrety [sic] and experience than you will ever have! This is from one who has traveled the world and written and published a book and who knows what a good man is!

======================================================

Hello Dick,

First of all, just let me say, "Ouch." Second of all, thanks for reading. ;-)

But kidding aside, I do take exception to being characterized as without honour, or that I'm a "mouthpiece" for anyone but myself. I appreciate and recognize Marty Burke's service to Canada, and I do believe he is a man of integrity. I have a great deal of admiration for anyone that puts their name forward to run for government office, for it's an all-consuming pursuit with an unyielding spotlight. Anyone that puts their name on a ballot deserves respect, and I believe I've advocated that point many times on my blog and in my Echo Column.

The problem is that I've not been shown the same respect in return by Mr. Burke's campaign. (Notice I said "campaign" and not put blame on Mr. Burke himself, since I've actually never talked to him personally.) I e-mailed his campaign, phoned his office every day for a week, and made a person visit there, and not a single person showed me the common courtesy of either a returned phone call or an e-mail.

Regardless of your opinion of me as a journalist, the fact of the matter is that the campaigns of Frank Valeriote, Bobbi Stewart, John Lawson, Drew Garvie, Karen Levenson, and Kornelis Klevering have treated my as such. They have made themselves open and available to me (and by proxy, my readers) to their thoughts, their ideas, their opinions, and their persons. Whatever my own political ideology, I have been able to engage with them, and I am appreciative.

My criticisms of Marty Burke stem from that position. I do not know him personally, and to my knowledge I have made no personality-based disparagement about him. My writing on Mr. Burke has happened in a vacuum, because the candidate himself has been unavailable. I hope as a writer yourself, you might appreciate the difficulty in giving readers a complete picture when you can't tell one part of the story for whatever reason.

I was profoundly disappointed by the silence from Mr. Burke's campaign. Never have I encountered this kind of wall of resistance in any of the five elections I've covered as a member of the media. The Marty Burke you know may be a gracious man of character and integrity, but from my point of view, the campaign that's been conducted on his behalf has left much to be desired.

Thank you for writing,

Adam