Desperate to hold on to a seat that might otherwise be slipping away from his grasp, Danny Williams did everything to 'change the channel'. Send any minister, raise any issue, nudge any letter-writing lackey to talk about something - anything - other than his cuts to health care services in rural areas.
This weekend's Hail Mary was a trumped up speculative battle cry against Hydro Quebec and the Province of New Brunswick. And it just may have worked.
True to form, both Opposition leaders rose to the occasion, and took the bait. On the morning that voters in the Straits and White Bay are going to the polls, the airwaves are filled with soundbytes from the 'Great Negotiator' instead of the 'Captain of Cuts'. Instead of talking about health care, or focusing on winning a byelection with a superior local candidate, the media and opposition are now focused on hydro, and an imaginary battle with Premiers in two other time zones.
If the Tories win a squeaker tonight they can thank the Opposition strategists, for helping hand deliver another victory.
If you're in a boxing match, and you have a guy on the ropes, you go with the punch that's working. You don't nod and acquiesce when he asks you to switch to another sport.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
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1 comments:
It gets worse.
If nothing else, this conveniently timed casus belli (along with Williams' attempt at a regional casus foederis) means that the Tories will have no excuse if they don't pull out a victory worthy of a Übermensch.
As we all know, issuing an official fatwa against Hydro-Quebec gives the Williams regime access to the most powerful mnemonic devices in the nationalist lexicon.
Such a fatwa is the rhetorical equivalent of the BLU-82B, and its deployment in the field is a sure sign that DEFCON 1 cannot be too far off. With multiple byelections on the horizon, this war (the Telegram's own words) will no doubt last until the Tories' internal polling shows that the danger of another unflattering media story has passed.
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