patrick muttart

Rest assured, the Canadian news media isn’t nearly powerful enough for anything like the News International scandal to happen here.

The CEO of Sun Media says—and the Conservative campaign confirms—that a Conservative strategist forwarded a dubious photo of Michael Ignatieff.

In light of tonight’s debates, it is probably worth revisiting the advice Patrick Muttart, a top advisor to Stephen Harper, once provided to British Tory leader David Cameron.

Brian Topp notes both Don Cherry’s latest ranting and Patrick Muttart’s recent observations and casts forward to a progressive response.

Patrick Muttart, one of those often credited with bringing Stephen Harper to power, turns up in a bit of American election analysis, hailed in this case as “perhaps the world’s leading expert on working-class voters in English-speaking countries.”

Conservative guru Patrick Muttart sends British Tory leader David Cameron unsolicited, and perhaps ultimately dismissed, advice.

Recently, in the process of researching for a magazine piece on Chuck Strahl (on newsstands now!), I stumbled across the University of Calgary’s online database of political papers and documents—a treasure trove of, among other things, old Reform party campaign pamphlets.

From the Canadian Press assessment of Patrick Muttart’s departure.

The Prime Minister gave himself a half-hour window to appear in the foyer. Somehow still he managed to arrive eight minutes late. Not that one should read into that any indication of his office’s relative state at this point. If anything was to blame it was probably a malfunctioning teleprompter which had various techies sweating and muttering in the moments before Mr. Harper arrived.

When—let’s assume it’s inevitable—you pick up the election edition of Maclean’s, you’ll find, among other tales of adventure and woe, a fine accounting of the Conservative party’s electoral prowess. Political “genius” is fleeting and often nothing more than a figment of the imagination, but there is probably something—either horrifying or commendable—to be said for what the Harper Conservatives have done here. Which is to say, there is something to be said for reducing all of this nonsense to a series of geographic and demographic equations. Politics as a mathematical exercise. Nothing worth doing if it doesn’t equal votes.

Including in the riding of London-North Fanshawe Centre … where, coincidentally, the PM will be heading off later today. Local columnist Chip Martin remembers all too well Ryan Sparow’s antics during the ill-fated 2007 2006 byelection, when he turned up “driving a gus-guzzling SUV with Alberta plates” to tank local Tory hopeful Diane Haskett’s campaign with his big-city brand of politicking:

Well, not directly, but still. Sadly for the Sparrow – and more sadly still, I’m sure, for Patrick Muttart and the Conservative Party – as of this morning, not a word of this statement appears to have found its way into the post-hearing coverage, which really isn’t all that surprising, considering how late it went out: