Oh for the love of…
The bus carrying Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff broke down just outside the Eastern Ontario town of Hawkesbury Tuesday, just before 6 p.m.
The breakdown occurred on the first day of the Liberal Leader’s six-week, cross-country excursion to promote the Mr. Ignatieff’s and his party’s fortunes.
A similar malfunction on the first day of Ontario Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty’s 1999 election campaign was seen as emblematic of the party’s mismanagement and inexperience, leading to its defeat at the hands of Conservative leader Mike Harris.
In 2008, Mr. Ignatieff’s predecessor faced similar woes. Stéphane Dion’s Air Inuit plane was forced to make an unexpected landing in Montreal in the early days his failed election campaign.
For the last time: the physical world does not conform itself to journalists’ desire for metaphors! Mechanical breakdowns are not “emblematic” of anything, except to reporters who like to press the facts into pre-defined templates of spurious significance (see: narrative), or who think the universe is governed by magic.