…An email from Burke to those running his campaign suggests leaving national headquarters out of the loop while considering submitting an piece in Burke’s name to the Guelph Mercury.
“Finally, let’s be realistic,” Burke wrote the morning of March 23, two days before the Harper government fell on a non-confidence motion. “Once we have a piece reviewed by all six of us, I reckon we have a good message. I am willing to submit it without vetting through Ottawa.
“We have already seen how unwieldy that process is,” Burke wrote….
…The original email referring to “Ottawa” as “unwieldy” was sent to communications director Michael Sona, campaign manager Ken Morgan, events manager Paulette Padanyi, Conservative riding association president John White and campaign volunteer Andrew Prescott.
Nine minutes later, Prescott emailed back and wrote that “ALL media calls should be going through Michael.
“Remeber, (sic) while he may physically be in Ottawa at the moment, he’s the GUELPH Comms guy, he’s not “Ottawa”.”
Padanyi replied six minutes later.
“Agreed — we were told in media training at last Saturday’s Campaign Training session exactly that — ALL media must go through the “press secretary” — in our case, Michael,” Padanyi wrote…
…The email exchange also includes a note from (Michael) Sona urging other campaign insiders to maintain a link with national headquarters.
“I am in National Caucus with the Minister until noon, so I would like until then to be able to see what the PM has to say to us in Cabinet before we submit this article,” Sona wrote…
My point?
If things were like this in other ridings, it would strongly suggest that the young local Pols who were scooped up and sent to Ottawa, many of whom are/were very young, were soon fully indoctrinated and under National Party control.
Regardless, whether or not they scapegoats (with or without cheese curds).