Well now.
For the last week, the Conservatives have been trying to gin up a scandal about Carney's stock portfolio, hoping Canadian media will follow Rosemary Barton's lead and adopt a hectoring, suspicious "But her emails!" tone about Carney's blind trust - they seemed to want to burst Carney's rising balloon and bring him down to earth, make him look uncomfortable and sneaky, ducking and weaving -- and that was starting to happen, I was reading more posts and seeing more commentary and news stories about how Carney "needed to say something", with the usual "poor optics" complaints when there wasn't anything else to criticize.So today I'm watching Power and Politics, and David Cochrane is interviewing several guest pundit types about the latest federal polls and other stories, of course including Carney's stock portfolio blind trust and maybe it was suspicious etc etc.
Because there wasn't really anything else to talk about this afternoon anyway -- Carney had already completed his European and Iqaluit press conferences, the polls have been turning around for the Liberals but everybody already knew that, and there hadn't been any new tariff news. The only big news of the day seemed to be those astronauts coming home from the space station.
It did seem to me that maybe the whole "Carney is sneaky" smear from the CPC might just be gaining some media traction, with pundits discussing whether Carney was hiding conflicts of interest in his stock portfolio and why wouldn't he just tell everyone what he owned and what was he maybe hiding and lets talk about it some more and interview some more people while we're at it...
Then, at about the 30-minute mark, kaboom....
Cochrane announced he had just received an email from CPC's Jenni Byrne announcing that "there will be no media contingent on the Conservative plane" during the election campaign.
And then it just hit the fan!
All of a sudden, Canadian media had something to talk about.
And so did dozens of columnists across the country, and hundreds of posters on social media.
Now, I don't know why Poilievre and the Conservatives decided to kick reporters off his campaign plane -- Poilievre has always had a prickly relationship with many Canadian reporters, he doesn't like them, he doesn't respect what they do, and the feeling is mutual. It seems to be very hard for Poilievre to talk easily to reporters - or anybody, really - in that breezy, friendly, off-the-cuff way that reporters love and politicians cultivate. And Poilievre obviously feels more comfortable with the media right-wingers who like him. So maybe it was everything, everywhere, all at once, who knows.
But what amazed me about this today was - why NOW?
I could not believe it...for heaven's sake, why would CPC announce this right now, this afternoon, on the very day that its smear campaign against Carney might finally be bearing some fruit, so to speak.
Talk about stepping on a rake, knocking yourself out, distracting from your agenda and sabotaging your own message.
Of course, when Byrne sent her email, Carney's stock portfolio immediately became old news, and reporters started speculating about Poilievre's fear of reporters, and rehashing those many many Poilievre media clunkers.
Because there wasn't really anything else to talk about this afternoon anyway -- Carney had already completed his European and Iqaluit press conferences, the polls have been turning around for the Liberals but everybody already knew that, and there hadn't been any new tariff news. The only big news of the day seemed to be those astronauts coming home from the space station.
It did seem to me that maybe the whole "Carney is sneaky" smear from the CPC might just be gaining some media traction, with pundits discussing whether Carney was hiding conflicts of interest in his stock portfolio and why wouldn't he just tell everyone what he owned and what was he maybe hiding and lets talk about it some more and interview some more people while we're at it...
Then, at about the 30-minute mark, kaboom....
Cochrane announced he had just received an email from CPC's Jenni Byrne announcing that "there will be no media contingent on the Conservative plane" during the election campaign.
And then it just hit the fan!
All of a sudden, Canadian media had something to talk about.
And so did dozens of columnists across the country, and hundreds of posters on social media.
Now, I don't know why Poilievre and the Conservatives decided to kick reporters off his campaign plane -- Poilievre has always had a prickly relationship with many Canadian reporters, he doesn't like them, he doesn't respect what they do, and the feeling is mutual. It seems to be very hard for Poilievre to talk easily to reporters - or anybody, really - in that breezy, friendly, off-the-cuff way that reporters love and politicians cultivate. And Poilievre obviously feels more comfortable with the media right-wingers who like him. So maybe it was everything, everywhere, all at once, who knows.
But what amazed me about this today was - why NOW?
I could not believe it...for heaven's sake, why would CPC announce this right now, this afternoon, on the very day that its smear campaign against Carney might finally be bearing some fruit, so to speak.
Talk about stepping on a rake, knocking yourself out, distracting from your agenda and sabotaging your own message.
Of course, when Byrne sent her email, Carney's stock portfolio immediately became old news, and reporters started speculating about Poilievre's fear of reporters, and rehashing those many many Poilievre media clunkers.
How do you like THEM apples?
