Monday, August 28, 2006

Liberals and beer

Paul Wells columnizes from Vancouver this week on this marathon of a Liberal leadership race. Mainly he focuses on Michael Ignatieff, but I LOL'd at this line he had about the politician formerly known as Iggy:

He is the Keith's India Pale Ale of Liberal leadership candidates: those who like him, like him a lot. Those who don't, like Stéphane Dion.


Hilarious, and probably not far off the mark. Is Ignatieff a beer drinker though? I would have pegged him for more of a scotch man myself. Or maybe brandy, or cognac.


And speaking of alcohol, it seems Gerard Kennedy knows how to party. While photo doctoring is distasteful (and a long-held tradition of the political right), I think this time it backfired on the Cons. It makes me like Gerard a little more, it makes him come across as a little more just folks, average Canadian and less nerdy foodbank guy.

Just as long as it wasn't an import, or even worse, a weak-assed American beer.
That would be an even larger scandal than Ken Dryden's fondness for American burgers.

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Harper (who likes to have a beer) will join Kennedy for a drink some time - ah, no - that would be non-partisan and kind of friendly wouldn't it?

I'll betcha Iggy does drink beer. I find it absolutely stupid for him to be attacked because of his parents - he didn't choose his lot in life - this is just plain stupid, idiotic childish jealousy.

Yup, the liberal bloggers just keep putting stuuf like this in and the conservatives spend hours reading it getting ready for their attack, yup smart move by liberal bloggers - give the conservatives ammunition with stupid comments.

Zac said...

In the 13,000 + word Valpy profile, Ignatieff said that his idea of heaven is "watching sports on the couch at home with a beer in my hand."

He's a red sox fan though Jeff. Perhaps another reason for you to side with Dion?

Jeff said...

Anon, what are you talking about? What exactly are liberal bloggers putting out there? I'm sure the CPC reads the G&M too.

I haven't read Valpy's opus yet though Zac, so that's interesting. A Sox fan though? At least he didnt' say Yankees, I'll give him that. I'm not sure if Dion is a sports fan, for some odd reason it doesn't seem to have come up during the campaign... :)

Jeff said...

Lad, I've been just as hard on the Liberal caucus for its recent performance as anyone has, but how that relates to the CPC doctoring photos is beyond me.

This whole false moral equivelancy game cons seem to employ in debates is tiring. Is doctoring a photo equivelent to premeditated murder? No, but its still a pretty sleazy/stupid/lame thing to do.

Not that I've made a big deal out of it, I really can't be bothered. Neither is the Liberal party, nor, to my knowledge, has Gerard's campaign. Some bloggers have though, and their points are not without validity.

Why, compared to some of the ass-hat issues raised over in Blogging Tory land, this is positively Watergate-ian by comparison.

Anonymous said...

Are the Conservatives always behind the times or what? What in hell does the budget in the spring have to do with manupilating photos?

Fairness isn't even in their vocabulary. Short memories,yes. Harper's group had to revamp too - remember guys?

Once a leader is chosen things will change greatly. At least that's what I think.

Ah, about the old scandal crap - none of the current candidates (I don't know about Volple) but NONE of the others had anything to do with the mess of 10 years ago. Yes, you bright conservatives it was 10 going on 11 years ago.

If a new candidate is expected to be held responsible for past deeds of a party then Harper is responsible for the Mulroney corruption and scandals and shouldn't be PM.

Again, Conservative double-standard.

Ya, the article shows that in spite of all Iggy's success he's a regular guy in most ways.

Steve V said...

Jeff

Reading the last line of that Well's piece, I'm inclined to think he sees Dion winning.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Dion has the organisation in place to win. He lost almost 500 members in Ontario alone because his organisation there didn't fill out the excel sheet properly (this comes from somebody who is working full-time at LPC(O)).

I think as of DSM weekend, Dion will become yesterday's story pretty quickly. I see him finishing 5th in DSMs (behind Iggy, Kennedy, Volpe and Rae in that order) at which point his fundraising, such as it ever was, comes to an end as do his chances of winning. And I like Dion, I wish it were different but in talking to my contacts here in Ontario as well as in Western Canada, it sounds like his campaign is still an absolute mess.

Jeff said...

Fred, I don't have any insight to offer there, you may be right, I don't know. I'm not involved in the campaign, Im just a humble blogger. Whatever's happening in the trenches, I think he's one of the candidates that has a shot at winning this thing. I'd be supporting him if I didn't think he had a shot though, because I think he's the best person for the job. The chips will fall where they may in Montreal, should be fun.