On marketing and accounting

I flew down to Las Vegas Sunday night for a conference (up $30 so far), so I’m missing much of the excitement around the Conservative/Nascar/Bourque kerfuffle. Perhaps the fact that I’m following it from afar that explains why I can’t get seem to worked-up about it.

The progressive blogsphere is certainly having fun with it, and power to them. There’s plenty of material to work with, and it is a pretty transparent exercise by the Cons. Heck, you can’t really even call it transparent; they flat-out said this was about reaching out to so-called middle class voters. As Wells dryly noted, if that strategy was working they wouldn’t be spelling it out to reporters it, now would they? Thou doth brief too muchly, and so forth.

Myself, I don’t think Deceivin’ Steven watches Nascar (is he pretending to write a book on that too?) anymore than he actually drinks Tim Horton’s outside of photo-ops. I know a Starbucks man when I see one. Not that I could give a crap what sports a politician watches or what caffeinated beverage they drink. I’m more concerned about their policies. Unless they drink Coke Zero, then they’ve got my vote for sure.

What this Nascar announcement serves to highlight for me more than anything is the absolute dearth of ideas or anything resembling a policy agenda from this Conservative government. I’m just surprised they didn’t name the car the Not A Leader and pain a picture of Dion with a flipper-tail wearing a beret on the car's hood. Though I’m quite sure it was considered.

Anyway, we’ll have our fun with this (it is the summer, crazy hot here in Vegas) and Ted’s poster contest is a great idea, but in the end Harper will rise or fall on the basis of his policies, not his sponsorships. That's not to say the next time Harper is in front of a microphone he shouldn't be quizzed on his favourite Nascar driver, race predictions and so forth.

As for the fact it’s everybody’s favourite headlines (for sale) aggregator that the Cons are sponsoring, well that’s just funny. If everyone knew the Cons or their supporters were buying pro-Con, anti-Lib headlines on the site before now it simply can’t be denied. I think most people in search of less tourqued news have already moved on though anyway.

What I’m more interested in, as I’ve said in the past, is the financial relationship between Bourque.com and the Conservative Party. Obviously this spending will need to be disclosed. But this news today makes it even less unlikely they haven’t been buying headlines on the site in the past.

As I’ve asked before, the question we should be asking is did the CPC purchase any sponsorship on Bourque.com, either directly or through an intermediary, during the last election campaign? And if so, was the spending properly disclosed by the CPC under the regulations governing election spending? That’s what I’d really like to know.

That, and how the hell you play craps? It looks so complicated. In the meantime, I’ll stick to roulette and my new favorite, blackjack.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers