Psst! John Tory is a CONSERVATIVE! Pass it on...

Apologies for the lack of blogging of late, I've had family visiting from B.C. and we've been doing the tourist thing around Toronto. Today was the Zoo actually, and while we were on the way back on the bus we passed by the campaign office of Gary Grant, the Conservative candidate for Scarborough-Guildwood in the upcoming provincial election.

At least, I assume he is the Conservative candidate. Having been taking pictures of elephants and what not at the zoo, I happened to have my camera in my pocket. Take a look at Gary's campaign office:

Take a closer look, see anything missing?

How about on the lawn sign?

You may be wondering why the word 'Conservative' appears nowhere on these signs. Even the phrase 'Progressive Conservative' is absent. If you look very, very closely, you can see the letters PC. If you look closely, that is. Of course, you need to know what those initials stand for. Politically correct? Prior convictions?

Indeed, if you didn't know better you'd think Gary was running for the 'John Tory Party'. After all, while you have to struggle to even find the initials PC, and the word Conservative is nowhere to be seen (if you say it three times, does it conjure Mike Harris?) John Tory's name is nearly as prominent as the candidate's.

Why, on this sign they made the PC initials crazy small and even skip the candidate's name all together, and just promote the messiah:

It seems clear that Conservative is a dirty word for the Ontario Conservative Party, and they're trying to run as far away from that name, and the Harris/Eves record/baggage, as quickly as possible. They have taken it to a pretty ridiculous extreme, however.

And what's with this John Tory cult of personality? I met Jack Kennedy. I worked with Jack Kennedy. And you, sir, are no Jack Kennedy. Seriously, is this guy really so popular to justify this idolation, and this campaign strategy? I seem to recall a prohibition about the worshiping of false idols...

Really, this is just lame strategy. I thought the whole 'Paul Martin's Liberal team' thing was lame, and the "Your John Tory candidate' thing is equally lame. I have to question their picking that campaign for inspiration, as it didn't work out overly well for Paul and Co.

And as for the banning of the word Conservative, and the pretending to be moderate, a phenomenon we've seen manifest itself in various ways at the federal level too, I have to wonder when do those people that are Conservative, and proud of it, start to stand-up and say hey, screw you, this is my party too so stop pretending I'm a leper?

I mean, if it was me I'd be pissed off, you know?

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