hard news

each evening's election news never feels good, but for the past week, it has felt downright icky. i still haven't recovered from friday's big buzz about buzz. i wonder if the real reason everyone's up in arms about buzz's audacity is that he's actually right. sure, yet again he demonstrates what a media-whoring nose-thumbing bird-flipping sneaky bastard looks like. yes, he's shitty on optics and timing and process, but maybe he's fucking right. we have been suffering from a serious strategy deficit for awhile now. in fact, if we're really honest about it, a shocking lack of strategy is what led layton to play with fire in the first place.

if we were operating from a strategic place, we would have figured out how to ride the minority government situation into the horizon, working 24-7 to keep parliament open like a fucking legislative sweatshop in order to drive through as many items from our wish list as possible.

if we were operating from a strategic place, we would have had an airtight communications plan before forcing an election, one that would have catapulted us to pilot status for the news agenda.

but it's harper who has assumed the cockpit. he's been skillfully dictatating the electoral news agenda since the writ was dropped. while jack and paul were reciting bad break-up poetry to one another, the tory team was nailing down a very slick PR plan. i don't know how to feel that he's running the show: impressed or nauseous.

my whole attitude with this election is like one big huge dare.
they ask Who do you think is going to win?
the conservatives, but prove me wrong.
Do you think a winter election is a bad idea?
yes, but prove me wrong.
Do you think the ndp has a chance of making any headway this election?
no, but prove me wrong.

and i had every desire to be proven wrong after i was snotty to the mucky-mucks of the child care movement on friday, telling them with all kinds of certainty that there was No Fucking Way at this late stage to influence party platforms. they were all like, um yeah we do, they're all waiting for our input. and i was all like, yeah, um, whatEVER, that's not EVEN possible, and like even if it is, we'd have to get on the horns like right NOW. i was ssooooo hoping for emails today saying Good news, we've got meetings with the senior policy strategist of each party, each has agreed to reserve an entire section on child care, each asked for us to come in and spoon feed child care policy to writers who would insert it verbatim into the final draft.

err, no. harper climbs atop today's news. situated in a picturesque daycare holding an aryan baby, he promises cash for parents, sounding perfectly reasonable and benevolent. now we're all scrambling to issue responses, ever the dutiful reactionaries.

i really was hoping to have come out of friday's coalition meeting with a clear action plan for national and local activists to proactively set the tone for the child care debate. i think the reason i'm so pissed on this one is that yet again, i spent another meeting being deferent instead of confident in the face of people who i assume to be more knowledgeable than me on a subject. fuck i hate that.