Preston Manning and the Campus Crusaders

Lordy. I see that Preston Manning, the Big Daddy of the ReformCon movement, thinks that the robocall scandal is deplorable.

The patriarch of the modern-day conservative movement in Canada is calling for better ethical training for campaign workers in the wake of the robocall scandal.

Which would be a lot more believable if he wasn't an apologist for the Harper gang, and this kind of stuff hadn't been going on at his hallowed Con temple. 

The conversation that followed was deeply disturbing to Fryer. In a question and answer session, some attendees discussed voter suppression tactics. Attendees talked about posing as a member of another party, and about making rude calls at inconvenient times as a strategy to get the supporter of another party to not go out and vote for their candidate.

And this would also be more believable:

Manning said part of the problem lies in the fact that young Canadians are sent to political training schools in the United States where politics is far more aggressive.

If Big Daddy had told us who exactly is sending young Canadians Cons to those political training schools? And the main speaker on political activism on campuses at his latest Con Conclave, wasn't this Republican bimbo.

But beyond the hypocrisy, what strikes me when I look at some of the names in the news these days, is how many of them are former Con campus crusaders. 

Like Michael Sona who had his own unique way of engaging with voters.  And once seemed to be the designated scapegoat of the RoboCon scandal. Until suddenly he wasn't. 

Or Andrew Prestcott a.k.a. Christian Conservative, who after enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame, has suddenly decided to clam up.

Or Prescott's good friend Richard Ciano, who founded the Conservative Campaign University, an online tool kit for young Con activists. And now heads Campaign Research along with Nick Kouvalis, who bragged about his dirty tricks during the Rob Ford campaign. As he did about his phony phone-call campaign against Irwin Cotler.

Or Aaron Wudrick, who now sends out legal notices for Campaign Research, but who was once a campus crusader, who also bragged about his shell games, and claimed the Con Party didn't care.

“Don’t think that the Party doesn’t like that, because they do. They’re things that will help the Party, but it looks like it’s an organically-grown organization and it just stimulated from the grassroots spontaneously. They love that stuff…

All of which leads me to believe that what we are seeing now is the coming of age of some of those Con zealots, who are applying what they learned when they were students, and are now out of control.

Which might explain why Big Daddy Manning is wringing his hands piously. And why Guy Giorno, Harper's former Chief of Staff and Campaign Chairman, felt he needed to say this yesterday...

Not that it will do any good eh? Because Stephen Harper was also a campus crusader who tried to destroy the student council at his university AND his high school.

He helped hatch those little Republican-style zealots, allowed them to spin their tangled webs.

And continues to inspire them...

Yup. Scary eh? But that's the Big Picture.

The kiss of the spidey man gave them life. Big Daddy and his fellow RepubliCons fed them.

And now they're coming home to roost...