Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

[pud99]

Conveniently omitted here:
Police caution man who doxxed parents of Ontario PC MPP

That is the point I was making. He could have tried dm'ing the guy to ask him to delete the tweeted address. Instead, he called the police, resulting in tweets about that, which get picked up by the St. Catherines daily (whose provincial politics reporter of course will have Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc. alerts set up for Oosterhoff's name because he is an MPP in their circulation area), leading the reporter to check with the police and turn the whole thing into a story that reminds its readers of examples of Oosterhoff's homophobia. Perhaps the guy is enough of a crank that he wouldn't have honoured such a request - but we won't know because, instead of trying to deal with it in a way that would not result in more stories in the media about his homophobia, it looks like Oosterhoff's first resort was to call the police, resulting in yet another article citing examples of his homophobia (aka the Streisand effect).

 

[BurlOak]

I don't know about the Streisand effect, but I think the result is that anyone who noticed this story (which is relatively small since it occurred over the holidays) has immense sympathy for Oosterhoff and the entire Conservative party.
It makes the opposition to the PC's look like they are deranged.
I don't think anyone thinks of homophobia when reading this story.

 

[PinkLucy]

Anyone who has heard of Oosterhoff thinks of homophobia. I have zero sympathy for him. I have some sympathy for his parents, who might have had a few people show up on their street. On the other hand, they raised him as a homophobe and general dweeb, so there’s that.

 

[BurlOak]

Anyone who has heard of Oosterhoff thinks of homophobia. I have zero sympathy for him. I have some sympathy for his parents, who might have had a few people show up on their street. On the other hand, they raised him as a homophobe and general dweeb, so there’s that.

What I meant was that nobody that hasn't already formed an opinion of Oosterhoff. Haters will always hate.
Those who haven't heard of Oosterhoff are more likely to have given him sympathy over this incident. After all, nobody (or very few) thinks its ok to harass the parents of a politician that you don't like.

 

[W. K. Lis]

BLIZZARD: Tories need to regain control of their party

From the Toronto Sun (?), at this link:

Premier Doug Ford’s disappointing first six months in power are causing even true blue Conservatives to question the way they choose a leader.

Their one-member-one-vote system of voting for leaders was revolutionary when they brought it in after the 1987 Liberal sweep. After 42 years of Tory rule — basically a benevolent dictatorship — the Tory party that at one time considered premiership of the province a birthright lost its nerve.

They knew they had to open up the party to newcomers and new ideas. Still smarting from divisive rivalries that had seared themselves into the Tory fabric during two previous leadership campaigns, the party looked for a new way to do things.

Young, savvy strategists like Deb Hutton, Tom Long, Leslie Noble and Alister Campbell realized the party would not survive another leadership bloodbath. They had to drag the party — kicking and screaming, if need be — away from the smoky back rooms of Rosedale and Bay Street, democratize it and into the 21st century. Heck, even the 20th century would have been a step forward.

The one-member-one-vote process was crucial in shaking off the past and opening it up to a different kind of conservatism. Not only did they put social conservatism on the back burner, they doused it with water any time it raised its ugly head and threatened to overpower their key message of fiscal conservatism.

The one-person-one-vote system of electing a leader was instrumental in making Mike Harris leader. Unlike Ford, however, he was far from a political neophyte. He’d served as a backbencher in Bill Davis’s government and later served as Frank Miller’s natural resources minister.

All the same, Harris’s 1990 upset leadership win over establishment candidate Dianne Cunningham rocked the party to its Stanfield Y-fronts. Liberal Premier David Peterson fatefully called a snap election for September of that year, leaving Harris scrambling to find candidates.

Peterson’s gamble came back to bite him.

New Democrat Bob Rae swept his party to power, starting a four-year experiment with socialism that almost bankrupted the province.

Despite being caught off-guard, Harris actually did better than expected — and paved the way for his massive sweep in 1995. He was the right man for the right time. His was the right message for the time.

Fast forward to 2014 and the race to replace Tim Hudak as PC leader.

One Patrick Brown, a former Barrie councillor and former federal Tory backbencher, outsold memberships and outmanoeuvred his main opposition — long-time MPP Christine Elliott — to take the leadership. But he was a pipsqueak, hopelessly unprepared for the role. He came in threatening to shake up the Queen’s Park Tory caucus. His own MPPs hated him. Elliott — a quiet voice of sanity — quit.

It was unsurprising, therefore, when earlier this year a palace coup overthrew Brown over flimsy accusations of sexual harassment.

Which brings us back to Ford. Like Harris, he’s a Queen’s Park outsider. Unlike Harris, Ford has no experience in cabinet or on the backbench. He doesn’t appear to have around him the intelligence that Harris had in Hutton, Long, Noble, etc. They were young, but they were all steeped in experience in the halls of power — either federally or provincially.

Harris had a plan: The Common Sense Revolution was formulated over months of consultation. Ford appears rudderless and ricochets from one self-made crisis to another. If he’s getting good advice, he’s not listening to it.

One-party-one-vote was the right way to go in the pre-cellphone, pre-social media times 30 years ago. It’s outlived its usefulness. The Tories need to regain control of their own party. You hear the lament from average voters. They wanted change. They wanted a fiscally Conservative government. They wanted Christine Elliott. They’d have settled for Vic Fedeli or Caroline Mulroney.

It really didn’t matter who led the Tories in this year’s election. Polls showed voters were sick of Kathleen Wynne’s grandma-knows-best elitism.

Ford was just the guy who managed to grab the leadership lifebelt from Brown’s Titanic at a chaotic convention.

But it raised eyebrows — and questions. Tories need to find a hybrid leadership system that allows the grass roots input — without losing control of the party.

 

[Videodrome]

When you have lost the Sun.....

What I meant was that nobody that hasn't already formed an opinion of Oosterhoff. Haters will always hate.
Those who haven't heard of Oosterhoff are more likely to have given him sympathy over this incident. After all, nobody (or very few) thinks its ok to harass the parents of a politician that you don't like.

Siding with someone who called all gay people evil. Nice...

 

[pud99]

An interersting extract from the much more extensive article in The Standard (the St. Catharines daily):

In addition, at a very quick glance, the story has been covered by the Toronto Star, CTV, CBC and Global.

It is unclear to me how anyone could read this sort of coverage without thinking about homophobia.

And one can even say that this article is gentle to Sam. Ford and Oosterhoff did not merely "attend" the event. They appeared on stage with McVety.

 

[pud99]

And standing behind Ford and McVety, there's our Sam, laughing along.

 

[EagleEye]

Sam is an asshole but I think his parents' address shouldn't have been tweeted out. No doubt his parents are homophobes as well but I think that crossed the line.

 

[Videodrome]

I get that his riding is solid PC territory and would elect a rock if it was a member of the party, but the people who live there deserve better. He isn't ready to be an elected official and it shows.

 

[PinkLucy]

I looked into moving into that riding but didn’t because I didn’t want to live in a community that elected him.

 

[pud99]

Sam is an asshole but I think his parents' address shouldn't have been tweeted out. No doubt his parents are homophobes as well but I think that crossed the line.

Interestingly, that apparently is also his address - it seems that he still lives with his parents.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Interestingly, that apparently is also his address - it seems that he still lives with his parents.

With a MPP salary, he should be able to get a small condo for himself in Toronto for the next four years.

 

[John_Dee]

Does anyone else find it bizarre that the Toronto Sun runs an article blubbering about DoFo "put(ting) social conservatism on the back burner" at practically the same time Ford appears onstage with representatives from the freakshow right (religious primitive division) that would obviously meet with the Sun's slavering approval? That's not at all dishonest, is it?

Meanwhile, Li'l Sammy Oosterpoop stamps his widdle feet and calls the cops on someone who wrote mean things about him on Twitter, thus ringing in the New Year in the usual dignified fashion we've come to expect from the present-day Conservative Party. The little creep.

 

[Northern Light]

Sam is an asshole but I think his parents' address shouldn't have been tweeted out. No doubt his parents are homophobes as well but I think that crossed the line.

For me the question is one of principle.

Would I be ok with this tactic if someone opposing a centrist or progressive politician used it against them?

What if said politician were a woman? What if there were young children in the home?

In most cases, nothing criminal would come of it. Most people would still be well behaved; but if even one person acts out as a result and inspires real fear...............

I would rarely rule a tactic out all together in politics as in war; but the more extreme the tactic, the higher level of justification is required; and one must also be able to show what the tactic is meant to accomplish.

In this case, I don't believe there is any public good in releasing the info; and however obnoxious Sam is, I'm not clear that he did something to the poster that justifies that level of retaliation.

As such this is at best, a poor idea; at worst it mobilizes or harden's some of Sam's support. Not a good idea.