<strong>Written By:</strong> 4Canada
<strong>Date:</strong> 2007-04-30 13:12:30
<a href="/article/111230179-confessions-of-a-dirty-trickster-stacking-callin-shows">Article Link</a>

Can anyone believe that they would clog the talk shows then give a false name posing as your average citizen overcome with admiration for the Campbell gang?

Or plant a dissenter in the midst of the usual "concerned citizens" who pop out of dark rooms every time the "left" is involved in a protest?

Confessions

Alas, friends, before I add one more syllable. Here is my own confession as printed on my website:

"Egad! We're told that Liberal insiders set up calls to the Bill Good Show! These fakers pretended to be ordinary citizens and they were Liberal hacks! Where will the scandal of it all end?

"This, I must tell you, has struck my conscience and I must unburden myself.

"In November-December 1975 I was running on the Socred ticket in Kamloops for the legislature and was a guest on a local talk show and the NDP hit me with everything but the ring post. My campaign manager, Bud Smith, was furious at the lack of support for me so he arranged another talk show on another station. We had, in our campaign headquarters, 25 phones. The trick was to dial six of the seven numbers and as you heard the on air call finish, quickly dial the last digit and nearly all the time it worked. Bud was at headquarters acting like an orchestra conductor as call after call, praising me to the skies, went out on the airwaves.

"I remember two calls well. The first was from a lady who, out of breath, just had to pull off the road to tell me what an adornment I would be to the legislature. 'That's Emily Latta,' the mayor's wife, I thought, 'and she's sitting in the second row at headquarters.' Then there was Bert Forster, a mining engineer -- mining was a big issue in that election. Bert, a man of serious mien at the jolliest of times, asked me a complicated question about mining, royalties and so on and I can remember thinking 'Jesus, Bert, you're not supposed to ask real questions!'

<a href="http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/04/30/DirtyTrickster/">http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/04/30/DirtyTrickster/</a>

   

Politics need not and should not be dirty. How very inappropriate.

Later in the article Mair writes some serious fiction in order to justify his party’s misdemeanors: "The NDP, in the two elections I fought in Kamloops in 1975 and 1979 used to drive the mentally challenged to the polls so they could vote for the NDP candidate."

I was there, and on the NDP campaign and we most certainly did not take advantage of any: "mentally challenged people". How offensive of him to say that as if it makes all the rest justifiable.

The suggestion is also offensive to those people.

There is no doubt in my mind that in the back rooms of the Socreds they talked ill of us (including, I speculate, that socialists must eat their young)(ancient Socred gossip now becomes fact and argument to make transgressions okay).

We political activists have called into talk shows whenever we have a chance as he says however and that is to be expected. That point is taken but then Rafe goes into lala land. To hire people already recieving a public salary to do it, is indeed another matter.

I remember Emily Latta well and Jenny Gaglardi by reputation. My guess is that Jenny did it on her own but Emily in my opinion would most certainly have checked with Bud the campaign manager.

You and your cohorts were out of control Rafe and I am glad you finally admitted it. Don't try to drag anyone else into this scandal however.

Trying to get acceptance on the proposition that modern day politics is (and should be expected to be) a dirty business by bringing forth morally repugnant history does not compute in the slightest.

His comment that millions are spent in the US and favours owed as a result points to improvements to the political ethics we now have in Canada and BC.

Today there are spending limits on everyone and we don't have the imbalance that occurred a few years after your 1979 references. In the bye election in Kamloops with the same names quite active on the Socred side there was a Claude Richmond vs Howard Dack contest.

Claude spent over $250,000 and Howard less than $50,000. Howard had 3 full time campaign workers and the rest were volunteers. Claude had over 100 full time bodies flown in from accross the province, put up in hotels and given time off with pay by their employers.

On election day the Socred numbers grew to figures approaching 400 workers all day (again with paid time off). Howards team was similar in size but all volunteers and waiting to get off work to begin.

The Socred team was made up of the 2 or 3 best campaigners from each riding in the province.

Howard lost by 500 votes and Claude Richmond's political career was born.

During the campaign the voters were so thoroughly canvassed and persuaded by the Socreds that they ran out of undecideds and started on the soft NDP supporters. They told them anything at all to make them stay home or switch.

For example voters who had child care at the top of their concerns were told that the NDP was opposed to funding for assisting child care. It's called push canvassing and it is full of lies and unethical in the extreme.

Rafe's buddies won that bye-election by the financial advantage and by the belief that politics is a dirty business so anything goes.

This would not happen again with today's legislation.

You asked for this revelation Mr Mair, for reaching back into those times and trying to use them as an argument to justify improper behavior.

I'll reveal my identity if Rafe Mair disputes any of the above.

   

solocanoe:

It'd be great to see your comments posted onto The Tyee as there are
way too many people there who can't seem to understand the difference
between a volunteer campaign worker and a public servant being
secretly paid to subvert the public interest.

In fact, I began to wonder if this simple issue provides the perfect litmus
test. There are the True Blue. Then there are the Crappy Brown. Honesty
or dishonesty.
.

   

It seems even small potatoes are big stakes. In the Halifax Herald, there was an online poll asking If the media coverage of the Canada games bid had been too negative. The herald published a small article after the poll closed commenting on how the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency A.C.O.A. had used computers in their network to register multiple yes votes. The Herald locked out their computers once they discovered the abuse and adjusted the totals. I had to laugh when I read that, once locked out the ACOA employees phoned the Herald to complain about being denied access. I can't remember the exact figure, but a couple hundred extra votes rings a bell.

   

I remember less than I know. Read "Commonwealth" games bid.