I have some news for the Cons

One of the rules of good communications is to be clear with your message. Another is stay on message.

A third is that sometimes taking a hit is less painful than fighting the hit.

OK, I made up the third one. But it fits the current situation of the Cons to a "T".

This In and Out Scandal that has enveloped the fed Cons is more than likely a conflict in regulation interpretation between EC and Cons, but the way that the Cons reacted to it has created the elephant in the room.

Election Canada charges that their audit of 2006 election expenses shows that the Cons federal campaign transferred money to local candidate who had room in their allowed advertising budgets. These local candidates were either shoe-ins or also-rans. The local campaigns then sent back the money to the federal office, usually within a few days and within a few bucks of what was sent to them. The federal campaign then used the money to purchase ads purportedly on behalf of the local candidates. Never mind that the "local" ads purchased by the federals Cons were often not even running in the catch area of the local candidate. If you accept that these were really federal ads, as does Elections Canada, then the federal campaign exceeded its allowable ad budget by $1 million AND 67 local candidates were not entitled to the $700,000 reimbursement from Election Canada for bogus local advertisement.

The federal Cons, on the other hand maintain that they did nothing wrong. They interpret the Election Act differently with respect to advertising. That is the nub of their argument. But rather than saying that they would work something out with Elections Canada; the Cons went into immediate damage control mode, hauled out their communication bigwigs and wrote a new playbook on how to spin the situation.

I got a copy of the playbook, in a brown envelope marked "Contents may damage your brain", left on my door step the other day. The following is the content, verbatim:

Page one of the playbook states: Accept no blame.
Page two states: Demand that all other parties be subject to scrutiny
Page three states: Blame it on Elections Canada
Page four: Blame it on that weinie Dion
Page five: Blame it on Global Warming scientists
Page six: Sue Elections Canada
Page seven: Accept no blame (we cannot mention this enough)
Page eight: Hide the PM in Louisiana and send the rest of the cabinet (especially that Baird guy) to a retreat in an unannounced location.
Page nine: Make sure that the face you put in front of this scandal is disposable, because it is going to destroy his/her credibility.
Page ten: We recommend MP Pierre Poilievre to be the face of the party in this matter.

Poor old Perfect PP. He gave his career for his PM.