Tory Turmoil In Simcoe Grey: Retraction Demand Is Itself Retracted

The story to date.

Kellie Leitch, front-running candidate for the CPoC nomination in Simcoe Grey, asks ex-Wasaga Beach mayor Cal Patterson for his endorsement. He gives it verbally, as a private citizen. She composes a letter in his name and with his political titles on it, and fires it off without clearing the final product with Patterson. He goes ape-shit, demanding the letter be retracted, even though it turns out that he had provided the Leitch campaign with an electronic version of his signature and, really, the only thing Leitch did wrong is to not show the final draft to Patterson and, perhaps, use some of his official titles when he was really endorsing her as an individual.

Turmoil ensues. Accusations fly. And then, this morning:

WASAGA BEACH – Simcoe County Warden and Wasaga Beach Mayor Cal Patterson said today he is dropping his demand for a retraction from Simcoe-Grey Conservative candidate Kellie Leitch.

In a similar cock-up on Leitch's part, it appears that many of the endorsements on home-page share very similar, in fact in some cases identical, wording. Here's the best explanation for that that I've heard:

Anyway, the minions who run Leitch’s website had clearly become accustomed to cutting and pasting endorsements from a pool of pre-prepared texts. Unfortunately they only had nine statements of endorsement for every ten endorsers…and therefore had to re-use some material. But they didn’t count on the man who has often been referred to as Collingwood’s greatest living newspaper editor [I definitely wont get blocked now]. He caught them out and making them look like buffoons!

My guess is that by the time Patterson came along, the Leitch team had got so used to splicing endorsement statements onto names that they didn’t give proper protocol a second thought.

Meanwhile another CPoC hopeful, former mayor of Collingwood Chris Carrier, has also been up to some on-line shenanigans, and has been doing some redacting and retracting of his own. His original foul:

She's also not the only candidate in this campaign with over-active letter writers; Carrier's website contains a letter to 'open-minded Conservatives' in the riding, written by John Hanlon, that trumpets a "local media" had touted the former mayor as "Simcoe-Grey's favourite son." However, as it turned out, the only reference to Carrier being Simcoe-Grey's "favourite son" is an article on a local lifestyle website — and [also] written by Hanlon.

You know the Tories think the seat if pretty safe seat if they are willing to engage in this level of silliness.