Tory Turmoil Lingers In Simcoe Grey: Guergis's Sister Quits EDA

News from Helena's Guergis old riding:

Meanwhile, in the background, the local Conservative riding association is going through a bit of upheaval; on Thursday, riding association president Andy Beaudoin officially resigned, and his resignation comes on the heels of the resignations of two other EDA board members (granted, one of those individuals is Christine Brayford, the sister of Independent Conservative MP, Helena Guergis).

I traded emails with Beaudoin on the weekend; he had some pretty harsh words for the party’s treatment of Guergis (story to be published on the E-B website today – fingers crossed!). Guergis is getting quite a bit of press, both locally and nationally, so it’s clear she’s making sure she gets the message out just before we head into an election… and doing a good job of painting the Conservatives (and Harper, especially) in a terrible light…

Interestingly, the same blog recently reported that the CPoC was attempting to buy Guergis off. Guess she didn't bite.

Increasing The Quota Of Tory Turmoil in Simcoe-Grey

Is Helena running or negotiating an exit package?

Under normal circumstances, a Conservative winning the seat in Simcoe-Grey would be a walk in the park – but Simcoe-Grey ain’t normal. The Independent Conservative Member of Parliament for Simcoe-Grey, Helena Guergis, has been quite vocal in recent days in the national media about running for re-election; I’m sure having her out there, reminding the Conservative leadership of her presence, only hastens they’re efforts to find suitable employment for her outside of politics (yes, that’s going on…)

The blogger here is managing editor of the Enterprise-Bulletin newspaper, so I would assume he knows what's what up in that neck of the woods.

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.

Tory Turmoil Reaches Boil In Simcoe Grey!!!

COLLINGWOOD — A candidate for the Conservative nomination in Simcoe-Grey says she had the OK — with a signature in hand — from Simcoe County's warden to prepare an endorsement letter with his autograph.

Actually, this sounds less a case of forged signatures and more a case of local Tory players gratuitously taking umbrage at one another. Personally, I never take umbrage...unless its just lying around and no one else is using it. Bah Hah!

Or, if you want to understand the situation here on a slightly deeper level, you might want to google "Kellie Leitch" "parachute candidate".

H/t to this guy who seems about 12/24 hours ahead of the local paper.

Grassroots Guergis?

The federal Conservatives were polling vigorously a couple of weeks ago over Guergis and various scenarios, including what would happen if she ran as an “independent conservative.”

One Conservative said her grassroots support had dried up as innumerable candidates wanted her job.

But that may have all changed this week as Simcoe — Grey members of the executive were rumoured to be resigning in significant numbers over the federal actions.

Just rumours, but we'll have to watch where this goes. Why not run as an IndyCon? Its not like she owes the CPoC anything.