I truly dislike Warren Kinsella, Michael Ignatieff's head war-room strategist. Perhaps it has something to do with his willingness to bully people and try to strong-arm them with the authority of his position within the Liberal Party. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he seems to have a fetish for alienating people and launching frivolous lawsuits.
But no matter how much I may dislike Warren Kinsella, blogger Skippy Stalin dislikes him even more:
"For my foreign readers, I should point out that Warren Kinsella is a self-promoting huckster with an animus for the truth and a talent for creating enemies in places that he doesn't have to, especially online.
Warren never seemed to learn the only serious lesson of political professionals, that they're better off being neither seen nor heard. If you're a hack who's looking for a book deal and face-time on TV, you do what Warren, Karl Rove and James Carville do.
To be fair, Rove and Carville have done something Kinsella hasn't, which is win a serious election, although, they weren't the elections you would think. Carville got Bob Casey, Sr. elected governor of Pennsylvania when most people thought doing so actually defied the laws of physics. Rove brought Bush the Younger up from a 24 point deficit to beat the popular Texas governor Ann Richards in 1994. Most presidential elections are won or lost a year before election day. If the incumbent party is above or below 50% approval the preceding November, you pretty much know which way the general election will go.
Warren just sat around like a moron and watched Kim Campbell, Stockwell Day and John Tory lose. That's pretty much what I did in all three of those elections, but Kinsella found people dumb enough to pay him to do it. That actually looks like great work, if you can get it. Besides, it gives him time to update his dopey blog and Google his own name relentlessly."
However, in reply to a recent poll on Bourque, which voted Warren Kinsella as the greatest liability to Michael Ignatieff's campaign, Skippy finds himself mounting a grudging defence ( all swear-words bleeped due to my own hand):
"The fact is that you can't blame Warren Kinsella for the disaster that is the is the Liberal Party. S**t, he won't won't confirm or deny that he even voted for the Liberals in the last three elections. And he's only just above the office janitor in the office hierarchy, so he doesn't matter.
Rocco Rossi made the party a s**tload of money that no one expected him to, so he can't be blamed for anything. He might be the only pro in that shop. And you could put everybody else in the poll who isn't Ian Davey on milk cartons and their own families probably wouldn't recognize them.
Of course Kinsella is going to lead that poll. He's the only one anyone voting has ever even heard of before. Warren's the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader with the biggest t*ts who refuses to wear a bra. Most people who aren't students of football are going to notice that before they ask themselves whether or not the quarterback sucks.
The only name that wasn't in the Borque poll was the one that maters the most: Michael Ignatieff. The "Inside Baseball" amateurs at Borque are missing a very important point: Even if Iggy is being failed by his motley crew, he hired them in the first place and refuses to fire any of them.
Ignatieff is the actual candidate, the leader and the guy who's supposed to be making the decisions. The fact that Warren's allowed to even keep a blog, let alone maintain it from the Office of Leader of the Opposition* tells me that he has no control over his own volunteers, let alone the party."
Again, you can read it here.
Skippy's right of course. Warren is just the most publicly-known name on the poll, who turned into the scape-goat this time around. The fact that he's angered so many people over his years in the game probably didn't help matters either.
Thing is, Michael Ignatieff is to blame for his own problems. He surrounded himself with the wrong people at the wrong times, and took the wrong advice. He stepped into his position without having to fight for it, and he let his own people push him around. He flip-flopped on issue after issue, from EI reform to a harmonised sales tax to calling an election. And whatever strategy he may have had, it has only served to make the CPC stronger.
Michael Ignatieff blew it. This was his summer to score a helluva lot of points, and he didn't. And not only did he not make headway, he actually lost it.
And you can't blame Warren Kinsella for that, no matter how scummy the guy might be.
