Robocall Reset

It's important to keep some perspective here, as the Conservatives play the "contain" game with robocalls. The frame emerging seems to be that if the Conservatives can isolate electoral fraud to Guelph, they've effectively killed this scandal. On the other hand, the opposition is entirely focused on finding the smoking gun that leads right to Conservative central command. There is a tug of war at play, which has the almost bizarre effect of rendering Guelph almost irrelevant to the discussion. Oh sure, something really bad happened in Guelph involving Conservative operatives, perhaps some rogue element used the database for nefarious purposes, but if it can be contained to that riding, it equates to full "exoneration" in a sense for the formal Conservative Party apparatus, which is all that matters. Huh?

You don't get a freebie riding, you don't get to say "well this happened here, BUT", because that distracts from what DID happen in a riding very much in play. Backtrack to the last couple weeks of the national campaign, a Liberal Party CRATERING, there was every sense that no seat was safe, particularly a "swing" riding that was quite close in 2008. In the dying days of the 2011 campaign, Guelph was in doubt, look at an electoral map and you'll see a SEA OF BLUE surrounding it on all sides, a lone island, the last Liberal stronghold in an entire region. It was reasonable to surmise, given the state of things, that a few votes could well determine the outcome in Guelph, to say it was safe, historically asinine, perhaps moreso given the Liberals in TOTAL freefall. In other words, a prime riding wherein voter suppression could well have been perceived as a tilting factor, no doubt about it.

It is somewhat irrelevant if anyone finds formal sanction of what transpired in Guelph. Given the stance of people like Giorno, Harper, there is a certain confidence that no direct chain will lead right to the heart of the Conservative machine. I would submit that is a reasonable assumption, because serious people understand electoral fraud and paper trails, I suspect a certain cognition which wouldn't touch this formally. What remains in my mind, how far up the chain, was there nudges, winks, was their mid level assistance, all these questions remain to be seen. However, what happened in Guelph isn't in dispute, the Conservatives CONCEDE, their own database perhaps sheds some light, for whatever reason, on Guelph all parties agree.

Here's what we need to keep in mind moving forward. The Conservative frame is that Guelph yes, but there is no formal undertaking, nor was these a carefully orchestrated NATIONAL endeavour. That is a bar that is artificial, so it's important to not get caught up in demands to reveal more, when we already have SO MUCH acknowledged. There is a danger in treating Guelph like a mulligan, with the REAL onus somehow on the opposition to prove more. Bullocks! We have a swing riding that seems to be the target of WIDESPREAD electoral fraud, which according to Elections Canada seemly involves Conservatives, perhaps people involved in a formal campaign, using sophisticated data to usurp democratic will. Isolate yourself to Guelph all you want, but again that's a fictional distinction, because that type of frame distracts from the biggest example of electoral fraud in Canadian history, don't trivialize within a pursuit of something more.

Nobody knows where this scandal leads us, I suspect many more surprises moving forward. That said, this examination isn't about the aforementioned tug of optical war occurring, much is already known and it IS damaging to the Conservatives, let's not lose ourselves in dueling frames as "victory" measures. If no more investigations come, if no more ridings are put under the microscope, if no more evidence leads to a wider net, we are still left with an incredibly disturbing scandal which apparently involves Conservatives who are committed to this Harper regime. Hardly trivial or easily fluffed off as rogue nothingness, Guelph counts no matter where we go.....