The news in the past week in the American campaign has been how Republicans, frustrated at the fact McCain is falling in the polls and facing a decisive defeat in November, are becoming very angry, even hostile, toward Obama and toward the media.
And now, we’re seeing the first signs of this frustration and anger up here in Canada with Canada’s Conservatives and their supporters, as the election race tightens:
The Tories have gone from supreme assurance only a week ago to rattled frustration heading into the Thanksgiving weekend finale… On Wednesday in Victoria, where Harper made some similarly minor health announcements, tempers flared repeatedly as Conservative campaign staff loudly snapped at journalists over their reporting. Tory partisans also jeered media questions during a news conference with the prime minister. Guy Giorno, the prime minister’s chief of staff, accused a reporter of accosting him merely for placing a hand on his shoulder to keep Giorno from rocking in and out of a camera sightline.
These guys are in an election race now, and can’t believe that their Dear Leader actually is in a fight for his electoral life. Thus, it must be the media’s fault as well as others (expect to see dumping on Quebec in short order, if it’s not happened already). Their anger, which is a main part of their ideology (and you can see that on any number of Canadian right-wing conservative message forums and blogs right now) is starting to bubble to the surface, just as it has with their American conservative cousins. We haven’t quite got to the point of them calling Dion a terrorist sympathizer or a traitor, but you can feel the hostility brewing.
By the way, with regards to all those stories on brakelines on cars of Liberal supporters cars being sabotaged, vandalism in Guelph, Parkdale-High Park, St Pauls and so on, I wont be surprised in the least if we find out it wasn’t Liberal, Green or NDP supporters doing that disgraceful bit of voter intimidation. That kind of reprehensible conduct also shows that whoever is doing it contains a lot of anger toward their political opponents, and right now, only 1 particular party’s supporters have an abundance of it.
