There was definitely a whiff of panic in the United Conservative Party’s announcement last week that they’d now be going after Naheed Nenshi, for sure, big time, no mercy, now that the former three-term Calgary mayor had been chosen as the leader of the NDP.
The UCP strategic brain trust chose the always reliable Rick Bell’s Postmedia column as the main venue for its warning shot at the new NDP leader.
“He can run but he can’t hide,” Mr. Bell began, channelling the UCP Caucus and Cabinet.
“When UCP big shots said they couldn’t wait to get their hands on Naheed Nenshi once he became Alberta NDP leader they were talking straight,” the Calgary-based columnist warned anyone who was listening.
“Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP are now ready to drop the gloves,” he continued. “When? Now.”
“Bombs away! Smith’s UCP launches full scale attack on Nenshi,” shouted the headline.
And, indeed, some online advertising that looked a lot like it was cobbled together in an almighty hurry soon started to appear on social media, amplified by a swarm of bots buzzing “Commie!” “Trudeau’s pal!” “Worse than Notley!” “WEF! WEF!”
One can’t help but be reminded of the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz: “Put ’em up! Put ’em up! Which one of you first? I’ll fight you both together if you want. I’ll fight you with one paw tied behind my back. I’ll fight you standing on one foot. I’ll fight you with my eyes closed…”
The lion, as readers of a certain age will recall, turned out to be a scaredy cat.
This isn’t a full scale attack on Mr. Nenshi, though, as much as it’s a full-scale panic attack.
Getting in early and clearly defining your opponent in a way that serves your interests isn’t a bad strategy, of course. Indeed, it’s a necessity in politics in the digital age.
It’s obviously something Mr. Nenshi understands, and is good at. Readers will recall that almost the first thing he said about his old college debating club challenger Ms. Smith and her party was that “all they do is pick fights and waste money.”
It doesn’t hurt that it’s basically true. But back in early March, Mr. Nenshi’s opening gambit was a classic example of what the UCP is vowing to do only now, and what Mr. Bell was announcing for them.
The thing is, though, that telegraphing your punches like this is evidence of panic, not strategy.
And panic, dear readers, is not a strategy. It’s not a very good tactic either.
In his Bombs Away! column, Mr. Bell portrayed Jason Nixon, the former finance minister who is nowadays the minister of seniors, community, social services, and literally the biggest guy in cabinet, as getting ready to take a metaphorical swing at Mr. Nenshi.
But on the social media application previously known as Twitter, Mr. Nixon quotes the column describing the former mayor as “Premier Nenshi.” This also suggests a lack of planning. I wonder how many readers thought, hmmm, sounds OK to me?
For his part, Mr. Nenshi responded smoothly, although not without a not-so-gentle smack of his own.
“It seems like the UCP are scared of something … weird,” he tweeted. “While they’re out there attacking me, I’ll be here with my @albertaNDP colleagues focusing on how to make Alberta better for you.”
The little video attached was priceless.
“You know what? They are nothing if not predictable,” he chuckles in the video. “I said for a long time that Danielle Smith and the UCP government only know how to do two things. They know how to pick fights and they know how to waste money. …” (That still resonates, doesn’t it?) “And now here they are, pickin’ a fight with me and wasting big bucks on ads, doing so.”
“What do you think they’re so scared of?”
“When I was mayor of Calgary for 11 years,” Mr. Nenshi observes later in the video, “we were consistently named one of the best cities in the word in which to live. And I will put up my public record and my record of public service up against Danielle Smith any day of the week and twice on Sundays.” … Then, with another chuckle: “Bring. It. On.”
It’s good. It works.
And guess what? On Wednesday, the day before Mr. Bell’s column was published, The Economist Intelligence Unit published its list of the world’s 10 most liveable cities.
Calgary was No. 5, up from No. 7 last year. This year the No. 7 spot was occupied by the only other North American city on the list, Vancouver. Calgary’s been on the list since 2013, the year Mr. Nenshi was elected to his second term.
Now many of us are skeptical of such lists. Most of us want to argue with them when we see them.
But you’d think the UCP might have wanted to think about the timing of their campaign about how horrible Mr. Nenshi supposedly was for Calgary, before rolling out hours after the research and analysis wing of the company that publishes The Economist declared it to be the fifth best place to live in the world.
Easy to overlook, though, when you’re panicking.
2 thumbs up for Mr Nenshi…
Loved the ad, and imo proves that “speak softly and carry a well taped stick” scored more points….lol
And by the by, Marlaina did say her grandmother was from Kansas right? Perfect connection.!!
Postmedia columnists never do any fact checking, and they are liars, just like Danielle Smith is. Licia Corbella, Lorne Gunter, David Staples, Rick Bell, and others endorse these phony Conservatives and Reformers, and you have to wonder how much are they being paid to spread their lies?
I remember when columnists in newspapers had integrity, and they didn’t write lies, and you could see what they were saying had merit when you read their columns.
Postmedia columnists, such as Licia Corbella, were publishing columns with lies about Rachel Notley and the NDP, and that’s how the UCP were re-elected in 2023. There were people who also didn’t do any fact checking of their own, and they fell for these lies.
In these Postmedia newspapers, the comment sections have many people who foolishly defend these phony Conservatives and Reformers, and call others nasty names, if they don’t agree with them.
Naheed Nenshi is much smarter than that. It was true Conservative supporters who elected him as the NDP leader. He knows how much of a liar Danielle Smith is, because he has known her since 1992, when both were studying at the University of Calgary.
I recall Naheed Nenshi wanting reform in the media. He also wrote columns for The Calgary Herald, so he has a bit of experience of how that goes. Naheed Nenshi will not only take Danielle Smith to task for her lies, and very pricey boondoogles, which also have even cost us billions of dollars, he will take these Postmedia columnists to task for writing lies, and sucking up to these phony Conservatives and Reformers.
With the NDP in power in Alberta, we would have been getting a return to the proper oil royalty rates, and the proper corporate tax rates that Peter Lougheed was getting. Public education, public healthcare, and other important programs would be properly funded. Infrastructure would get the proper attention it deserves. Seniors would be well looked after. The needy would also be taken care of, so they could have a proper standard of living. Utility and insurance costs would be more affordable. There would be proper enforcement on pollution by industry. Municipalities wouldn’t be bullied. This is the more sensible approach, and with the NDP we can have that.
Danielle Smith and the UCP are clearly in a panic mode, so they are trying to do whatever they can to remain in power, because democracy is not something they have any concern for.
Rick Bell wrote a large number of columns lately, which were slamming Calgary’s mayor, Jyoti Gondek. Now he is shifting his focus to Naheed Nenshi. Desperation is setting in. Crow, with humble pie for dessert is going to be the meal for these Postmedia columnists.
I read Rick’s column this morning and I was howling with laughter, one; yeah weird to go to the mattresses against an unseated former mayor. Two, the admission whether intended or not that the UCP started 2024 with a paltry single million in the bank and they intend to spend the bulk of it (!?) on said ads ? Three I literally laughed out loud at the weird inclusion of Jason Nixon distracted driving his big dumb ass down the highway while he yammers on with said “reporter”
What a shit show
Bird: I’m sure Jason had a Bluetooth setup in his truck. DJC
That may be the case but the image it evoked was simply too perfectly in character for me to unsee it.
Announcing one MILLION dollars with the gravitas of Dr. Evil tho, that’s very funny.
Totally understand. DJC
Great read, made me chuckle. Yes, someone who took 6 ballots to squeak out 53% of the vote is scared. Even her own party really didn’t want her. Smith is also very thin skinned. We all know that people who show the most anger are really reacting from fear inside. She is blustering as if she has Nenshi’s 86 % of the vote on 1st ballot. She is over her head and all she has left is her talk show bluster and Qanon talking points. The fact that Nenshi’s video got more coverage on x than her attack ads is going to eat away at her. Loving this game already.
Let’s see how Stampede works out for them. Not forgetting that Naheed Nenshi was mayor of Calgary for 11 years, of course. He won’t run away and he won’t hide. They’ll be on his turf.
Yes, the UCP is worried about Nenshi so they are now trying to define him to voters in the way they want. Lets not forget the current UCP gang is often good at communications, in my opinion it is one of the few things they are really good at and explains in part how they narrowly won the last election. So, yes this is totally predictable and expected.
Also, this strategy has often been used by Conservatives in the past, sometimes succesfully, sometimes not. So, will it work this time or not?
First of all, I feel Nenshi is prepared for this and is quite able to deal with it. Second, I feel it is harder to define someone who is already better known to the public. As a former high profile mayor, Nenshi has been known to Albertans for years. Perhaps not as well known in High Level as High River, but still. So the UCP is trying to change the impression we already have of him as a successful, articulate and energetic person to something else. This is a harder task than trying to smear someone not as well known.
The city did well when he was mayor and is still generally well regarded. I do agree that in itself is a good defense from the smears the UCP are trying to make, and if their predictable behaviour from the past is any indication, will continue to try and make as they become more more and more desperate.
All well and good but….. when UCP-affiliated PACs swamp the media during municipal elections with thinly disguised anti-Nenshi ads, or the UCP outspends the NDP by a factor of 10, or when the UCP rejigs boundaries to create even more sympathetic rural ridings… well, how does a broke and very big-city oriented party break through?
Outspend ten to one with what !? They started 2024 with a paltry million dollars, by their own admission. A percentage of the business class are surely UCP members, but corporations themselves only care about one thing, profits, and this whole cutting Alberta’s nose off to spite Canadas face is SURELY going to cut into those at some point in the next three years.
I’m not a betting man but if I was I would wager that Nenshi is a lot more palatable to a good chunk of the C suite crowd than this crew of dipshits and losers. I guess we’ll soon find out.
Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow might be a more appropriate stand-in for the UCP – no brains.
Hard to argue with that Ray. They’ve got it all: No heart, no brains, and no courage. DJC
Or, perhaps, it is simply the crude drama involving 2 corporate establishmentarians and the ‘reality tv’ struggle for the position of corporate PR figurehead.
The preeminent qualification for being an acceptable candidate is one where the entire framework of beliefs and attitudes involving the surrounding power structures in society must be both successfully internalized and then demonstrated externally through proper conformity, obedience, and belief in both the societal myths and power arrangements.
To be properly socialized (hypnotically spellbound and transfixed on the superficial) means that one is heavily invested in both the charade and the myths that are central to the entire illusion.
Sure, but we are a long way off from revolutionary brigades and we gotta live in the province in the meantime . Speaking as someone who has literally voted communist the idea there’s not a materiel difference between these two options is just being obstinate for difficulties sake. Don’t vote if you don’t want to but im not going to allow anyone to pretend there’s no daylight between these two candidates.
I loved this column and Nenshi’s vid! My saying so at x nenshi also got several likes.
Too little too late is a mantra the LPC should adopt. Pp shoulda been kicked in the derriere last summer but Trudeau was personally distracted with family issues and then in India.
The total lack of communications’ response from the LPC allowed the media, which hates a vacuum, and Pp’s team to gain exponential traction.
Hubris is often a problem in the LPC. They shoulda grabbed the ankle biting weiner dog by the tail and shook it til he whined no more (metaphorically speaking dog people).
And here we are on the reactive side of the federal convo.
Nice to be on the Nenshi proactive team. Feels good! Long may it continue!
Nenshi: “all they know how to do is pick fights and spend money”
Dani: “But but, we do also likely know how to coddle lunatics, and christian dominionists! To the hay bales my droogies!”
Don’t forget one year he was named best mayor in the world! Rick Mercer’s show followed him around for a morning and boy he did come off looking good.
Liked the video so much, watched twice, well it is Sunday.
The problem for the UPC is Nenshi is Intelligent, articulate and very organized. He spent eleven years honing his skills as Mayor of Calgary. The UPC, they seem to think rodeos are where its at culturally and politically. Rodeos are fun to watch for some people, but for others its just a lot of manure where people risk their lives to ride an animal which could put them in a wheel chair or grave.
The UPC might want to tread carefully. Nenshi is much better at this game than they are.
HAPPY CANADA DAY!
Amen! Again I say Amen!
Nice photo DJC but Jason Nixon is missing one of his horns…
Ding Dong is wrong again. No surprise, but somewhat of a nuisance. The world around us is spinning fast and our government is in a rapid tailspin. The fight is for another generation, I hope they have it in them to right the course in Alberta soon. The ground is approaching quickly.
Hmmmm, albertapolitics.ca. Might be a good balanced read away from the Legacy Media’s usual slant.
Read
Read
Nope
Legacy media like Rick Bell’s trash column everyone is talking about in this thread of comments? Legacy media like the nationalist post? Are you sure you know how to read?
Sean Peacock: Where is the slant here? This a blog. If there is any slant, it is with Postmedia who are butt kissers for the UCP and the CPC.
The surgeons were talking over coffee and finally one said “ I like working on UCP politicians best. They have no heart, no guts, no spine, no brain. In fact they only have two working parts, the mouth and the asshole and they are intervhangeable.”