Doug Ford来了!

[ccc]

By Kristin RushowyQueen's Park Bureau
Robert BenzieQueen's Park Bureau Chief
Thu., April 5, 2018

Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is throwing an Ontario campaign tradition under the bus.

Ford has scrapped plans to have a media bus following his election tour later this spring.

“You guys are more than welcome to come to every event,” said the rookie leader, who did not answer repeated questions from reporters about the reason for abandoning the practice.

“I didn’t think there was any law about having media on the bus,” he said Thursday at Queen’s Park.

Asked why he won’t be with Premier Kathleen Wynne, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, and Green Leader Mike Schreiner at a Black community debate next Wednesday — moderated by former Star columnist Royson James — Ford said he will be in Northern Ontario.

Doug Ford’s team said Wednesday the former Toronto city councillor will not have a media bus following him as he criss-crosses the province ahead of the June election. (Vince Talotta / Toronto Star)
“There’s no other politician in this country — no other politician outside of Rob Ford — who has supported the Black community more than I have,” he said, referring to his late brother, a former Toronto mayor.

“I love them ... they know that,” said Ford, adding he annually buses scores of underprivileged Black youth to his Muskoka cottage for a picnic, which he called “the highlight of my summer.”

The PC leader — who took over on March 10 after Patrick Brown’s resignation due to a sexual impropriety scandal — said he expects to square off against Wynne and Horwath in “two, three televised debates” during the campaign.

But he also signalled he will be campaigning on his own terms with evening rallies to supporters around the province and everything livestreamed online.

Wynne, whose party will have a media bus, said it “looks like there’s some hiding going on.”

Ford shot back: “I find that ironic ... the only person that should be running from the media is the premier based on her record.”

But Wynne emphasized that “it’s very important for me and my team to have an interaction with the media because it’s through the media that we have the interaction with the people of Ontario.”

“To not have a media bus, it’s unusual,” she told reporters at an Etobicoke GO Transit rail yard earlier Thursday. “If a politician doesn’t want to talk to the press, doesn’t want to talk to the people, whose role it is to analyze and interpret and bring information in a responsible way to the people of the province, I think it’s a problem.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath — who will share her bus with journalists to facilitate coverage and reduce the New Democrat campaign’s carbon footprint — said she is “shocked” at the Ford decision, which appears aimed at avoiding daily press scrutiny.

“It flies in the face of the transparency that is required. If you’re not prepared to tell people what it is that you plan on doing, then how does that give anybody any confidence to put you in the premier's chair? This is a serious position that is being sought by all of us,” said Horwath.

“Anybody who’s been on a campaign knows that it’s quite a challenge, quite an undertaking. We’re going to all the same venues. It’s to our advantage as the candidates, as the leaders, to have media access to us.”

While a media bus allows reporters and camera operators easier access to aspiring premiers with space to write, edit and file stories, it also allows party officials quick access to journalists seeking deeper explanations of campaign promises and how they would be carried out.

Media outlets traditionally pay between $6,000 and $8,000 per seat on each campaign bus to cover travel, meals and wi-fi costs.

But campaign bus tours are expensive to run and logistically complex — especially for a new leader still learning the provincial ropes.

Toronto Mayor John Tory, who was PC leader in the 2007 campaign and defeated Ford in the 2014 Toronto mayoral race, noted he has “spent almost 50 years around this business, most of the times as organizer of campaigns, and there have been customary ways to do things.”

“But, you’re going to have to go and ask ... the people in different campaigns why they’re doing things the way they are and they’ll answer for that. I really have no particular view on it. So, we’ll leave it at that,” said Tory.

 

[ccc]

Ontario’s newly minted Progressive Conservative leader will not bring journalists with him on the campaign trail this spring, a rare move experts and critics say suggests the Tories are keen to keep the unpredictable populist politician out of the hot seat as he takes on two more seasoned rivals.

Doug Ford confirmed Thursday he will not have a media bus following him as he criss-crosses the province ahead of the June election, an accommodation traditionally offered by Ontario’s party leaders to facilitate coverage while they hold multiple daily events in different cities.

Ford’s campaign team has said his events will be broadcast online and his itinerary will be released for media interested in covering them in person.

“You guys are more than welcome to come to every event that’s posted,” Ford, a former Toronto city councillor, told reporters when asked about his decision, though he would not say what prompted it.

“I didn’t think there was any law about having media on the bus,” he added.

Ford said he would “love to” take questions from media daily throughout the campaign “as long as you guys can make it,” though he acknowledged that had not occurred during at least one of his recent rallies.

The Tory leader also said he would release his platform in a week or two, but would not say whether it would be fully costed as he previously promised.

Experts say the decision to scrap the media bus suggests a campaign strategy that centres on limiting questions and preventing Ford – a brash politician whose candid remarks often make headlines – from publicly going off-script.

And while this approach may prove effective politically, it’s concerning for democracy, they say.

“He is attempting to bypass the accountability function of the free press by limiting access to his campaign. This will not prevent coverage, but it alters the degree of access and creates a different, more opaque degree of transparency in the campaign,” said Tim Abray, a former journalist and current teaching fellow in political science at Queen’s University. “This should not be blown off as insignificant.”

The governing Liberals, meanwhile, accused Ford of “ducking voters and hiding from media scrutiny.”

“Doug Ford is afraid that the more Ontario sees of him and his plan for our province, the less there is to like. That’s why his campaign is ducking leaders’ debates, refusing to commit to releasing a fully costed platform and now ... refusing to provide a media bus,” Liberal campaign co-chair and former deputy premier Deb Matthews said in a statement.

“Not once in more than 60 years of modern campaigning history has a major political party in Ontario refused to provide media dedicated transport and routine access during an election. It is an unprecedented effort to hide Ford, conceal Conservative policies and steer their plan for Ontario away from public scrutiny.”

Political parties have already done away with media buses in some Western provinces, but that has not been the case in Ontario, where leaders have deployed them – as well as chartered flights to more remote communities – in all recent elections. News outlets pay thousands of dollars to the parties to reserve a seat and cover the costs of meals and other expenses.

Both Premier Kathleen Wynne and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said they would provide travel accommodations for media during the campaign, with Horwath saying journalists would be invited to share her campaign bus.

It’s not new for politicians to try to control the narrative around their campaign by restricting media access in various ways, said Tamara Small, a political science professor at the University of Guelph.

The federal Conservatives did so under Stephen Harper by imposing a cap of five questions at news conferences, a rule that prompted pushback from journalists, she said.

More recently, the federal Liberals have successfully peppered newspapers with photos taken by the prime minister’s own photographer – a move the Ford camp may try to replicate if fewer news organizations send staff photographers, she said.

“The narrative is that you’re not going to get that photo that’s unattractive,” Small said. “You’re going to get the photo where the lighting is perfect and the right people are in the background and ... it tells the story that they want to tell.”

While Ford, nonetheless, needs media attention to grow his profile and attract new votes, he can get it in a much more controlled setting by doing one-on-one interviews with local media or forcing journalists to quote his tweets as U.S. President Donald Trump has done, she said.

“One of the things that makes Doug Ford very attractive to people is his ability to sort of speak off the cuff and all that kind of stuff, but that is also the stuff...that could become problematic,” she said.

The Tories may also be trying to shift the focus from their leader onto other issues such as their policies, as the federal Liberals did in the 1980s in the campaign for a then-unpopular Pierre Elliott Trudeau, said Jonathan Rose, a political science professor at Queen’s University.

“It’ll be interesting to see if Doug Ford maintains that script and doesn’t do as many photo ops as the other leaders,” he said. “The reason why you do that, of course, is to focus on the policy and avoid any kind of problems with Ford going off-script.”

In any case, Ford’s decision to scrap the media bus is a “shot across the bow to the media,” but the issue is unlikely to ruffle voters, said Rose.

“Voters don’t care about that and in fact it might play well to Doug Ford’s base that he is not playing nice with the media,” he said. “The U.S. wave of populism that has sort of washed over Ontario since his election may be evidence of that.”

 

[冷笑9声]

浏览附件749068

Ontario’s newly minted Progressive Conservative leader will not bring journalists with him on the campaign trail this spring, a rare move experts and critics say suggests the Tories are keen to keep the unpredictable populist politician out of the hot seat as he takes on two more seasoned rivals.

Doug Ford confirmed Thursday he will not have a media bus following him as he criss-crosses the province ahead of the June election, an accommodation traditionally offered by Ontario’s party leaders to facilitate coverage while they hold multiple daily events in different cities.

Ford’s campaign team has said his events will be broadcast online and his itinerary will be released for media interested in covering them in person.

“You guys are more than welcome to come to every event that’s posted,” Ford, a former Toronto city councillor, told reporters when asked about his decision, though he would not say what prompted it.

“I didn’t think there was any law about having media on the bus,” he added.

Ford said he would “love to” take questions from media daily throughout the campaign “as long as you guys can make it,” though he acknowledged that had not occurred during at least one of his recent rallies.

The Tory leader also said he would release his platform in a week or two, but would not say whether it would be fully costed as he previously promised.

Experts say the decision to scrap the media bus suggests a campaign strategy that centres on limiting questions and preventing Ford – a brash politician whose candid remarks often make headlines – from publicly going off-script.

And while this approach may prove effective politically, it’s concerning for democracy, they say.

“He is attempting to bypass the accountability function of the free press by limiting access to his campaign. This will not prevent coverage, but it alters the degree of access and creates a different, more opaque degree of transparency in the campaign,” said Tim Abray, a former journalist and current teaching fellow in political science at Queen’s University. “This should not be blown off as insignificant.”

The governing Liberals, meanwhile, accused Ford of “ducking voters and hiding from media scrutiny.”

“Doug Ford is afraid that the more Ontario sees of him and his plan for our province, the less there is to like. That’s why his campaign is ducking leaders’ debates, refusing to commit to releasing a fully costed platform and now ... refusing to provide a media bus,” Liberal campaign co-chair and former deputy premier Deb Matthews said in a statement.

“Not once in more than 60 years of modern campaigning history has a major political party in Ontario refused to provide media dedicated transport and routine access during an election. It is an unprecedented effort to hide Ford, conceal Conservative policies and steer their plan for Ontario away from public scrutiny.”

Political parties have already done away with media buses in some Western provinces, but that has not been the case in Ontario, where leaders have deployed them – as well as chartered flights to more remote communities – in all recent elections. News outlets pay thousands of dollars to the parties to reserve a seat and cover the costs of meals and other expenses.

Both Premier Kathleen Wynne and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said they would provide travel accommodations for media during the campaign, with Horwath saying journalists would be invited to share her campaign bus.

It’s not new for politicians to try to control the narrative around their campaign by restricting media access in various ways, said Tamara Small, a political science professor at the University of Guelph.

The federal Conservatives did so under Stephen Harper by imposing a cap of five questions at news conferences, a rule that prompted pushback from journalists, she said.

More recently, the federal Liberals have successfully peppered newspapers with photos taken by the prime minister’s own photographer – a move the Ford camp may try to replicate if fewer news organizations send staff photographers, she said.

“The narrative is that you’re not going to get that photo that’s unattractive,” Small said. “You’re going to get the photo where the lighting is perfect and the right people are in the background and ... it tells the story that they want to tell.”

While Ford, nonetheless, needs media attention to grow his profile and attract new votes, he can get it in a much more controlled setting by doing one-on-one interviews with local media or forcing journalists to quote his tweets as U.S. President Donald Trump has done, she said.

“One of the things that makes Doug Ford very attractive to people is his ability to sort of speak off the cuff and all that kind of stuff, but that is also the stuff...that could become problematic,” she said.

The Tories may also be trying to shift the focus from their leader onto other issues such as their policies, as the federal Liberals did in the 1980s in the campaign for a then-unpopular Pierre Elliott Trudeau, said Jonathan Rose, a political science professor at Queen’s University.

“It’ll be interesting to see if Doug Ford maintains that script and doesn’t do as many photo ops as the other leaders,” he said. “The reason why you do that, of course, is to focus on the policy and avoid any kind of problems with Ford going off-script.”

In any case, Ford’s decision to scrap the media bus is a “shot across the bow to the media,” but the issue is unlikely to ruffle voters, said Rose.

“Voters don’t care about that and in fact it might play well to Doug Ford’s base that he is not playing nice with the media,” he said. “The U.S. wave of populism that has sort of washed over Ontario since his election may be evidence of that.”

CFRA上有个call in让我听到了。。。是一个关于福特和渥太华本地退休老年人的恳谈会。。。
基本原话是：你们（白人）不出门投票，难道让那些棕色头发的人选出新省长吗？
也不知道这个插曲有没有人炒作。

 

[GuardianAngel]

good idea not to have media on the bus. It is not illegal. and the media is mostly not friendly to him.
So why bother?

 

[uglyducking]

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/sta...ald-ford-are-cut-the-from-the-same-froth.html

 

[GuardianAngel]

CFRA上有个call in让我听到了。。。是一个关于福特和渥太华本地退休老年人的恳谈会。。。
基本原话是：你们（白人）不出门投票，难道让那些棕色头发的人选出新省长吗？
也不知道这个插曲有没有人炒作。

棕色头发的人? meaning women or younger?

 

[uglyducking]

Why Doug Trump and Donald Ford are cut from the same froth
Here are the top 10 traits shared by Ford and Trump that make them interchangeable as populist politicians, Martin Regg Cohn writes.

 

[Teddy]

和四年前情况差不多，没啥好鸟可选。

 

[明的凡]

Why Doug Trump and Donald Ford are cut from the same froth
Here are the top 10 traits shared by Ford and Trump that make them interchangeable as populist politicians, Martin Regg Cohn writes.

这个标题福特阵营应该好好宣传一下。绝对有票。

 

[明的凡]

CFRA上有个call in让我听到了。。。是一个关于福特和渥太华本地退休老年人的恳谈会。。。
基本原话是：你们（白人）不出门投票，难道让那些棕色头发的人选出新省长吗？
也不知道这个插曲有没有人炒作。

比较的是头发。显然是指白发老者和把头发染从棕色的毛小子们。涉嫌年龄歧视，左媒居然没有大叫打嚷? 奇怪了。

 

[27149]

Why Doug Trump and Donald Ford are cut from the same froth
Here are the top 10 traits shared by Ford and Trump that make them interchangeable as populist politicians, Martin Regg Cohn writes.

这个标题福特阵营应该好好宣传一下。绝对有票。

这俩都谁鸭?

 

[uglyducking]

这俩都谁鸭?

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/sta...ald-ford-are-cut-the-from-the-same-froth.html

CFC伪右派最爱。

 

[明的凡]

CFC伪右派最爱。

气死真左派

 

[uglyducking]

气死真左派

哪些ID不再来CFC了，大概就是被你们气死了。太不争气了啊。打着右派的旗帜行左派之事，装作是基督徒干的是木似林的勾当，你好意思吗？

 

[Jay Wang]

CFRA上有个call in让我听到了。。。是一个关于福特和渥太华本地退休老年人的恳谈会。。。
基本原话是：你们（白人）不出门投票，难道让那些棕色头发的人选出新省长吗？
也不知道这个插曲有没有人炒作。

我索表示，立马回去把头发染成金色。