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Playing politics

This Magazine Staff

A couple of quick points about the upcoming federal election and associated issues:
1. In today’s Globe and Mail, John Ibbitson has a very sensible column in which he calls yesterday’s mini-budget “phony” and “fictitious,” and recommends that we ignore it.
So why then does his newspaper devote the entire front page to the update, have a nine-page mini-budget insert in the front section, write both editorials about it, and add a bunch more copy in the ROB section?
The Liberals released this as an election manifesto. Eddie Greenspon’s Globe and Mail has obliged by promoting it to the skies.
2. My understanding of the opposition tactics here is this: In order to a) take advantage of the Gomery fallout, and b) prevent the Liberals from putting together a massive vote-buying package before Gomery II is released, they decided to force Martin to either agree to drop the writ in January, or face a non-confidence motion before xmas.
But since Gomery has already cooled off, and the Libs have now released their vote-buying package, wouldn’t it be smart to lay off completely? Let the unseemly attention devoted to the mini-budget cool off, and let the attention to Gomery II heat up, and hit the hustings the next day.

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