06 October 2006

Rae's BC Campaign Manager turfed

The Liberal Party apparently hasn't ever met a rule it couldn't fold, spindle or mutilate. I wonder if Bob Rae will have to pony up $20,000 a la Volpe, or if this latest gaffe will just quietly fade away.
Mason Loh, a former Liberal party candidate and well-known political operative in the province, took the fall Friday after it was discovered that at least 37 nominated Rae delegates had not personally signed their own candidacy forms — a breach of party rules.

All of those forms had been handled by Mr. Loh or his operatives, said Bryan Baynham, legal counsel for the Rae campaign in B.C., and irregularities were also found in a “significantly larger” numbers of forms. As a result the Liberal party and the Rae camp decided to reject all candidate forms that were handled by Mr. Loh.
"Irregularities" are imaginative Libspeak for what amounts to forgery these days.

One party apparatchik was quick to try to place the blame on the rules, which apparently are too hard for Liberal contenders to understand.
“It's almost like swimming in molasses, the rules and the complications are so great,” said Mr. Baynham.
Which raises the question, "If the Liberal Party's own rules are too hard for the Libs themselves to figure out... should we be trusting them to run a whole country?"

SIDENOTE: In other Liberal scandal news
The list of names of more than 300 members of the Liberal Party of Canada was forwarded yesterday to RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli and chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley.

The list contains the names of people who are alleged to have not paid a $10 fee when they signed membership forms that'll allow them to vote in December's leadership race.

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