Campaign mastermind defends Leitch’s tactics
OTTAWA • Nick Kouvalis, the political mastermind behind Conservative MP Kellie Leitch’s leadership bid, is defending her campaign’s tactics, proposed values test for newcomers and all-out assault on rival candidates.
But Kouvalis, the Ontario MP’s campaign manager and a master of wedge politics, says she’s the boss and he isn’t pulling the strings behind the scenes.
“My job is very simple. It’s to build a campaign around what a candidate wants to run on,” the 41-year-old said in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen.
“This is her campaign. This is what she stands for. And I know people want to say, ‘That’s Nick doing this and Nick doing that.’ Everybody in this campaign has a campaign manager. Everybody does. I don’t know what the other campaign managers are doing, but I know what I’m doing, I’m helping Kellie win — and she’s winning.”
The seasoned pollster and guru behind the successful mayoral campaigns of John Tory and Rob Ford usually likes to keep out of the spotlight. But he thrust himself forward late Wednesday with a fundraising email sent out in his name.
This assailed newly declared leadership candidate, Andrew Scheer as an “outof-touch elite” because he launched his campaign at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa.
Leitch, a former cabinet minister in the Conservative government who’s also a part-time pediatric orthopedic surgeon, said Thursday in an interview she’s in charge of her campaign and directing where it goes.
“Let me be really clear — I make my own decisions,” she told the Citizen.
“I make my own decisions in the operating room and I make my own decisions for the direction of my campaign.”
The fundraising email, which did not mention Scheer’s name, also took a shot at him for trying to “score media points by attacking another Conservative.”
This was a reference to his comments on Leitch’s values test that he doesn’t think it’s “practical or preferable that we police what’s going on in people’s minds.”
The tone of the email and the campaign have observers wondering whether the bid reflects Kouvalis’ political tactics, rather than the loving pediatric surgeon who operates on children.
“I hear you,” Leitch said, about the perception the campaign doesn’t portray her compassionate side.
She acknowledged she has a big team helping her, but insisted ultimately she decides the tone, tactics and substance of her campaign.
“I believe in a strong Canadian identity, I believe in a set of core values,” she said.
“I think you can have a balance of being strong and making your own decisions, and at the same time being compassionate.”
Kouvalis said he loves working for Leitch because she’s smart, works hard, is a fundamental conservative and “willing to stand up against all of the pushback on this.”
Fellow candidates like Maxime Bernier, Michael Chong, Tony Clement, Deepak Obhrai and Brad Trost have all spoken out against her proposal to screen immigrants, refugees and visitors for “anti-Canadian values.” Chong has called it “dogwhistle politics.”