Even the Grit ‘whisper campaign’ is bloodless

It’s called opposition — “oppo” for short — research and it’s the dark art of digging for — and often uncovering — tantalizing tidbits and embarrassing secrets to use against a political opponent.

It wasn’t born of digital technology, but the advent and ubiquity of social media has served up a virtual banquet of transgressions — great and small, real and imagined — that can, and have, ended many political careers, some before they began.

The famous, and salacious, Steele dossier ± also known as the Trump-Russia dossier – was the product of oppo research. A 2005 video of Andrew Scheer railing against same-sex marriage surfaced to haunt the federal Conservatives in the 2019 election. Oppo research.

Because the other guys — or freelance political flamethrowers — are likely to discover and disclose your candidates’ peccadillos and predilections — like Justin Trudeau’s youthful fondness for black face — the candidate vetting process is serious business.

Nova Scotia’s Liberals — like the Tories a couple of years back — put their leadership contenders through an invasive, probing procedure — a sort of political colonoscopy — that ran to 27 pages of questions about their professional, personal and online selves.

To state the obvious, Labi Kousoulis, Iain Rankin and Randy Delorey passed that vetting, attested that everything they provided was truthful and complete and had that declaration notarized. I said it was serious business.

Reliable sources in each of the three leadership camps say they’re not digging for dirt on the other guys, nor would I expect them to.

While there’s no feud like a family feud, leadership contenders understand that dealing dirt on an opponent — and getting caughm — has more downside than up. The party faithful look askance at a candidate who’d throw shade on one of its own, particularly if it reflects poorly on the party, as it frequently does.

The Liberal leadership has been a bloodless affair thus far, a virtue some party members attribute to the discipline outgoing leader and premier Stephen McNeil instilled in his caucus. If anyone can instill discipline, it’s likely Nova Scotia’s generally gentle, but rough when riled, 28th premier.

But like most leadership contests, under the still waters of the public race, are more turbulent currents, created mostly by the passions campaign insiders bring to their work and their cause — to carry their man to the top.

Often, these take the form of whisper campaigns — sotto voce aspersions against an opponent — germinated in backrooms and spread via supporters to undecided, persuadable delegates for the obvious purpose.

Even the whispered innuendo out there suggests that these Liberals are lambs.

But you’ve come this far. You’ve entitled to a payoff, so here are a few whispered words currently circulating about each of our next wouldbe premiers.

One undecided Grit, who’s looking for a more environmentally friendly leader and is leaning toward Rankin, reports recently being asked why, if Rankin is such a champion of the environment, are so many sawmill operators donating money to his campaign? The question seems to cast greater aspersions on sawmill operators than Rankin, so let’s move on.

The Delorey camp recently lost a key player when its cochair, Kirby McVicar, a Liberal with a high-party-profile after serving as McNeil’s first chief of staff, stepped away from the campaign. This fact is presented to undeclared delegates framed by the rhetorical question: What’s going on or wrong – with Randy’s team.

McVicar told me this week he left for personal reasons and added that he “fully supports Randy’s campaign to be leader and Premier (and has) full confidence in Randy and the team we built.” Fair enough.

The Kousoulis camp has been pushing back against questions about why their man has hasn’t attracted endorsements from caucus colleagues, like the other two guys have.

The Kousoulis folks offer a couple of replies. One is that Liberal MLAs, like all 8,100 delegates, have just one vote, so endorsements are of limited tangible value. If more is required, they point to the significant number of Liberal MLAs who haven’t declared for any of the three. The inference is that some of those are with Labi on the q.t.

The Liberals will have a new leader Feb. 6, crowned at a virtual convention in Halifax, and soon thereafter he’ll become premier. Party brass is confident that the new leader and premier has no scary skeletons hiding in the back of a closet, or at least if he does, they couldn’t find it so maybe no one else will.