Volpe's devil is a free agent now
Joe Volpe's campaign manager has been fired, or has resigned -- either way, he's in play, and quite possibly many of the thousands of new Liberal members he has signed up.
Joe Volpe's campaign has suffered yet another blow:
Joe Volpe's trouble-plagued bid to become the next Liberal leader suffered another, possibly fatal, blow with the resignation Friday of his national campaign manager.
In a written statement released late Friday, Volpe said Jim Karygiannis, a controversial Toronto MP, "has left the campaign as a result of the position taken by the candidate on the current crisis in the Middle East.''
Volpe has been strongly supportive of Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, arguing that the Jewish state has a right to defend itself against attacks by Hezbollah guerillas based in southern Lebanon.
Karygiannis wanted more "balance":
Karygiannis said he had no problem with Volpe's insistence that Israel has a right to defend itself. But he said: "With the stuff that's happening in Lebanon, you've got have a balance.''
"You can't hold a country hostage, be it Israel or Hezbollah.''
In typical Liberal fashion, this difference in opinion was settled with a knife in the back:
It was not immediately clear, however, whether Karygiannis resigned or was fired. A Volpe campaign insider insisted Karygiannis offered his resignation during a phone conversation with Volpe on Friday.
But as little as 30 minutes before Volpe's statement was issued, Karygiannis was denying he'd quit the campaign.
In e-mail exchanges with The Canadian Press, Karygiannis said a CP report that he'd resigned was "absolutely b.s.'' and that he was "still on'' the campaign. He said it was "news to me'' that Volpe was about to issue a statement naming a new campaign manager.
Shortly after the statement was released, however, Karygiannis said he had in fact quit due to a difference of opinion over Lebanon.
The impact? Karygiannis signed up thousands of new Liberals for Volpe's campaign. Some of them will follow Karygiannis is he decides to move to another campaign. And that can hurt Volpe:
However, strategists with several other camps privately said they want nothing to do with Karygiannis, who has gained a reputation as an effective but controversial organizer.
Still, some predicted another camp will be tempted to recruit Karygiannis, in hopes that many of the 37,000 new party members he claims to have recruited for Volpe will come with him.
"Volpe is toast,'' said one strategist. "They are Jimmy's people, not Joe's. The big question is, who will do the deal with the devil?''
I'm willing to bet every single candidate will be willing to "deal with the devil" to get the votes.
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Comments
Being of Greek descent, I wonder how many Greeks in Toronto Jimmy signed up to the party on his name alone.
Posted by: TrustOnlyMulder at July 22, 2006 07:45 AM
"You can't hold a country hostage, be it Israel or Hezbollah."
Surely this must be the quote of the week by Jim Karygiannis.
Someone ought to let Jim know that Hezzbollah is not a country, merely a terrorist organization that has taken over part of a country
Posted by: ward at July 22, 2006 10:27 AM
"You can't hold a country hostage, be it Israel or Hezbollah."
Good catch, I missed that one
Posted by: Matt at July 22, 2006 11:18 AM
He may have meant keeping Lebanon hostage, either by Hezbollah or Israel. That doesn't make him any less of a moron.
Posted by: Saul at July 22, 2006 11:39 AM
Can't really take Jimbo to task for mistakenly calling Hezbollah a country, it's very confusing given that we have terrorists and countries supporting them, who's who is up for debate. Nice to know the libs are still battling away in their various camps, even in the heat of summer. Was he fired? Did he quit? What's the difference? Anyone working for Volpe at this point has no credibility anyway, why would anyone care? It's a non-issue except for Pizza Joe.
Posted by: Liz J at July 23, 2006 12:18 PM
So Jimmy is a free agent.
But the other teams as much as they need those members on their side (no matter who paid for their membership) know that Jimmy carries the stench of Apogate and could have the opposite effect of boosting their campaign.
Classic liberal conundrum not knowing which principle to abandon first (as opposed to having some principles you just don't compromise).
Posted by: at July 24, 2006 04:48 AM
I MET ONE OF JIMMY'S CONSTITUENTS DURING THE LAST ELECTION. IT WAS IN PUERTO VALLARTA AND I ASKED IF HE HAD BROUGHT A PAPER WITH HIM I WAS DYING FOR SOME NEWSPAPER. HE SAID I QUIT READING THE PAPER BECAUSE STEPHEN HARPER WAS GOING TO WIN. I SAID GOOD. HE WAS HORRIFIED AND SAID HIS MP TOLD HIM HARPER WAS GOING TO CUT OFF HEALTHCARE THE DAY HE WON. I TOLD HIM I HAD MISSED THAT CAMPAIGN PROMISE!
Posted by: KATHI at July 24, 2006 12:26 PM
KATHI: Perfect evidence from a constituent of a lying shill running for the pathetic party.When they have no substance they go for the stupid and inane,in hopes there enough stupid dopes to believe their fabrications. In Toronto it seems ethnicity of the candidate gives rise to great expectations and favors to specific groups and in many ridings that's the only qualification to get elected. The immigrants are easy targets for the liars, they tend to dance with the one who "brung" them and feeds them a steady diet of what gets them elected , damned lies.
Posted by: Liz J at July 24, 2006 07:32 PM
 
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