Angry in the Great White North

In the story about the Lisa Raitt tape, it has been pointed out on blogs, but also in the main stream media (The Toronto Star in particular) that the former communications director responsible for leaving the material behind, Jasmine MacDonnell, is the daughter of Liberal fundraiser Ralston MacDonnell.

There have been some attempts to draw a connection here.  Somehow, the thinking goes, Jasmine is a Liberal mole.

OK, for people who have suggested this line of attack, I'm not here to attack you.  You bring up a fact (Jasmine is Ralston's daughter) and then attempt to draw an inference from that.  That's not a problem.

But this particular inference?  No, I don't buy it, and moreover, I think we need to step back, take a deep breath, and look a bit closer at ourselves for going down this route, even if just a tentative step or two.

Ralston MacDonnell has helped raise a daughter who has decided to become involved in politics.  Good for him.  The more people are engaged, regardless of what party they support, the better for all of us.

I don't know Ralston MacDonnell, but I am a dad, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Ralston MacDonnell is proud of his daughter's success in becoming a communications director for a cabinet minister.

And I'm going to be even more presumptuous and assert that Ralston's pride in his daughter's accomplishments would have been no more or less if she was working for a Liberal MP.

The idea that a dad would encourage his daughter to throw her career away in order to generate a scandal is just nuts.  I don't know that anyone has directly said that this was what happened, but the suggestion is clear.

So let's say that Jasmine's mistakes were her own.  She wasn't put up to it by the Liberals, nor were her family's links to the Liberal Party a factor.  The mistakes were truly mistakes, and she's paid a steep price.

Does anyone think Ralston MacDonnell is feeling any less bad for what his daughter is going through because it is the Conservative Party that is taking the heat?  Does anyone think when Jasmine phoned her dad seeking some comfort, that Ralston MacDonnell congratulated her and told her to not feel so bad, because her pain and embarrassment is a small price to pay if it means the Conservatives have a tough week in exchange?

Or is it more likely that Ralston told his daughter that no matter what happens, and no matter what she decides to do next, including going back to the Conservative Party in some capacity in an attempt to rebuild her career, that he'll be there for her and that he'll support her?

Clearly the Conservative Party doesn't have a pur et dur policy that states that senior cabinet staffers have to be third generation conservatives.  Clearly the Conservative Party does not want the party to become an oligarchy of tightly knit families, freezing out people like Jasmine MacDonnell for the crime of having the wrong dad (because in all likelihood Ralston MacDonnell is a great dad, his politics being irrelevant).

Like I said, take a deep breath, think before you speak, and maybe take a moment to think about your own dad.  For most of us, his politics is one of the last things we think about.

I'm pretty sure our dads never gave much thought about our politics when we needed his help.