Friday, May 7, 2010 3:05 PM
The mayoral comment wars heat up
Kelly Grant
A few weeks ago we wrote about the Thomson campaign’s efforts to stack the comments with pro-Sarah sentiment, allegedly in response to Rob Ford’s camp. (Mr. Ford’s brother and campaign manager denied it at the time.)
Now George Smitherman -- or “Slitherman” as his cloaked rivals call him on the web -- is getting into the act. We’ve obtained an internal e-mail sent Thursday at 11:53 a.m. from Colin Le Fevre, a member of Mr. Smitherman’s social media team, urging supporters to fill the comment boards with glowing mentions of their candidate and his policies. The e-mail even provides links to the right articles.
“This is something we will be discussing at the meeting on Friday, but one thing we are hoping to have people in this group do is get on the comment pages for articles relating to the Toronto Mayoral Election to post positive comments about Georges [sic] policies, events, actions, etc.,” Mr. Le Fevre wrote. “Currently the dialogue on these discussion boards is rather negative towards George as it appears that other campaign teams have a large number of volunteers on them. This is very important as many people read these comments, so we need to ensure that our positive side of the debate is represented.”
Smitherman spokesman Stefan Baranski correctly points out this is a common campaign tactic. Indeed, one look at the discussion boards on election-related stories makes that plain. “We weren’t counselling anyone to slag any other candidates by any means,” Mr. Baranski said. The Smitherman camp simply wanted to deflect some of the mud with positive comments, he added.
Over at Rocco Rossi headquarters, meanwhile, aides toyed with kicking it old school and e-mailing actual letters to the editor. The Globe obtained hard copies of draft letters extolling the virtues of Mr. Rossi’s transit plans. Rossi spokeswoman Patricia Best confirmed the letters are authentic, but she said they were never sent to newspapers.
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