Dion's Day One Gaffes

Day One of the campaign, and already we have a couple of gaffes from the Liberal leader. Thanks to Warren Kinsella and CFRB's Bill Caroll for pointing them out!

Early yesterday, Liberal leader Stephane Dion said that Jean Carle of Sponsorship infamy would be a part of the Liberal campaign team. As the Liberal leader, and presumably the leader of the Quebec Liberal caucus, you'd think he'd be a bit more in the know. Anyway, this has been denied by Liberal National Campaign Co-Chair Nancy Girard.

As translated from La Presse by Google:

"Yesterday midday in press conference, the Liberal leader Stéphane Dion said that Mr. Carle would be involved in the campaign. "Carle will have a role. I am not exactly aware of which, but it will have a role," he said.

But this information has been denied a late evening with Nancy Girard, co-chair of the campaign. "The name of Mr. Carle was raised, but it will not post with us," she decided."

Oops... h/t to Warren on that one.

Secondly, from Bill Caroll on CFRB 1010 this morning, on a gaffe that he says the rest of the press missed... here's a rough transcript of what he said was: "Stephen Harper has these commercials about family. So at yesterday's press conference, he gets asked about his thoughts on Dion as a family man. The Prime Minister responds by saying he doesn't know much about Dion's family life, but that he's sure Dion is a good family man too. So the press asks Dion about his family, and Dion replies with, "I'm a Liberal, we don't mix family and politics". Then the camera pans out, and standing right next to him is his own wife... but he's the only politican who brought his wife to his campaign launch! So much for not mixing family and politics!" Oops again...

Then of course, there's the issue of the missing campaign plane... oh, right, they don't need it yet... or so they say. I'm of the opinion that they scripted the campaign based on aircraft availability, and NOT the other way around. Something about being broke and unable to come up with the deposit required to lease one from Air Canada, perhaps?

All in all not a very good day at all for the Liberal leader... if he wasn't attempting to replace the best Prime Minister we've had in my lifetime, I'd be feeling sorry for him right now.