Stephen Harper's election campaign seems determined to go off the rails. I've avoided criticizing Harper for insignificant flaws in his campaign, but it's pretty hard to ignore what happened today, especially since the occurrence was caught on camera.
The picture below is of Bob Smyth, an elderly protester being punched in the face by a Conservative today at a Harper campaign function:
Click on the picture for the full article.
I've campaigned with a few PC Party leaders, and I've seen campaign stops get ugly, but taking it to this level is a bit out of the ordinary. Usually in situations with protesters our party supporters were advised to link arms and form a chain to try to keep the protesters away from where the leader was speaking. If the protesters became vocal, so did our folks, singing "O Canada", or something. There was never any violence, even when we were beset by organized busloads of youth party members from other parties.
According to Laurie Arron, political co-ordinator of Canadians for Equal Marriage:
Mr. Arron was shouted down by cries of "shut up, shut up."
Tory supporters then hit Mr. (Bob) Smyth with signs and a man punched him in the face before police intervened.
This is 2 days in a row that Stephen Harper's message has been overshadowed by questions about his position on hot topics like abortion and gay marriage. 2 days do not make or break an election campaign, but with the media exposure given to Mr Arron and Mr Smyth today, there's a high likelihood that Harper's troubles are not over yet.
