The Liberals always spin Trudeau's scandals into something positive: SNC-Lavalin was about saving jobs, the blackface embarrassment was a 'learning opportunity,' the WE Charity scandal was about helping young people.

It’s extremely easy for the Conservative leadership race to get lost in the sauce. Indeed, sometimes the Conservatives even managed to sabotage their own news cycle. 

How do the Conservatives and New Democrats take the 'We Charity' controversy, with all its facets and all its variables and forge it into a simple narrative that fits into a 30-second TV attack ad? 

The creation of Maxime Bernier's People's Party inspired similar words of alarm, but had little impact on the last election.

If the Canadian flag itself becomes an object of controversy, then the Conservatives have a clear opening to defend it.  

This particular American presidential race promises to be one of the nastiest and most vicious campaigns in living memory, as each team will do its best to demonize the other side.

If you listened to Erin O’Toole’s political opponents, you’d think he had committed something akin to high treason. 

Voters grow disillusioned with politicians who pledge to either move the clock forward or back. 

If you’re a politician, you don’t have to like the media, but you shouldn’t go out of your way to antagonize journalists, since that usually doesn’t end well. 

For many of those who believe in the supremacy of individual freedoms, the pandemic lockdown, with all its tight restrictions on movement and gatherings, is a dangerous overreaction.

If you thought populism was bad before the virus pandemic, you better hang onto your hat, because you haven’t seen anything yet.

We all know how the COVID-19 'lockdown' has decimated the entire world’s economy. But what’s less appreciated is how the pandemic will negatively impact on the bottom line for Canada’s federal political parties.

Too many people in this country, at best, are only paying half attention to current events and to political issues, which is why they can often be swayed by simplistic arguments.

The problem with this ongoing train wreck for the Conservatives is it undermines their chief political comparative advantage, i.e., the belief that they’re more competent managers than the Liberals.

How the ongoing battle against COVID-19 will impact on Canadian politics.

I’m viewing this crisis much differently than I’ve viewed others in the past, when I could be analytical, detached, and dispassionate when judging politicians on the skill with which they communicated. Now I'm worried.

So if you’re working for a politician who is gauging public opinion, tell him or her to stick to scientific polling research. In short, leave the self-selecting surveys to radio talk show hosts.

Our members want better engagement and collaboration with industry, and industry wants better engagement with us.

Yet it won’t be easy for Justin Trudeau to turn this dismal public attitude around, even if Scott Gilmore’s rosy assessment about the state of Canada is totally accurate and realistic.

Any political strategist who wants to craft persuasive message should realize that Homo politicus doesn’t really exist. It’s emotional appeals which persuade; aim for their hearts, not for their minds.

Every leadership campaign needs a sense of vitality, a sense of excitement, a sense of destiny; anything that mobilizes followers, wins over converts, turns doubters into donors, undecideds into boosters, and skeptics.

The job of a political strategist is not just to manage a campaign; it’s also to manage the candidate.

The Conservatives might be in 'identity crisis' therapy right now, but the NDP and Liberals might soon join them on that couch.

Simply put, to succeed in politics you have to have a thick skin.