When Garth Turner first blogged about David Emerson, he talked about his constituents and invited them to a town hall meeting to to deal with “some justified emotion at what happened this week”.
He wrote that post late Wednesday night. When I saw him outside a meeting of the Conservative caucus on Thursday morning, I asked him why he thought there was “justified emotion” and his response was widely reported across the country. [CTV report here — click on “David Akin on the softwood speculation” under the Video links down the right-hand side of the page to watch Turner’s reaction]
That scrum — and the fact that many media organizations broadcast or published his comments from it — resulted in what Turner described as a “sombre session” with Harper. (On his blog on Wednesday, before Turner ran into “a wall of reporters”, he wrote — “I drove back to Ottawa tonight … because I am meeting with the Prime Minister tomorrow” — which raises some doubts that he was called in to Harper’s office specifically because of his comments.)
We know that because Turner blogged about that as well (here, here, and here)
On Friday, in Touchdowns and Fumbles, a weekly commentary on various news events from a communications and branding viewpoint published by Veritas Communications, Veritas vice-president says Turner scored a “Touchdown” with his comments and subsequent reaction. “Turner is strategically addressing his brand as an outspoken maverick, one honed over years as a newspaper columnist and TV and radio commentator.” Michael Fortier, on the other hand, fumbled the ball, says Walker, for his comment earlier this week to reporters that he didn’t want to run in the election. “There was better messaging for Fortier to stick to, namely that he planned to run in the next election or a by-election should one occur,” wrote Walker.