{"id":402,"date":"2005-07-10T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-11T01:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=402"},"modified":"2005-07-10T21:38:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-11T01:38:00","slug":"ride-em-cowboy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=402","title":{"rendered":"Ride ’em Cowboy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Stampede is now in full swing – the annual event where Calgarians try to dispel the stereotype that they are red necked yahoos by dressing up in cowboy gear and shouting “yee-haw” at everyone. I attended a pair of Stampede breakfasts this weekend, and if I’m going to report on Stephen Harper’s summer schmoozing<\/a>, I suppose it’s only fair that I give a recount of the not so subtle leadership networking going on in Liberal circles this summer.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Jack Layton<\/s> Ralph Goodale was the speaker at the annual Liberal Stampede breakfast, as Paul Martin was a no show. For the record, those criticizing Martin for skipping the Stampede <\/a>need to reasses their definition of a Prime Minister’s role in governing the country. Regardless, Ralph gave a descent speech, although I thought he came on a little strong defending the NDP budget deal (“it’s not that bad guys…really…I’m still the Finance Minister…really I am…<\/em>“). There were 6 Cabinet Ministers at the event (Goodale, McLellan, Brison, Volpe, Stronach, Mitchell), several Senators, and 100% of Alberta’s Liberal MPs. Belinda was clearly the most popular and after talking to her for 20 or 30 seconds, I’m convinced that I’m being a little unfair in describing Stephen Harper as a robot. Honestly, she’s the most android-like politician I’ve ever met in my life. But I’ll give her credit: considering how despised she is in Alberta right now, it took guts to come to the Stampede and to dance it up all night long at Cowboys.<\/p>\n

Sunday was the Senator Dan Hays’ breakfast, always a mini-festival in itself. Scott Brison and Joe Volpe were quite visible greeting the locals and not<\/strong>, I repeat, not,<\/strong> campaigning for leadership. Jim Dinning and Lyle Oberg were also there from 6:45 a.m. onwards, meeting the visitors and not,<\/strong> I repeat, not<\/strong> campaigning for leadership. I also bumped into Paul Wells <\/a>who was on assignment investigating the growth of Equality Party support in Calgary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stampede is now in full swing – the annual event where Calgarians try to dispel the stereotype that they are red necked yahoos by dressing up in cowboy gear and shouting “yee-haw” at everyone. I attended a pair of Stampede breakfasts this weekend, and if I’m going to report on Stephen Harper’s summer schmoozing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}