OTTAWA — As the federal election campaign approached its final days, the Conservative war room couldn’t help but dwell on a brutal paradox.
Inside the confines of the office where the campaign was headquartered in downtown Ottawa, insiders say the overwhelming feeling was that the campaign couldn’t have gone much more smoothly. Despite mounting criticism from pundits and even fellow Conservatives, everyone on the campaign seemed to be rowing in the same direction. Unusually, the media coverage was mostly favourable, or at least neutral. And they had entirely avoided the “bozo eruptions” that had plagued so many Conservative campaigns before.
