No politics is local - not anymore.

Micromanagement at it's worst. Guess there's no longer any point in the Con Party having local Electoral District Associations. 

Will be interested to find out what else Mr. Warner will have to say in the next few days as reported in the RedStar.

"I learned that the party's national council has taken the unprecedented step of disallowing my candidacy over the objection of leading members of the Toronto Centre Conservative EDA (electoral district association).

"I very much regret this arbitrary and capricious decision of the party's national council, and will have more to say about that in other fora in the days to come," Warner writes.

Here's a bit more from CNW, that we likely will not see reported in the trad media outlets. This one claims direct involvement in the removal by (sooprise, sooprise) Doug Finley.

Over the objections of leaders of the Toronto Centre riding association Mr. Warner was removed by the Party's National Campaign Manager, Doug Finley, and its National Council President Don Plett, of Landmark Manitoba for trying to tailor the Party's message to be relevant to Toronto Centre. Mr. Warner said that "this decision made no sense" and explained that "every brand manager knows that even McDonald's serves lobster rolls in Nova Scotia and beer in France!"

Na-uhn. Not in HarperWorld. It's spam for everyone. Try the spam, eggs, spam, bacon, tomatoes and spam. That doesn't have much spam in it. and it's good for you (because it's good for us).

I don't think they were going to win Toronto Centre anyway, but that's beside the point. As both Garth Turner and Bill Casey before him learned, there is no place for a Red Tory in today's Death Star controlled CPC. Tow the line or get tossed overboard.

Mr. Warner stated that while he expected the fight in Toronto Centre to be tough against his high-profile Liberal opponent, he never expected that he would be forced to spend so much of his energy campaigning against his own party's lack of interest in winning in Toronto Centre, and dealing with his own Party's increasingly well-publicized "micro-management from a distance" as he attempted to "strengthen the urban voice that has been regrettably absent from our current national government."

Slightly darker speculation - could race and diveristy have also been an issue? Mr. Warner's conclusion.

"I joined the Party when Brian Mulroney was the strongest voice for Nelson Mandela's freedom. Unfortunately, I have found that the Conservative Party today, by its actions, is not the inclusive Party that I once believed in. The Conservative Party today cynically pays "lip service" to diversity and outreach to minority communities in Canada."

Everything's cheaper than it looks.

Right over here. 

Conservative officials have been actively resisting Warner's emphasis on housing, health care and cities issues, he said, even blocking him from participating in a Star forum on poverty earlier this year and pointedly removing from his campaign literature a reference to the 2006 international conference on AIDS in Toronto – which Warner attended but Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not.

Everything's cheaper than it looks.