KICKING KID no Katz-killer

When Mayor Sam Katz put the boots to a refugee kid last week during what was supposed to be a feel-good photo-op, even his allies had a little chuckle.

Inappropriate? Hardly, because there's no sane human being who believes Katz intended to kick a child during a civic election campaign.

Unless Winnipeg voters become psychotic and start reading things into the mayor's motives or reaction -- as some nutbars are doing on the Internet -- Katz's fancy footwork will have no effect on the election.

I mean, it's not as if he pulled a John Turner and deliberately grabbed a female colleague's ass or announced "Mission accomplished," à la Dubya, in the war on street crime.

A genuinely damaging campaign gaffe says something about the politician. Here are some of the finest campaign political blunders from the past decade:

Thanks for the support, Adolf

BACK in April, during Britain's recent general election, former U.K. prime minister Gordon Brown left his microphone on after meeting with voters in the northwestern England town of Rochdale.

"That was a disaster," said Brown about an elderly widow who spoke to him about immigration. He had no idea broadcasters were still listening.

"Should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? She was just a sort of bigoted woman."

When Brown's handlers realized what had happened, he spun around and returned to the woman -- a lifelong Labour supporter -- and apologized for suggesting she was a racist.

She refused to say whether she'd still vote for him.

Labour lost the election, but not because of the bigot remark. Previous Labour leader Tony Blair's decision to send troops into Iraq was probably a more significant gaffe in the long run.

He shoots! He utterly fails to score!

DURING the 2007 provincial election campaign, Manitoba Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen needed to do something dramatic to pull closer to Gary Doer's New Democrats.

Hugh's solution, unfortunately, was to promise something no politician could ensure -- the return of the National Hockey League to Winnipeg.

"Young Manitobans want us, expect us to do everything in our power to bring back the Winnipeg Jets," McFadyen said at the MTS Centre, standing next to former Jets captain Thomas Steen.

"And I'm gonna eliminate winter next year," quipped Doer to reporters later.

McFadyen claimed his promise was intended to be a symbol of hope for the future, but voters didn't buy it. His Progressive Conservatives lost ground to the NDP.

Ironically, if the NHL does return to Winnipeg early next year, as some hockey geeks predict, the NDP will still be in power.

Some of my best friends are future presidents

EARLIER in 2007, when Barack Obama announced he was running for U.S. president, future vice-president Joe Biden was trying to say nice things.

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man," Biden burbled about Obama.

The future veep wound up eating the criticism, even though supporters insisted there should have been a comma following "African-American" and the meaning of the remark was twisted. But Joe still wound up looking like an ass.

Obama won the presidency regardless -- and went on to wade into the "Ground Zero mosque" issue during a mid-term election campaign, for no discernible political reason at all.

Let them eat popcorn

IN 2006, when the Liberals were desperately trying toextend their 13-year reign over Canada, Stephen Harper's Conservatives came out with a plan to offer Canadian parents a flat amount of cash each month for daycare.

The Liberals, who had promised to create a national daycare plan for years but failed to deliver, were beside themselves.

But party spokesman Scott Reid got too enthusiastic, blurting out that the daycare money would just be used by parents to "blow on beer and popcorn."

Smelling blood, the Tories argued that Big Brother -- that is, the Liberal party -- didn't trust families to make wise financial decisions.

Paul Martin's Grits lost, but not because of the gaffe. Complacency and a sponsorship scandal had a lot more to do with it.

At least he wasn't wearing a wetsuit

GOING back to the days when the Canadian Alliance still walked the Earth, former leader Stockwell Day hoped Niagara Falls would be the visual metaphor he needed to score a few points against Jean Chrétien and the then-unstoppable Liberals during the 2000 federal election campaign.

Standing in front of the falls, Stock gave reporters an unusual spiel about Canada's intellectual brain drain.

"Just as Lake Erie drains from north to south, there is an ongoing drain in terms of our young people," Day said.

Of course, the Niagara River flows south to north, from the U.S. into Canada.

The Alliance, who were trying to unite the Reform party with the Conservatives, failed to do much better than the Reformers did in 1997.

Happily for reporters, Day is still around.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 29, 2010 A4