Adventures of a political gun-for-hire

The slow cheerful growl comes down the phone line and then pauses: “Lash … sin … jher.” It is the signature greeting that hundreds of Canadians in all streams of political life have heard on the other end of the line for more than four decades. In the early years it was usually a call to fellow Progressive Conservatives. In the past two decades, though, John Laschinger’s client Rolodex has included Canadians of every political stripe—and a collection, implausibly, of Kyrgyz politicians.

If John Laschinger were American, he would be our James Carville, or David Axelrod or Bob Shrum or Karl Rove. In Canada the idea of a campaign manager as an independent businessman, a gun for hire, is virtually unknown. Most who run big Canadian campaigns do so as party employees or government political staff on loan, or in the old days as corporate or trade union bosses “volunteering.”