Hillary burns in Bill, Belinda tab shocker [BIMBO ERUPTION ALERT!!]

Hillary Clinton is furious, apparently, and has warned her husband, Bill, to "cool his 'close relationship' with a wealthy blond divorcee . . ." according to this week's cover story in the supermarket tabloid the Globe. The rich blond divorcée? Well, she's none other than Belinda Stronach, one of the leadership candidates for the Conservative Party. She and the former U.S. president are featured prominently in this week's issue.

(Remember there is a Canadian connection because Bonnie Fuller, the chief editorial director of the company that owns the Globe, is a Canadian who has made it big as a magazine editor in the United States.)

The article says that Mrs. Clinton wants her husband to end his alleged relationship with Ms. Stronach and has read him the "bimbo riot act." She's worried it could affect her chances to run for the presidency. It says that Mrs. Clinton has told her husband to stop being "Belinda's political adviser." And: "Any move Bill makes on Belinda will spell D-I-V-O-R-C-E," says the story, which quotes a source as saying "she's sexy and brilliant."

It's no secret here that the two are friends. Ms. Stronach was asked about that at her campaign launch last month but brushed off the question. But the tabloids aren't buying the brush-off. The National Enquirer recently contacted a Parliament Hill reporter to ask about the Belinda/Bill connection. Meanwhile, a spokesman for Ms. Stronach called the Globe's piece "utterly ridiculous."

Apparently she's a good guy.

Belinda Stronach Great Right Hope

The question is whether she can emerge as the next heavyweight champion of Canadian conservatism.

BRUCE CHEADLE, CP 2004-01-18 06:04:55

OTTAWA -- She is political pugilism's version of the Great Right Hope, the poster-girl package touted by the backroom boys as the next heavyweight champ of Canadian conservatism. But whether Belinda Stronach, the millionaire chief executive of Magna International, can dance in the squared circle of federal politics -- or take a punch from her many adversaries -- is virtually impossible to handicap on the eve of her formal entry into the fight for the leadership of the new Conservative Party of Canada.

Since word leaked two weeks ago she was seriously considering a bid, followed up last week with word Stronach definitely would run, she has made but a single, spare public statement.

"Citizens are encouraging me to run," Stronach told a CBC reporter in Detroit during the North American International Auto Show. "It's something I'm looking at and considering very seriously."

All subsequent interview requests have been put off until her official campaign launch, expected Tuesday.

Her reluctance to say anything beyond those carefully measured words was made abundantly clear Friday when she was reached directly on her cellphone and asked about MP Chuck Strahl's decision not to run for the leadership.

"I'm going to hand you to someone else," she said quickly, then passed the phone to an aide.

Many of her myriad organizers, among them some of the most experienced conservative political operatives in the country, have been almost as difficult to reach.

Yet there's been no want of media coverage, despite the absence of the "air war" typical of most leadership campaigns.

Stories about her political ambitions have been near the top of the news, including huge front-page photos in several major Ontario dailies.

Politically correct letters to the editor already have groused that few news stories fail to mention Stronach's looks.

But apart from the 37-year-old's lofty corporate title (she's president and chief executive of her father Frank Stronach's auto parts company), multimillion-dollar pay package (worth $12.5 million in 2003) and elegant appearance, not a great deal else is known about the twice-divorced mother of two.

Unlike Brian Mulroney, another political outsider who once vaulted to leadership from the corporate sector, Stronach has not honed her public speaking skills as a favoured speech-maker at business gatherings.

Business analysts in Toronto are loath to talk on the record about Stronach and even in anonymity one would only say "she's an unknown commodity. They keep her hidden."

Another called Stronach "a bit of an enigma."

Magna's decentralized corporate structure, in which individual manufacturing plants are largely independently run, makes it difficult to assess Stronach's managerial contributions, said one market watcher.

"It's not a company where you can easily point to one person and say they've done, this, this, this and this."

Rick Anderson, a longtime political strategist for the PC, Reform and Alliance parties, has known Stronach for 10 years and calls her a "next generation" manager who uses consensus to fuse a wide variety of advice.

"She's got this amazingly interesting ability to keep sussing out of people parts of this (political process) that are actually interesting and different and varied and not all of a kind -- and building confidence with people in her," said Anderson, adding he is not part of her campaign team.

Stronach's politics are virtually unknown. Her father once ran for office as a Liberal and Magna has contributed corporate funding to a variety of political parties and politicians.

Stronach herself played a brokerage role in getting the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives to the negotiating table last summer. Former Ontario premiers Mike Harris and William Davis are endorsing her leadership bid.

From the Calagary Sun.......

Stronach link to Clinton refuted

By MARIA MCCLINTOCK, OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA -- Conservative leadership candidate Belinda Stronach's "close friendship" with former U.S. president Bill Clinton has been splashed on the front page of a popular American supermarket tabloid. The blaring headline in the Feb. 17 edition of Globe reads: "Hillary screams Divorce over Bill's new Blonde!"

The Globe, which sells hundreds of thousands of copies in North America, said Clinton's wife New York Senator Hillary Clinton is threatening her hubby with divorce unless he ends his relationship with the former CEO of Magna International Inc. because it's hurting her own political ambitions to become president.

The pair have been spotted together on a number of occasions, including in 2002 at the Toronto restaurant Truffles, and the story suggests they were also skiing in Aspen last month.

The racy paper reports Hillary Clinton read her husband the "bimbo riot act" at news her husband and Stronach had plans to meet last month during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"Forget about this blonde," the Globe reports Hillary Clinton telling her husband. "I want you to concentrate all your attention on my political career, not hers!"

Stronach didn't go to Davos.

According to an insider quoted in the story, Mrs. Clinton "seethed with jealousy and annoyance as their friendship generated speculation of an affair in the American and Canadian press."

Stronach's campaign spokesman Mark Entwistle called the article "absolutely ridiculous on all counts, on all its substance and content."

Speaking from Halifax where Stronach and her rivals Stephen Harper and Tony Clement were campaigning yesterday, Entwistle denied Clinton is acting as a political adviser to Stronach and that the pair are romantically involved.

"They know each other from various charity events and that's it," he said.

"She entered into this (leadership campaign) with eyes wide open, she talked to a lot of people ... one of the things she was warned about by various associates and friends ... is that this kind of stuff happens. She knows it's part of the landscape."

Stronach link to Clinton refuted

By MARIA MCCLINTOCK, OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA -- Conservative leadership candidate Belinda Stronach's "close friendship" with former U.S. president Bill Clinton has been splashed on the front page of a popular American supermarket tabloid. The blaring headline in the Feb. 17 edition of Globe reads: "Hillary screams Divorce over Bill's new Blonde!"

The Globe, which sells hundreds of thousands of copies in North America, said Clinton's wife New York Senator Hillary Clinton is threatening her hubby with divorce unless he ends his relationship with the former CEO of Magna International Inc. because it's hurting her own political ambitions to become president.

The pair have been spotted together on a number of occasions, including in 2002 at the Toronto restaurant Truffles, and the story suggests they were also skiing in Aspen last month.

The racy paper reports Hillary Clinton read her husband the "bimbo riot act" at news her husband and Stronach had plans to meet last month during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"Forget about this blonde," the Globe reports Hillary Clinton telling her husband. "I want you to concentrate all your attention on my political career, not hers!"

Stronach didn't go to Davos.

According to an insider quoted in the story, Mrs. Clinton "seethed with jealousy and annoyance as their friendship generated speculation of an affair in the American and Canadian press."

Stronach's campaign spokesman Mark Entwistle called the article "absolutely ridiculous on all counts, on all its substance and content."

Speaking from Halifax where Stronach and her rivals Stephen Harper and Tony Clement were campaigning yesterday, Entwistle denied Clinton is acting as a political adviser to Stronach and that the pair are romantically involved.

"They know each other from various charity events and that's it," he said.

"She entered into this (leadership campaign) with eyes wide open, she talked to a lot of people ... one of the things she was warned about by various associates and friends ... is that this kind of stuff happens. She knows it's part of the landscape

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