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OTTAWA — Frustration at the way the general election campaign is unfolding for the Conservatives bubbled over at a campaign event in the Etobicoke suburb of Toronto Tuesday.

One angry Conservative left his porch long enough to berate the CBC’s Hannah Thibedeau and CTV’s Laurie Graham for daring to ask the party’s leader about the Mike Duffy trial.

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“You are a piece of shit,” shouted the supporter, an outburst that will confirm for many the impression that Stephen Harper leads a nasty party, backed by a zombie army of the unthinking.

But everyone should take a deep breath and let the temperature drop by a few degrees.

We are in mid-August. It’s no wonder, in George Bernard Shaw’s words, that the media can’t distinguish between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.

The Duffy trial is sucking up all the oxygen because there’s nothing else happening. The leaders all have significant policy announcements up their sleeves but they are saving them for next month, when more people are paying attention.