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Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak's campaign bus rolls into Toronto ahead of the Ontario election call on Aug. 29, 2011.Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press

For the Progressive Conservative campaign, it took only two days for the wheels of the bus to fall off.

Or rather, for the power steering unit on Tim Hudak's luxury coach to stop working. The tour was in Ottawa, and the campaign was anxious to keep the news from reporters who would surely work it into some kind of metaphor about how the campaign was starting.

So rather than tell anyone, they hid the vehicle – which featured a giant Tim Hudak face on its side – behind some trees around the corner from the not-so-prying eyes of the media and arranged to have another bus pressed into service for the day.

Reporters were never told, for good reason. The replacement bus formerly belonged to Wayne Newton, party insiders said, and featured a stage complete with a stripper pole in the back.

The show-biz bus was only used for a short period. By the next day Mr. Hudak was back in his official campaign vehicle and the media was none the wiser until Thursday night after the election when staff gleefully shared the story.

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