OTTAWA - The fretting in Conservative circles Monday expanded beyond what was in the unsealed Elections Canada warrant into what new avenues into unknown controversies have been opened up by investigators.
Conservatives who have scattered from official Ottawa during what is supposed to be a break week burned up telephone lines and shared damage assessments following the raid at the party's headquarters last week.
Among those who tried to gauge the impact of Elections Canada's accusation of financial cheating in the last election was Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff, Ian Brodie, who dropped into party headquarters for a meeting with Conservative party officials after the raid.
"That shows how seriously this is being taken," said one government official.
"You don't just send Ian Brodie into the middle of what is a bit of a crime scene for capricious reasons. You don't just send him lightly. . ."
And why did Brodie turn up?
"The fear is no longer about the in-and-out stuff," the official said.
Conservatives party operatives and those in government interviewed for this story said they are trying to determine what classified material Elections Canada might have seized - and worrying that it could be released in a court case.
After two days of unfettered access to the party headquarters, Elections Canada made replicas of all their computer hard drives, carted off 17 boxes of documents, and copied all of the party's emails, Tory officials said.
Polling and avertising data, voter information, and documented descriptions of the party's electoral tactics are all among the things that would have been stored at Tory headquarters.
The prime minister and several of his ministers have insisted the Conservatives have done nothing illegal. Elections Canada has laid no charges despite their accusation that the party filed false and misleading reports on their spending in the last election.
One Conservative said the concern is not that Elections Canada would find evidence of anything illegal - but that it could uncover material that would embarrass the government or party.
A government manual on how to obstruct parliamentary committees that caused no end of embarrassment when it was leaked to the press last year is one example of legal-but-embarrassing flotsam that can surface.
Conservative campaign boss Doug Finley has become renowned among partisans for similar hardball tactics. Conservatives now fear other plays from the Finley handbook may fall into the wrong hands.
"We've done some stuff that's not really problematic, but it's not something I'd necessarily want Elections Canada or reporters getting their hands on," a government official said.
"I'm not sure what was in the boxes, but there's a concern that it's going to get worse before it necessarily gets better."
Investigators have been poring through party documents to prove an allegation that the Tories broke a variety of laws and overspent the campaign limit by $1 million in the last election.
The search warrant that allowed party headquarters to be raided last week by the RCMP makes it clear that the only documents to be specifically sought out were related to the 2006 advertising controversy.
Elections Canada refused to comment on what it would do with any evidence of potential wrongdoing that is not related to the in-and-out advertising controversy.
Another ministerial staffer says he's not worried about anything illegal being uncovered: "Harper is not prone to doing things that are illegal. He is prone to pushing the envelope."
That distinction lies at the heart of the advertising dispute.
Elections Canada argues that the Tories pushed the envelope beyond legal bounds in 2006, when they transferred campaign expenses to riding associations for TV ads that had a national focus.
The Tories are adamant that they respected the law.
They have also aggressively fought back against Elections Canada in the latest display of a combativeness that has become a hallmark of the Harper Conservatives.
While other political parties might have quietly settled their differences with the elections watchdog, the Tories demanded campaign refunds for the disputed amounts and then sued to get them.
Then a series of senior ministers implied the non-partisan body was biased against them.
"You don't get more combative than that," said a government official.
"The natural instinct of the party is to fight, fight, fight."
The Tories' response to Elections Canada is reminiscent of the aggressive retort they've offered virtually anytime they're challenged.
Senior bureaucrats, the nuclear-safety regulator, the Commons ethics commissioner, the environment commissioner, the news media, the governments of Ontario and Newfoundland, celebrities like Al Gore, Bono, and Canadian actress Sarah Polley have all tasted the Tory medicine.
If there are any fears about battling Elections Canada, senior Conservatives aren't voicing them.
Battles with perceived foes are a staple of Conservative fundraising letters, which get the base fired up and its wallets pried wide open.
Last December, Finley issued a fundraising letter that focused exclusively on alleged CBC collusion with the opposition and argued that the party needed cash to overcome the institutional bias against it.
As they now cry bias at Elections Canada, several Conservatives interviewed Monday said there was near-unanimous support for the party to continue its battle over the in-and-out affair.
"We take a very aggressive approach to politics. I haven't heard anybody say we did wrong," said one government official.
