Even in taking his leave, Stephane Dion can't get it straight. By stating that the party needs a leader before the Commons resumes at the end of January, he is effectively rejecting the benefits of a considered leadership debate, while robbing tens of thousands of Liberals of their voice in choosing their own leader.
In other words, the party should continue its leisurely amble towards a May convention and appoint a neutral and essentially pointless interim leader in the meantime. But wait! The party doesn't operate in a vacuum. What if Stephen Harper's Tories throw something really nasty into their January budget? LeDrew announces the Party's surrender in advance:
In response, some Liberals contend that the party needs a permanent leader to run in the election that surely will befall us before the Liberal convention in Vancouver slated for May. But anyone who says that the Liberals should vote down the government has rocks in his head.
The Liberal party has no money, precious few new ideas (I am being generous here), an embarrassing leader and the least voter-support in its history. It desperately needs to rebuild before it can expect any respect from Canadians.
Yes but, again, what if Stephen Harper is true to form, and decides a January budget is a terrific time to break the opposition once and for all? Maybe he'll move once again to eliminate subsidies for federal political parties? That polled pretty well. LeDrew's answer?
...I suggest that trigger-happy MPs wait to see the next budget before they huff and puff and try to blow Harper's house down. Hopefully he will have learned his lesson, and deliver a first-class economic plan for Canada.
Ah, Hope! And Prayer, perhaps! The Liberal Party of Canada should kind of drift aimlessly through the next six months relying on the kindness of the Federal Conservatives!
Look, I have never actually joined the LPC, though I have occasionally donated to the cause. I generally only offer them my free and unsolicited advice. So my opinion shouldn't count for much. But I'll say it again: Get It Done By January! If this can be arranged through some kind of on-line/phone "consultation" so be it. If they have to lock Bob Rae in a closet for two months while Michael Ignaetieff is anointed in some smoke-filled backroom, that's fine too. But remember, as Stephen Janke points out, this is a party that can't afford a working digital camera and is helpless when the auto-focus on the old one they DO own breaks down.
And these people want to organize a virtual convention during the Xmas season? Pretty elaborate for a gang that would have trouble finding the fly on its pants.
And the "grass roots", those people who got behind a back-room deal to topple the current government, are insisting upon "democracy" for themselves? Such a sense of entitlement! They are demanding silver paper when all they can afford, and all they deserve, is cheese.
The "grass roots" ought to be thinking less of what the Party owes them then what it owes that segment of the Canadian population that votes Liberal because they seem the only reasonable alternative to the Canadian Right. And what the party owes us is a minimal display of competence, not the sight of 60,000+ thought vacuums diddling about in the name of their rights for six months while the nation goes into decline.
Update: Rae does the right thing.
5 comments:
If anyone in the Liberal party actually valued Ledrew's advice, he wouldn't be reduced to offering it in the pages of the Conservative Party's house organ.
LeDrew's "advice" seems remarkably like that offered by the editorial board of the National Post yesterday. I'd certainly agree with you that it's completely harebrained (no pun intended).
And yet, there are some Libloggers out there who seem to subscribe to this nonsense. Quite happy they are, it seems, to fuss and fart about for another six months, getting all hung up on the party's constitution and what not. Good grief.
Whooee! I reckon it'd be dang easy fer the Grits to hold a democratic leadership race and get it over with in a week, or so.
All's they gotta do is organize local riding meetings open to all card-carryin' Libs.
The one-week leadership campaign would be waged on YouTube and through emails to LPC members. Phone calls to the poor damn souls who ain't on the Intertubes.
At the meeting, they cast their ballots and the riding CEO's report to LPC head office.
Cheaper, more democratic and quicker than some drawn out spring formal convention where only the fatcats and layabouts can attend.
I think us Greenies should do this, too. Travellin' across the country to hobnob with the party bigwigs is a bit elitist and all the parties are still doin' it. This'd be a good chance fer you Grits to show us all how you can doin' cheaply, democratically and without rancor.
JB
We, Canada, need something like change.gov. Don't need to copy it we just need some place to start collecting complete ideas with individual and social cost benefit included, over reasonable time "5yrs".
Ideas how to start this?
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