Under Conditions X,Y, or Z, Teenage Jesus Would Save
Frank Graves is going senile, or desperately poll whoring to get his name in the papers--from anointing Justin, to suggesting that BOC Presdient Mark Carney would woo 'em as an LPoC leadership candidate because of his "magic reviews" with the public, which presumably means that the four people who could pick him out of a police line-up really, really like him. Rob Silver, in addition to being (in my wife's words) "devilishly handsome" is clearly correct here. Committing to an LPoC leadership candidate right now would be ridiculous. Not that I have anything against Justin Trudeau. His enthusiasm is contagious, and he's put himself on the right side of a number of fights over the years (including his somewhat tentative embrace of NDP/LPoC merger talks). And he is definitely the MP I would want covering my back during a bar fight. He's also stuck his foot in his mouth way more than once. His burden, should he choose to run, will be to prove to folks that he has judgement and discretion. That the foot will go in the mouth less often. That he can, as Paul Newman put it, be himself...but on purpose. If he does run...and remember he is still saying he won't...and he CAN do that, he may indeed be THE ONE. But maybe not right away--which is why the party needs someone to who is willing commit a full decade of their lives to the project. I suspect that, in 2015, if the Canadian people are tired of the Tories, and they might well be, they will more likely turn to the Mulcair NDP (what the hell, they'll say...if Conservatives can learn to eat with a fork than why NOT try out the long-haired commies?) than back to the LPoC.
My comments were that Trudeau scored the best with the public of the current range of talked about candidates (since Mr Rae dropped out and none of the erstwhile heavyweights from the LPC show much interests). Of those who are actively discussed Justin Trudeau has a major recognintion and approval advantage . As for Mr Carney , I doubt he is interested but the empirical evidence shows that he has remarkable, albeit loosely formed approval ratings . You may resort to ad hominems but the polling data show that Mr. Carney has a reasonably high profile with the public , somewhat above the four people who can place him in a line up as you put it . BTW I did not intend to "annoint" Mr. Trudeau, merely note that of the main talked about current potential candidates he had the best polling numbers. ( I did not write the headline for the story) . I agree that this is very early in a race which hasn't even officially begun and there are a range of different potential otucomes. If my quotes were too unmeaured on this point that was a mistake on my part. As for the propsects of Mr. Trudeau or any other future Liberal leader in the next federal election I continue to believe that it is unlikely that any leader-saviour will quickly restore the LPC to power and I also do not think that even the effective Mr. Mulcair will likely win . Barring a major scandal I would argue that the political arithmetic of four parties on the center left and one tightly committed party on the right would continue to favour the CPC .
ReplyDeleteFrank Graves.