blevkog

Get real, Liberals!

Harper and his New Tories are doing a wonderful job of slow-motion implosion on the ethics side, which Harper rode to victory on.

The next leader of the LPC should not have any ethics-related baggage which Harper can campaign against.

Brison will make a good target for the New Tories who successfully imported the US neocon “framing” tactic during the recent election. They framed the election as a rejection of corruption, with Harper being Mr Clean. And they won on that framing. Imagine how Harper would frame Brison …. The New Tories would hang two millstones around his neck: either he was involved in tipping a banker off about the income trust change, or he was incredibly incompetent for a senior cabinet minister in exchanging those kinds of emails with a banker. In both instances Harper will claim that it is “business as usual” with a Liberal Party which clearly has not learned anything from the spanking administered to it by the voters. Either tag probably will be enough for Harper to resurrect his Mr Clean image, and move on to a majority government.

Stronach has the weakness that she takes away from the LPC the ability to hammer Mr Clean on his MP-switcheroo tactics and arrogance in claiming imperial powers as prime minister. She also is a relative newcomer to the LPC and open to claims of Liberal-of-convenience. So she, too, is highly vulnerable to New Tory framing.

Get real for another reason: the way Harper is carrying on, another election could come well before the LPC have chosen a new leader. In that case, guess who will choose the leader he wishes to run against? You got it – Mr Clean. Imagine the framing opportunities if he can go through a list with Brison and Stronach on it and hammer away at them as his chosen targets! Be handing him a majority government on a platter.

Politics is about power, and about reality, as much as about idealism. It is foolish to start off the next campaign (against a US-style perpetual campaigning party such as the New Tories now are) by making yourself vulnerable.

Time to move on to other candidates, who come to the table with less baggage or no baggage. The next Liberal leader should be the Mr or Ms Clean, in contrast to a tarnished Harper.

Time for Brison and Stronach to gracefully exit from the leadership contest.

Hey Kittykillingcuriosity,

I agree 100%. I can't imagine the Liberals will go with either of the jumpers - they have some legitimately good options, plus they'll have a year of CPC foolishness to play off of when they actually have their leadership convention.

I'm no Liberal, but I do like Ken Dryden. He's got name recognition, is thought to be a pretty fair dealer and was not tarred by the Chretien/Martin war.

And he was a way, way better goalie than me.

But I would like to see Belinda campaign based on the smallness of Peter MacKay's penis. The commercials would be fun.