Ignatieff blew it big time when he reneged on the coalition
This article in the Globe (by a Tory no less) is very interesting because I think its the first time I've seen anyone outside the NDP start to write about the obvious. I wonder if its starting to dawn on Liberals that they had a chance to be in power for the last year and consolidate their position, instead Iggy may NEVER get that chance again.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/if-hed-taken-the-coalition-...
"Much the same way that Liberal David Peterson seized power from the Tories in Ontario with the help of the NDP's Bob Rae in 1985, Mr. Ignatieff could have taken over from Mr. Harper in December of 2008 without the inconvenience of an election.
Why Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe decided to expose their strategy rather than simply spring it on the Tories on the floor of the House is a mystery. And why the Bloc Québécois was anywhere near a coalition photo op is another head-scratcher.
We might have expected a three-stooge performance under Mr. Dion's leadership, but Mr. Ignatieff was supposed to be the genius in the wings. With overwhelming support in the Liberal caucus, he could have orchestrated an intelligent and bloodless coup. While there would have been a hue and cry, he would have bought himself two or more years to consolidate his coalition. And with Mr. Harper fuming on the opposition benches, Mr. Ignatieff could have cemented a bond with the NDP."
Iggy is not a politician, and should go back to Harvard.
It's surprising to me that the (mostly male) blue liberals still hold such sway within the party discourse at the moment. I would have thought the young Liberals would have been chomping at the bit to get their jobs lined up with cabinet ministers, and be frustrated that it was closed off for them. Of course, since the traditional career trajectory is from MP's office to Cabmin office to lobbying/govt relations firm/industry association, perhaps having to dirty one's hands working alongside the NDP was not perceived as making for the best credentials.
Instead what we've seen is blue liberals backbiting at the former NDPers in their ranks, such as Ottawa Liberal Dan Donovan and Toronto Star columnist Angelo Persichilli, both of whom have been taking public shots at Bob Rae and Ujjal Dosanjh.
I think they are steadfastly committed to the idea of trying to resurrect a Liberal majority, and running right over the NDP to get there, but they haven't gotten their heads around the math of doing so with a revitalized NDP and a united conservative movement.
It's interesting to notice that their main strategy for trying to do this now is the announced freeze on corporate tax cuts, rather than say taking on Quebec over healthcare user fees for doctors' visits, as just announced in the recent provincial budget, or over environmental issues.
That's not the kind of issue they're going to win back women with, and I notice that their numbers are starting to slip there, even as the Conservatives maintain a very large gender gap on the male side of the equation.
If the CONS again fail to win a majority at the next election, Ignatieff will once again be faced with the same kind of decision.
If history gives him a second chance, Iggy will hopefully make the right decision next time.
I was kind of surprised that Liberals expected to see so much traction out of the corporate tax move.
I think it will prove way too little, way too late for the target audience. Be hardly a blip on the radar.
Even when they avoide the amateur hour goofs, their moves are so lame. Because they don't have a plan, and havent had one for a few years. Just a series of back of napkin ploys. Lame in themselves, and that is compounded because there is zero continuity with the last one they tossed out and quickly abandoned.
There is a major difference in the role that corprate taxes plays in the NDP versus the Liberals communication strategy. [And Im leaving aside the substantive difference: the unstated flip side of Iggys promise that Harper tax cuts will be enshrined.]
The NDP has a coherent overall message. Promising to reinstate corporate taxes is not actually part of that core message. [The main role is to give the NDP fiscal credibility- how we propose to pay for what we promise.]
The Liberals are trying to get mileage out of corporate tax promises in themselves. And that doesn't connect to a message that has any traction.
The liberals unfortunately are diluted with old school Liberals and are being led by former left wing NDP that should have stayed there, and as Ottawaobserver said with a united right the Liberals have failed to capture the minds of either the right or left. Iggy is a socialist but is a Liberal out of conveniance & opportunity, the Liberal mainstays we all know are confused, they don't know what to say or do and usually they say the wrong thing. For someone like me who looks for leaders that are slightly to the right of centre I see nothing when I look at the current Liberal leadership, until Iggy, Rae and Dosanjh & the like are gone I gotta vote conservative.
Why this swing to the left, did the Liberals honestly think they could get votes from Layton, The Green (non issue now that global warming is exposed as a whopper of a lie). In my world and with many of my peers if they went back to the centre and even a bit further right they would easily get a huge percentage from Harper, I mean let's face it the only one in Ottawa with less charisma than Iggy is Harper! All the Liberals need is to silence the socialists maybe even dismiss the likes of Rae, Dosanjh, Hedy Fry & send Iggy back to the US find a leader with a bit of charisma or at least one that could be trusted (I like Goodale, Dryden, Gerard Kennedy) and finally put a muzzle on Ruby Dhalla, Justin Trudeau, Stephen Dionne and any of the other clowns that make us shake our heads.
Do those things and I guarantee it would break the Conservatives, put the NDP back inthere place, win back part of Quebec and the Liberals would win a majority, guaranteed.
A coaltion with the NDP & the seperatists will never work, ever. If Iggy is given the chance again and he tries it he will be run out of the country, he may have had a thin chance of success one time but not again.
Iggy has proven that we don`t necessarily like `smart`politicians, we do however like charisma, that has been proven over & over again. Just look at Obama, Clinton.
will I get in trouble with the mods if I out Brad Wall?
The man makes me sick, he could have been a hero by listening to Canadians (something he preaches right) on the HST issue, now he's on town hall tours telling folks "I care, I'm in your corner" bugger off! and go back to your country! what a tool!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvUYTAyBcTE
That Youtube link is a joke. Flashing the message "He supports taxation and Government expansion" as if this is EVIL. You'd expect that attitude from a Teabagger, not so much from a Social Democrat. There are lots of reasons to dislike Ignatieff but his answer in the clip seemed pretty reasonable and respectful to the questioner and audience.
Yeah, things must be getting boring over on the Blogging Tories forum for them to amble over this way. Good grief.
Getting back to the topic, I remember a column in the Globe by Scott Reid, the Liberal strategist, during the coalition affair. It was when Harper was still on the ropes and when the Liberlas seemed to be waivering.
His advice to his party was that Harper is a very dangerous and unscrupulous politician who will use all the levers of government to perpetuate his hold on power. He was skillfull enough to unite the right and bring it to government. He should not be underestimated.
Therefore the Liberals must kill him while he is down. If they allow him to get back on his feet he might not give them another chance.
It's beginning to seem that Reid was very prescient and his party very foolish.
A story that is yet untold is the internal divisions within the Liberal party over forming a coalition with the NDP. Notwithstanding the professed progressive stance of the Liberals during elections, the fact remains that a large number of their MPS are social conservatives who recoil at the thought of cooperating with the NDP.I suspect this is what really doomed the coalition and may doom it again in the future.
I agree, although Scott Reid first recanted the words "kill him, kill him dead" from that column, and has since recanted pretty well everything else about it (I would classify him as a true-blue Liberal, who was just trying to spin in favour of whatever his party was trying to accomplish at the time).
Now ironically, I'm not sure it's the social conservatives in the Liberals who are the most opposed to working with the NDP. In fact many of them are religious social liberals who may be pro-life, but are moderately progressive on other issues. I think it's the business Liberals (who I'm calling the blue Liberals) who are the most dead-set against it. Then there are the hanger-on careerists who don't care what they say or what they do, so long as they get a parliamentary secretary-ship, or committee chair, or trips abroad, or what have you (the Ruby Dhallas of the world, for example).
I had to cough at the suggestion up-thread that Ignatieff is a socialist! I sure haven't seen any indication of that!
Anyways, I'd sure rather spend some time and effort trying to win as many seats as we can with quality MPs in them, before we go at it with the Liberals again. They haven't had all the arrogance and sense of entitlement wrung out of themselves yet, and I figure it's goiing to take one more campaign to do that. Also, if this Parliament lasts past June, there may be a number of them who have become pensionable and decide to retire, which could change the lay of the land still more.
The Liberals since Martin are making the same mistake as Clark did fighting the Reform. They are expending their energy and resources trying to defeat the ideological right by undermining their base by playing to them rather than focusing on winning the fat middle and socially left.
They just don't get it. Look, there are all kinds of people who will not vote for the Liberals, and who are inspired to work against them, because of their stupid position on free trade with Colombia and the courting of Alberta's ecociders. There are very few votes to be pried away from the hard core conservative base with those policies, but there are many, many votes to be lost and turned into opponents working for the NDP or Greens depending on the voter.
The Liberal Party is a train wreck.
The Liberal Party is a train wreck.
Absolutely, but so is the Conservative party, and folks still vote for them.
Chretien would have been all over the coalition.
And it is more than Iggy not being a politician. As the recent cover story in the Walrus argued, Iggy has no connection to the people. His career has oriented him toward the elite, and this means no truck with the NDP, even though it would have been in his self-interest, and the interest of his party, to do so.
The Liberal Party is a train wreck.
If you get more people aboard your impending train wreck than anyone else, you win.
The lesson for Iggy is that when the vampire is lying in his coffin and you are standing over him with a hammer and a silver stake pointed at his heart - YOU HAMMER IT IN! you don't walk away and let the sun set and have him come out of the coffin and start drinking more blood!
From the article:
As a back-door manoeuvre, however, Mr. Harper gave his opponents unity and purpose, and they mounted a credible plan to put the Tories on the opposition benches. The Parliamentary Press Gallery concluded that Mr. Harper was done like dinner. But Mr. Ignatieff threw cold water on the plan
I thought it was the Governor General who did that
They could have voted the Tories out in Jan. '09
The Liberals (not just Iggy) must have been convinced that she would dissolve Parliament and call an election in that event. So there was more than one coward at work. No?
Unionist, something interesting came out in Brian Topp's memoirs that we did not know at the time ... namely that the Liberals either purposefully or accidentally failed to get the signed letter about the coalition to the Governor General before Harper's meeting with her requesting the prorogation.
I had also heard at the time that some Liberals had been saying the word from Rideau Hall was that she would have called an election. But of course, if the letter was sabotaged maybe certain Liberals wanted that to be what people believed.
We'll never know of course, but IMHO it is highly unlikely the GG would have dissolved Parliament immediately had the Libs voted with the NDP and BQ against the Jan 29, 2009 budget. That would have been just a tad over 3 months since the 2008 election, and given that Parliament had barely sat for 2 weeks since the election, it would have been basic fairness for Jean to see if the Libs could command the confidence of the House and get a budget through Parliament. Layton was saying at the time that the unwritten constitutional rule of thumb was that dissolution was unlikely if the government was defeated less than 6 months after the previous general election.
It is certainly clear that the Iggy faction in the Lib caucus was pushing the election scenario hard, to get the Libs to support the Flaherty budget and kill the coalition in Jan 2009. Great work, Iggy
Taped Raitt talk reflects poorly on Liberals Cash-strapped party said to have been influenced by bankers, CEOs. McQuaig
I think it was about not allowing the NDP to gain any more legitimacy in the eyes of Canadian voters and non-voters. They've worked hard to discourage millions of Canadians from voting. Can't let the populists take over from their hirelings. The NDP are an unknown quantity as far as Bay Street and king-makers are concerned. Theyre pretty sure that the NDP would not be familiar with the corporate welfare setup, like their bought and paid-fors have been taught so well to abide by. The NDP might do as they promise to and protect the environment from the corporate raiders. Marauding international capital and banks want it all their way, too, and something Linda McQuaig has mentioned time and again. What if an NDP government were to challenge international capital and implement those populist policies theyve promised for so long? And if successful it might set a precedent for other countries to pursue policies of fuller employment and well funded social programs. There's more at stake than just the conservative nanny state in this country - there are conservative nanny states in the US and England and so on to consider, too. It's not that there is no alternative - there can be no legitimate alternative in the eyes of the voters. Not as long as big money interests can help it.
Here is an excert from Scott Reid's "Kill him dead" column. He was sooo right in retrospect:
First things first: take him out.
After all, Stephen Harper is the most dangerous animal lurking in the jungles of Parliament. He is a threat to the future viability of the Liberals. A blood simple opponent of the NDP and the only serious contemporary challenge to the Bloc Quebecois. Without him, his party is an unlikely combination of Reform Party leftovers, Harris refugees and Red Tory desperates. They don't matter or even exist without Mr. Harper. So before you think a moment longer, opposition leaders, think on that.
And if that's not compelling enough, remember: He doesn't play to win. He plays to conquer. Under his guidance, the public interest is always subjugated to his personal political advancement. And he poisons Parliament with an extreme, bare-fanged breed of partisanship that has no hope of repair until he is banished.
This becomes relevant because suddenly, he is weak. In fact, at this particular moment, he is almost unable to defend himself. Owing to a ridiculously ill-considered act of hubris, he has laid himself vulnerable to his opponents. Their imperative could not be more clear: kill him. Kill him dead. Do not, whatever you do, provide him with an opportunity to extend his hold on power. Because you can be damn certain he will never again be so reckless as to give you a chance to finish him off.
Fate tends to be grudging with gifts of this significance. To ignore it would be an error every bit as historic as the one Mr. Harper himself has made.
So don't get fancy. Don't get confused. And don't get weak in the knees. If you don't put Mr. Harper in his grave, he'll put you in yours.
Of course, in retrospect, Reid was almost completely right about Harper (except for the part where he wrote "you can be damn certain he will never again be so reckless as to give you a chance to finish him off" ... cough ... prorogation ... cough).
Now if only Reid actually believed it, and was prepared to put some conviction behind that belief.