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Join the NDP opposition, the effective opposition.
I got $10 that when the second review comes around the Liberals will push a confidence vote.
The Liberals are in no financial or organisational shape to fight an election now. In 6 months they will have their sh*t together.
Iggy is a potent fundraiser and has got a lot of Toronto money behind him. He also has tapped some of the best and brightest from Queen's Park to staff him. Having Rocco Rossi (a UCC old boy like Iggy) and his rolodex heading up the party is invaluable.
Unlike Dion, Iggy is in it to win and knows how to win. The metamessage that has come out of this budget is that Iggy is a leader.
http://photos.cyberpresse.ca/caricatures
(The link function doesn't work on Safari)
Ignasty is a conservative with his brains knocked out. He's a two-faced liar. And boyo will I ever pound the pavement for the NDP whenever that other conservative party does find themselves ready for an election.
Using Mr. Ignatieff’s own litmus tests:
- this budget fails to protect the vulnerable
In Ignatieff's defence, a lack of protection for the vulnerable is, frankly, inevitable in a budget situation like this. This is the nature of the economic downturn that's going on and the Liberals' response to it.
This is the kind of political calculation you make when you're in Ignatieff's position, and he can't be expected to lose any sleep about that.
He's chosen to support a budget that helps out everyone but society's most vulnerable.
And the NDP warned these clowns in both old line parties for years about the inevitable consequences of pursuing laissez-faire economic voodoo made new again by neoliberal ideology.
and people wonder why there was no coalition... sheesh
I'm only commenting on this last and secondary point. The rest of the post covers the main issues about the Liberal Party's financial condidtion and the implications of that.
Historically, governing parties have a harder time raising money from their supporters that put up the smaller donations, made up for by more of the larger donors [many of them with no ideological or political motivation].
The Conservatives have bucked this, and I think there are good reasons for it. All the evidence is that the Liberals would if anything be at least as subject to this as the past historical record... since the opposite of the Conservatives they did not have a record of getting smaller donations before they are/would be government.... and those compensating big and much less ideologically motivated donations can only be a fraction of what they were because of the $1,100 limit.
Exactly.
My post above ironically alluded to sound sleep Michael Ignatieff once enjoyed during another kind of crisis.
It isnt just a question of will and leader capabaility. That is a minimum condition for getting on track to change their financial situation eventually.
But turning it around in 6 months is just about impossible. The organizational changes required just can't happen that fast even given heavily optimistic outcomes.
Its even unlukely that within 6 months they can show enough positive results to have higher grounded internal confidence sufficient to underwrite risks of going deeper into debt. And forget about that meaning anything to bankers.
How dependent the Liberals are on the good graces of bankers to fund a near term full spending election- that is hard to tell. The Liberals are very cagey and obfuscating about their financial picture. Hardly inspiring of confidence.
Ottawa Observors post already covered that turf fine.
Iggy's cachet with big money doesn't help. Because of the donation limits the Libs have to build a small donation machine- from scratch.
Rossi will probably help with that. but only probably. This is an entirely different animal than what he has dealt with before, and it remains to be seen if he is suited to pulling up the bootstraps of a very byzantine organization.
IF Rossi does succed, it will take him at the very least a year to show results.
Ya, that "not ready for an election" baloney from the Liberals is balogna by another name. If they want votes, all they have to do is oppose the ReformaTories for a change. They'd likely win by a landslide.
Interesting to see the Liberal smugness and self-satisfaction as typified by Kinsella recitation of the corporate media's orgasmic reaction to the Conservative-Liberal alliance:
http://www.warrenkinsella.com/
But one honest Liberal is not buying it
Someone asked me this morning why the Liberals are supporting the government's budget. Unfortunately, I didn't have a good answer. When I heard yesterday that the Liberals would be proposing amendments to the budget I didn't think that "putting the government on probation" (to use Ignatieff's expression) would be sum total of demands that would be made. Really... is that it? How utterly disappointing.
http://redtory.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/ignatieff-fails-his-own-litmus-test/#comment-20197
Glad I was able to touch you Ken. Did I bring a small tear to your eye?
Seriously, it's politics. Perception is everything. Most voters read headlines and the lead pargarph and maybe the nightly news. Most voters do not frequent message boards or political blogs. People vote based on the "brand". That's why the Reform/CA/CRAP party got so lucky in getting to use the name Conservative Party. A lot of conservative voters don't even know what the party is doing. They think they are conservative (whatever that means) and that's enough. The NDP's brand doesn't appeal to many (mainly because of the perception of poor fiscal management) such that many voters will not consider them other than as a protest vote . The Liberal brand is tarnished because of the sponsorship scandal and the "entitled to the entitlements" stuff and because after "13 long years of Liberal Rule", voters wanted a change. Is it so damaged that voters won't go back? Time will tell, but I doubt it. I don't think the Liberals will win the next election. I think it will be more of the same. But I also think we're a long way away from the the Liberal Party dying or going broke or the NDP overtaking it as the first alternative to the Cons.
My comments in this thread are based on what I think will happen. Not what I hope or dream will happen.I agree. But we're on a blog here. So unless it is stated or clearly implied I take people as speaking to others. They might be talking about what the public[s] think/see, but talking to the others here.
So I think I'm justified in saeeing what you said as also an expression of what you wish. Not meaning 'ideally'- but when all is said and done.
Agreed on all that, with two qualifications.
I think the Liberals could very likely be government after the next election, especially since who knows when they'll deign to trigger one. I suspect by the time they could, fat lot of good it will do us. We're getting Paul Martin from Harper anyway. Got Paul Martin from him some in 2006 even, let alone after his near death experience from getting too used to having Dion around. Why should we expect more than Paul Martin from Iggy?
And it isn't saying much to say the Liberals aren't broke. Kinsella and others who obfuscate about the party's finances take the easy shots at the over the top claim the Liberals are 'broke'.
Things would have to be far worse to be literally broke. Like, at a minimum, going way way out on a limb to borrow for an election and then the election going really badly. Which would result in blanket layoffs of permanent staff, leases broken, etc.
The real question is whether they are capable of and willing to borrow enough money to run a full spending campaign now, 6 months from now, or whatever time frame.
The "willing" part of that question comes in with the possibility that they know they can borrow the amount required for a full spending campaign, but only by climbing out on one of those limbs.
That risk that would sober anyone could for example make them take very seriously the possibility that the GG would grant Harper an election had the Libs voted the budget down. IE, "not very likely" would not be enough assurance if the consequences of being wrong was being out on a limb.
Maybe that wasn't much of a factor this time- maybe Iggy is doing pretty much what he wanted to do.
But the same possibility comes up with a confidence vote 6 months from now. And if going into an election isn't perilously risky financially, it brings them there if there is yet another election possibility in another 6-12 months... which is what happens when you have minority governments.
The cat only gets so many lives when its on this financial edge. We can only guess how many the Liberal cat has- but we know that now and into the near future it is substantially less than everyone else.
The Coalition has served its purpose of stopping Harper in his tracks when he degenerated into waving a 'red flag' economic statement for no good purpose except political backbiting and gloating. It served Canadians well, I believe, and I am grateful to the parties and people who pulled it off.
I do not consider it a failure because it never came to power. Rather I consider it a welcome stopgap and an education for Canadians that there is that alternative. I hope that in the future we can have more of these 'alternatives'. I see it not as melting two or more parties together, but as creating a patchwork perhaps, where each draws on the strengths of another, for the benefit of Canadians.
It is shocking to me that Harper has tried to represent a coalition as 'illegal'. That alone says a lot about his intentions toward Canadians that he would try to limit our options with lies. It says we have a PM so entangled in politics that he has no awareness that Canadians are truly only looking for good governance. But then, on a given day, you could say that about almost any of our politicians.
Clearly, my interest in these topics has nothing whatever to do with our extremist-partisan politics, which I am close to despising as it seems to have replaced the 'democracy for the people' concept. Rather, my interest is in what of our current system is salvageable that may be of some use to the people. The coalition concept (not necessarily this one) is definitely something we need to nurture.
If politicians cannot bury their differences, or at least use them to enhance their strength to provide good governance, then what can be said of their allegiance to the 'good of the Canadian people' vs the 'party'?
Frankly, Jack's cry of "We have to get rid of Harper now because I don't trust him" clearly is not based on the wishes of Canadians, who naturally won't holus-bolus support an untried colation government the first time the idea is introduced, and do not want another election right now, scant months after the last one and in the middle of an all consuming recession. The 'desperation coalition' appeal based on apocalyptic fear-mongering isn't very attuned to the wishes of the people.
However, the concept of coalition is important, and if 'parties' show that they can mature into pursuing this in a systematic and efficient manner, then I believe Canadians may embrace it for the future.
I repeat: I believe the coalition scored a resounding success in reigning in Harper's hubris, in it's first time out.
cheers!
Interesting question.
Short answer is that they have so much money in or that can be counted on that they are sitting pretty for at least a couple elections, even if the bottom drops out of fundraising and the Liberals start to catch up.
For now, they have been countering the poor history of governing party fundraising by the internal image they have of still being the underdogs. their fundraising still plays out on the various bogeymen out to stop them from doing the good work.
Even without the recent budget thats going to wear thin eventually. Sometime along the way to the new Jerusalem of becoming the [at least a] natural governing party.
I think the budget is going to rattle the base, but not shake it, at least yet. And at least in the short term, it will bring in a different crop of newbie or increased existing donors. I'm sure the geared pitches are well on their way to the printing presses and website nerds.
Ignatieff takes cue from Harper on message control
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090129.wbudget-layer29/BNStory/politics/home
A creepy red-ink feeling for fiscal conservatives
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1103573.html
THE END OF CANADIAN CONSERVATISMHOW HARPER SOLD OUT TO SAVE HIMSELF — BY ANDREW COYNE
http://blog.macleans.ca/2009/01/29/the-right-in-full-retreat/ -----------------BTW: don't remember where I saw it, but Flannagan also thinks Harper went too far, and unecessarily. Thats saying a lot.Boy, the new improved Babble sucks. I've edited this at least 6 times to try to get things to not clump together, and show spacing where I put it.Wow. Now it gets WORSE when I try to clean it up.And i used to be babbler # 1174. If memory serves me right, old goat and I registered the same time. Although I didn't know it unil I thought I was registering for the first time in 2007. I think we're also born the same year. But I'm sure he must look older.Join the New Democrat Opposition
And that's: http://www.NewDemocratOpposition.ca
Did anybody truly expect Michael Ignatieff to send the country into a tailspin of government falling-election again a few months after the last one, or an untried unknown coalition with an untried unknown leader?
Come on ... It isn't all about friggen 'parties' ... there are people here too who aren't interested in political catastrophizing for personal gain. It's about governance ... right?
We have an unpopular cpc PM, humbled into acting like a Lib ... it ain't much better, but we can live with it for now, so long as the opposition is viable again.
I think that's how the average Canadian feels. We need some time to get a handle on Iggy.
And what would make for a viable opposition? The pitiable amendment proposed by Mr. Ignatieff is just a schedule of appearances at which he and his party can publicly roll over for the PM each quarter, unless something changes very drastically and they find some backbone.
Anyway, the NDP project right now has to be staking out its ground and keeping Mr. Ignatieff off it in the run-up to an election. Who stands where became murky while the coalition hung fire during the prorogation period. The ads today are a reasonable start.