Wife of former leader Stephane Dion lambastes Liberal party on Facebook

The Globe and Mail online "Bureau Blog" has the entire text of her note here.  The last paragraph (I'm giving you the Globe's translation of it) is quizzical and most interesting of all:

Janine Krieber, translated by the Globe & Mail wrote:

I am starting a serious reflection. I will not give my voice to a party that will end up in the trashcan of history. I am looking around me, and certain things are attractive. Like a dedicated party that doesn't challenge its leader at every hiccup in the polls. A party where the rule would be the principle of pleasure, and not assassination. A party where work ethic and competence would be respected and where smiles would be real.

Maybe I'm not dreaming.

I wonder how long it'll before someone suggests that the NDP recruit Janine Krieber as a candidate.

Why does she refer to herself as "la présidente"?

Paul Gross wrote:

Why does she refer to herself as "la présidente"?

She did it earlier in the note as well, in quotation marks.  I think it was a funny name she gave herself, maybe when she was the "leader's wife" instead of being able to speak her own mind.

It makes me wonder as well whether there's been some discussion re Dion himself crossing the floor.

JeffWells wrote:

It makes me wonder as well whether there's been some discussion re Dion himself crossing the floor.

I remember Jack praising Dion during the Liberal leadership race as a decent guy, therefore unlikely to win the Liberal race. If Dion did cross, that would be MAJOR part of a MAJOR transformation of the party system, such as the NDP topping  the Liberals  in seat standings and votes after the next election.  WOW

I also notice Warren Kinsella has bowed out or got the boot, not sure which.  Not that it matters, as he usually does more harm than good to whoever he is promoting, which is usually himself. 

Hey Peter, you're doing one hell of a job since you took over.  How many points are the Liberals going to sink in the polls next week! 

NorthReport wrote:

Hey Peter, you're doing one hell of a job since you took over.  How many points are the Liberals going to sink in the polls next week! 

Whoa, I got confused there for a second NR ... for a minute there I thought you meant Peter Cassidy.  ;-)

But it sure was a tough week for Peter Donolo, wasn't it.

There might be principled people in the grass roots of the Liberal Party of Canada.   But surely every M.P., every functionary, and certainly every leader past and present knows exactly what the Liberal Party has been about since Confederation.

They have made their deal with the devil, they are tainted, they have demonstrated, at best, a certain plasticity of principle-- if indeed they have any.

How many of these Liberals should we admit to the NDP?

None is too many.

Why don't we leave it up to the members in those ridings, Tommy.  We're probably jumping well out ahead of the story here, anyway.  But there are a couple of good MPs in that caucus.  No point being spiteful out of revenge.  A year ago we were prepared to enter into a coalition with some of them.

Anyways, that's all water under the bridge.  I notice all the Liberals are tweeting like mad about how great it is that their party has independently-minded women who speak their mind.  I predict this will last until she announces a switch, when they will suddenly turn on her like a pack of wolves.

Skinny Dipper wrote:

I think Warren Kinsella will be spending part of his time helping John Tory in the mayoral race of Toronto.

He says on his website that because the next federal election is not likely to be for at least six months, he is focusing his attention on the municipal and provincial politics. Two problems with this explanation: 1) the next municipal and provincial elections are even further away and 2) it just seems a little too co-incidental with the house-cleaning in the OLO and the ascendancy of Donolo and his new team, n'est-ce pas?

Ironically, Kinsella's bare-knuckle style is something the Liberals need right now. It worked wonders for Chretien, and it's probably no accident that the Liberal party suffered from a lack of killer instinct (not to mention basic political communication skills) when those of the Kinsella school found themselves in exile in the Martin interregnum.

Charming.   You have done that?  "experience has shown us"

NorthReport wrote:

Experience has shown us that the best thing to do in politics to a Liberal when they are down, is to kick them again and again for good riddance.

Kinsella spends too much time in the blogosphere arguing with, and litigating against, pure idiots. He's out of touch with the real world. He has the Liberals making the exact same error Joe Clark made trying to outflank the loonie right from the right. It won't work and it's stupid and, as it did Joe Clark, will cost them the broad middle.

Fuck you Debator.

You post the most unrealistic crap of anybody here here, bar none.

Debater wrote:

peterjcassidy wrote:

JeffWells wrote:

It makes me wonder as well whether there's been some discussion re Dion himself crossing the floor.

I remember Jack praising Dion during the Liberal leadership race as a decent guy, therefore unlikely to win the Liberal race. If Dion did cross, that would be MAJOR part of a MAJOR transformation of the party system, such as the NDP topping  the Liberals  in seat standings and votes after the next election.  WOW

I posted this story because I think Janine makes some good points and it's time for the Liberals to start having some important discussions about their identity and their future and hear some tough talk about their behavior.

But it's also important to be realistic about certain things as sometimes on this board realism tends to get lost.  Janine is unlikely to run for any other party for 2 reasons:  1)  She is married to Dion and he is likely to stay Liberal and I don't think she would want to run for a different party than her husband, and 2) I don't think she is interested in seeking elected office anyway.

As for Dion, it is unlikely he will switch to the NDP either as he considers himself a committed Liberal.  He also occupies a safe seat that is unlikely to go NDP even if he did want to switch.

Dion is unlikely to publicly disagree with his wife. I have a hard time assuming that he was not aware of the post before she hit send--

I am inclined to think that he will resign shortly. I suspect there will be no dramatic floor crossings for either of them and any support they might offer the NDP or the Liberals whichever they decide may be private.

That she has expressed concern about the direction of the Liberal Party may have been calculated as something that he could not and would not do. It mat be that there will be nothing more to it than this-- of course the embarassment is significant to the party and the loss on the environmental and left side of the party in Quebec will have a cost.

If the Liberals try to move to the right without trying to guard their left, it will be a gamble but it would not be a certain loss. The breaking with the left might allow Ignatief to chew off some of Harper's more moderate supporters. The idea may be that the NDP would always support the Liberals first in a governing arrangement-- and coalitions are off the table-- we would be talking of an accord at best. If the strategy works a bigger NDP with a Liberal party that has taken as much as it lost from the Cons would be in a stronger position. Of course the strategy could fail with the losses to the NDP not being replaced by gains from the Cons. It is also possible the Liberals could lose 3-4 points to the NDP and another 5-8 to the Cons and fall to a rump with few if any seats. For the NDP, this result could give the party a boost in the popular vote and practically no increase in seats-- some losses to the Cons where the Liberals bled away together with a few wins from the Liberals. Longer term, the NDP could make gains but in the short term, the result could be quite negative.

In any case, there are a lot of possible outcomes here, unfortunately most of them lead to a Con majority, one that might last a while, even a future leadership change in the Con party. If Harper is able to pass the torch to another Con leader in the future, it is possible that this party will govern Canada long enough to remake it in its own image. I am not a Liberal supporter but I would hold back on the glee here, the country may be in for a very rough ride as this transition happens. As well, mid way it could reverse itself and the Liberals could be reborn-- we may pay the price of a death of the Liberal party in a long Con reign only to see the buggers get reborn before the NDP ever take power. Too many variables to assume this will go well in the end.

Yogi Berra once said: "It ain't over till it's over", but Me & Boo Boo don't think that Ms. Krieber's 'dinger' will spark a rally, in these late innings.

Guy couldn't even spell your name right.  I like your presence Debater even though I'm pretty partisan NDP.

Meh, interweb.

C'est la vie.

NorthReport wrote:

Liberals will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to their grave. Just think of all those padded government contracts that screw Joe and Jane taxpayer, and the only reason that most of those Liberals are involved in politics for in the first place.  

Experience has shown us that the best thing to do in politics to a Liberal when they are down, is to kick them again and again for good riddance.  

This sounds a lot like the stuff you would see on a forum at Fox News - not on a progressive web forum.

Harper and his band of neo-cons have truly changed political discourse in Canada. This kind of Republican Party teabag vulgarity should not be a part of progressive political discourse.

Mcleans wonderful new addition spews forth:

That Krieber manifesto, short version

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/22/that-krieber-manifesto-short-version/

quote: "And it has always been so."

The Liberal movement to the right has resulted from a polling chase as the Cons rode out of the west using the same techniques as the Republicans since the late 70s.  Lower taxes.  It reversed the earlier trend dating from the 30s "the CCFers are Liberals in a hurry", that lasted up until the moment when the Chicago School introduced the corporate pursuit of loweer tax regimes and globalization came to be.

And it's all been a chase after votes. Perhaps the voter should realize the error of his/her ways?  Wish to hell Naomi Klein would say it out loud rather than playing the political game.

I can imagine another scenario, which would likely be reading an awful lot into what Ms. Krieber wrote, but it does sound like she's hinting at an alternate party. Her last paragraph, among other things, says "certain things are attractive. Like a dedicated party that doesn't challenge its leader at every hiccup in the polls."

Well people have called up notions of the NDP or even the Greens. Perhaps there'd be an idea for a brand new party. When you consider how Dion won his place leading the Liberals in the first place, and then that he managed to put together the whole coalition option, one thing is pretty clear, he's good at negotiating a certain sort of collaboration.

What if he were to negotiate not a combination of the NDP and Greens but rather convinced both of those parties to become part of an entirely new party? That would ease certain conflicts each might have if they were just to come together on their own, since it would be in service of a new third option. It would also create space for a new leader that didn't have to be a choice between Layton, May, or Dion (and we've seen both Layton and May publicly praise Dion). Finally, it would enable both the NDP and the Greens to leave behind some of the baggage they've been stereotyped as carrying, which seems to prevent them from garnering more votes. This scenario could however, still allow the new party to gain the combined support each would bring (which would altogether be greater than the current Liberal level of support--according to recent polls).

Anyway, it's fun to speculate, even if that isn't a very likely outcome.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Also at times people refer to something attractive that does not exist, and will not exist. There is no intent implied in the post. She may also be referring to a new Liberal party under new leadership without the problems of this current one. Her post needs more context and she will have the time to consider what she really wants to say before providing that.

That's a huge stretch. She says that she's looking around her, and seeing some things that please her. She's not hypothetically looking around her and hypothetically seeing things. Hell, the last line of her post, "Je ne rêve peut-être pas - I might not be dreaming" out and out refutes any possibility that she's speaking in the hypothetical. 

You think she wants to revive a party that she caracterises as on the verge of being relegated to the ash heaps of history?