Liberal Party of Canada Leadership

[bridges]

I, personally, am a social liberal and I rather dislike the Christian right but most social conservative are, in all other respects, pretty normal Canadians and if they can put up with my social views then I can accept theirs. That is something which is not possible in the NDP or in the modern Liberal Party of Canada, and both parties are intellectually worse off for excluding ideas they don't like.

I think you have a good point - I don't know about the Liberals, but the NDP can be very narrow-minded about this kind of thing.  As a leftie, it annoys me to no end. 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

On power play tonight she was almost having an organism espousing the attributes of dear Justin.....

:rofl:

I think you mean orgasm.

 

[dapaterson]

:rofl:

I think you mean orgasm.

Or maybe this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh1exCwGiY0

 

[eurowing]

He meant this I'm sure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg4LSu4PZbQ

 

[GAP]

:rofl:

I think you mean orgasm.

Have you looked at her lately......?

 

[bridges]

Have you looked at her lately......?

Now, now...    :

Anyway, the fawning likely isn't doing Trudeau any favours.  The criticism will serve him better in the long run, IMO. 

 

[bridges]

BTW, having reread Susan's article above, it seems to me a relatively neutral retelling of events - not particularly excitedm compared to others. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

Gable's view, courtesy of the Globe and Mail:

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/applause/article4576026/

It may be a little extreme to suggest that the good ship Liberal Party of Canada has sunk, rather than is just sinking; but the next leader is joining a team of recent 'leaders' (Martin, Dion, Ignatieff) who have been tossed over the side while wearing lead weighted boots.

 

[bridges]

That reminds me of this one...


(Edit:  how do you make the pictures big, when you attach them?)


Source:  http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/06/euro-crisis-0

 

[Edward Campbell]

That reminds me of this one...


(Edit:  how do you make the pictures big, when you attach them?)


Source:  http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/06/euro-crisis-0

First: right click on the source image and select "Copy image URL"

Second: here, in your 'Reply' box, enter [ img ] http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2012/06/blogs/free-exchange/20120609_ldp001.jpg [ /img ] with the [ img] and [/img ] all closed up and, voila

 

[bridges]

Just tested - in my case there was no "Copy image URL", but I was able to get it via right-click, Properties, & then copying & pasting the URL that appears there.

Thanks - much appreciated. 

I do hope that whomever they choose, they get behind him or her 100% and there's no tossing anybody over the side afterwards. 

 

[Retired AF Guy]

I do hope that whomever they choose, they get behind him or her 100% and there's no tossing anybody over the side afterwards.

"The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."

Isaiah 11:6

 

[a_majoor]

More on the NP abut the Young Dauphin's leadership aspirations. He at least seems to understand the need to bring "New Canada" into the fold, but this could also be a case of saying what his handlers want him to say. There seems to be little to no recognition that the "real" enemy is the NDP, and of course there is the huge empty space where you are supposed to insert policy...

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/10/02/kelly-mcparland-justin-mimics-ignatieff-with-early-foray-to-alberta/

Kelly McParland: Justin mimics Ignatieff with early foray to Alberta

Kelly McParland | Oct 2, 2012 12:30 PM ET
More from Kelly McParland | @KellyMcParland

REUTERS/Christinne Muschi Liberal MP Justin Trudeau watches as former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff takes questions from business students in Montreal in January, 2009

Perhaps it’s appropriate that Justin Trudeau is heading directly to Calgary after formalizing his Liberal leadership candidacy today, given the extent of the damage his father’s policies in Alberta have done to the party.

It’s a recognition — long, long past due– that Pierre’s Trudeau’s legacy isn’t what Liberal diehards would have you believe. Despite all the revisionist history going on, the Trudeau years are anything but a solid asset in his son’s hopes of running the country. Liberals today prefer to recall the fight for Quebec, and Pierre Trudeau’s success in battling the separatists. They’re much less enthusiastic about dwelling on the extent of the damage caused by his dismissive, ill-considered treatment of Western Canada.

It’s not unfair to ask which of the two policies has had the greatest impact. Trudeau unquestionably played the biggest role in defeating the first separatist referendum in Quebec and kept the Liberal brand strong in that province for another decade or more. But later Liberals fumbled away much of it via the sponsorship scandal and lousy leadership, and today hold just seven of its 75 seats. The legacy of Trudeau’s disdain for the West runs much deeper; the Liberals have just four of the 92 seats west of Ontario. They’d struggle to fill a bus shelter with party members in much of that area.

The West is growing and thriving; Ontario and Quebec are struggling. Pizzazz alone might win the Justin-led Liberals a few more seats in the East; in the West they’re tilling barren soil. The difficulty for Justin is that the party lacks even the barest essentials of a viable organization in the western half of the country. It’s not like there’s a large crowd of dormant Liberals just waiting to be roused. To all intents and purposes the party is dead and gone in many constituencies, and will have to be built from the ground up.

Is Justin that kind of leader? It’s possible: at this stage in the Liberal rebuilding project, just attracting some attention to itself would be an accomplishment. If Justin, with his flashy smile and luxuriant locks, is good at anything, it’s attracting attention. Beyond that it gets a lot harder, especially in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where people quite like their strong economies and pleasant living standards, which come from the same resource industry Justin’s father tried his best to turn into a giant ATM machine, dispensing unlimited cash to finance eastern programs. His successors have done little to alter that perception: Jean Chretien barely bothered to campaign there, and Stephane Dion sought to finance his “Green Shift” via a river of tax on energy. Justin will have to do a lot more than smile boyishly to overcome those memories and the suspicions they fed.

Michael Ignatieff also made an early trip to Alberta, where he said soothing things about the oil sands and his party’s appreciation of it.

“The stupidest thing you can do (is) to run against an industry that is providing employment for hundreds of thousands of Canadians, and not just in Alberta, but right across the country,” he told a Montrteal audience in 2009 (with Justin in attendance). “All questions of energy policy are a question of national unity,” he added.

But it didn’t take. A couple of years later he was comparing Stephen Harper to the devil and insulting anyone who voted for him (as in almost all of Alberta).Like other Liberals he had difficulty convincing westerners they matter as much to the party as the environmentalists to whom they are devoted. Party culture wants so badly to be seen as pure and wholesome that it invariably slips up when trying to square that with the unfortunate realities of a resource-based economy. In the old days, Chretien could just agree to the Kyoto accord and then ignore it, bragging about his determination to fight climate change while making no effort to implement the actions he’d agreed to. But people noticed, and see through such things. It’s part of the Liberal legacy, and a big part of the trust problem it is saddled with.

After the first flush of publicity, Justin will face the far more difficult challenge of convincing Canadians he’s not just the latest new face on the same old party, and that his interest in that part of the country beyond Ontario extends past the contents of its wallet.

National Post

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Liberals will not, as they should not, admit, publicly, that the real enemy, for Phase 1, is the NDP: they must rally the troops with an appeal to power. But, in their war rooms and, even more important, over meals in Scaramouche, in Toronto, Hy's, in Ottawa and The Beaver Club in Montreal, the Liberals are, I suspect, tightly focused on the Dippers.

 

[fraserdw]

Can Liberals still afford to eat in those places?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Can Liberals still afford to eat in those places?

I took a friend to lunch at Hy's a few months ago: no ministers nor any instantly recognizable Tory MPs (I've heard rumours that it's out of bounds unless they are - clearly and visibly - paying) but there were two tables at which I recognized well known Liberal insiders and another at which I saw a well known NDP MP.

The Rideau Club is still "in bounds," I guess, but, being retired, I don't go there much any more.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

I took a friend to lunch at Hy's a few months ago: no ministers nor any instantly recognizable Tory MPs (I've heard rumours that it's out of bounds unless they are - clearly and visibly - paying) but there were two tables at which I recognized well known Liberal insiders and another at which I saw a well known NDP MP.

The Rideau Club is still "in bounds," I guess, but, being retired, I don't go there much any more.

From the 26 Feb* issue of the National Post, " Life on the Hill: Perfect pubs for politicos" by Kathryn Blaze Carlson

"Métropolitain Brasserie, the Parisian restaurant nestled in a plaza on Sussex Drive, was adopted by the Conservatives after the party assumed power five years ago. Earlier this month, Industry Minister Tony Clement blew out 50 birthday candles at the “Met,” amid its burgundy-leather banquettes and circular booths.

Hy’s — the city’s most classic watering hole — is relatively non-denominational, though the Conservatives celebrated there after Julian Fantino won the Vaughan, Ont. by-election in November. "

* The Link says 26 Feb 2011 but I'm positive I saw the same article, with graphic map showing location of aforementioned pubs, in the NP a couple of weeks ago.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Now that Justin Trudeau is running for the Liberal Leadership, maybe it is time for Ben Mulroney to think about leading the Conservatives.

Just saying....

 

[JorgSlice]

Now that Justin Trudeau is running for the Liberal Leadership, maybe it is time for Ben Mulroney to think about leading the Conservatives.

Just saying....

:rofl:

 

[Edward Campbell]

Is he?

Can he carry it off? Can he appeal, equally, to young social liberals and older fiscal conservatives?

I understand that Trudeau 2.0 is what the Liberals want but I hae ma doubts.