Rae won't say so out loud, but he aches to be PM

[Robert0288]

Either a short cut to the do not call list.  Or you will now end up on every single 10%er mail out for the rest of your life, along with frequent phone calls right around the 530-630 time frame.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I tell Liberal loyalist that if they love their party, lock the old guard and their polices into a building and burn it down. Start fresh, focus on building grassroots support, the phoenix cannot raise till it have been consumed by flames, it's a great metaphor for the party. Right now you have a lame duck, missing most of it's feathers and trailing smoke from it's butt and blindly flopping about. They should have done this in 2006. The CPC is nearing the point where they are beginning to believe they are the true rulers of Canada and will likely need the punt soon enough, but who to replace them with?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

On the possible skids or not, at least the CPC doesn't go around, like the liberals still do, calling itself the 'Natural Governing Party'. Especially when the libs are running just ahead of Elizabeth May in seats and don't have a pot to piss in.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I tell Liberal loyalist that if they love their party, lock the old guard and their polices into a building and burn it down. Start fresh, focus on building grassroots support, the phoenix cannot raise till it have been consumed by flames, it's a great metaphor for the party. Right now you have a lame duck, missing most of it's feathers and trailing smoke from it's butt and blindly flopping about. They should have done this in 2006. The CPC is nearing the point where they are beginning to believe they are the true rulers of Canada and will likely need the punt soon enough, but who to replace them with?

That's the point I was trying to make in the Liberal Leadership thread: "We need to wish the Liberal Party of Canada well. We know that the Conservatives will grow stale, corrupt and disconnected after too many years in power ~ it happens to all political parties in all real democracies, even Japan, Taiwan and, sooner or later, Singapore. Right now the "government in waiting" is the NDP. That is, I suggest, a bad choice for Canada so we, all Canadians including hard-core Conservatives like me, need a centrist "government in waiting" and, baring a seismic shift in Canadian politics that means the Liberals."

I am a Conservative partisan and have been since around 1965 ~ when Lester B Pearson recruited his "three wise men," Jean Marchand, Gérard Pelletier and Pierre Trudeau and, thereby, set Canada on the wrong course. But I know that "the Conservatives will grow stale, corrupt and disconnected after too many years in power," because I have been observing politics for 50+ years and I understand that Lord Acton was right when he said that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Majority government have near absolute power and that's both why we elect them and why we need to take power away from them on a pretty regular basis. The depression/wartime/post war Liberals were in power for far too long in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Pierre Trudeau's Liberals were in power for too long in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. The Conservatives, we will find, will have been too long in power in the 2000s and 2010s.

 

[dapaterson]

On the possible skids or not, at least the CPC doesn't go around, like the liberals still do, calling itself the 'Natural Governing Party'. Especially when the libs are running just ahead of Elizabeth May in seats and don't have a pot to piss in.

It's not that long ago that you could fit the entire federal Conservative caucus into an Austin Mini and have room to spare.  Things can change on a dime - a week is a long time in politics.

 

[Nemo888]

Rae had no backbone. He flipflopped so often he lost all credibility. Reminds me a bit of the Peter McKay flame out of the last couple of years. McKay was PM material 6 years ago. Sounds ridiculous now. If Harper left now who could replace him?

 

[Good2Golf]

By "flame out", do you mean the manner in which he has chosen (and chosen is the right word) to remain minister of the largest department in the government? Harper and MacKay have a clear understanding and an agreement -- the Alliance wouldn't have become the CPC without MacKay an his (primarily central/Eastern-based) PCs.  If MacKay walked tomorrow, Harper woul no longer have a majority.  Mackay has always had a connection with more of the central-left than Harper. You and others should not be so quick to write off a young, culturally attuned guy who has appeal to a rather divers cross-section of Canada. MacKay would probably not have much trouble giving "fresh, young" (but inexperienced) Trudeau something to think about in 2015. Perhaps if Harper assessed that the time is right to make good with MacKay per their silent agreement of '05, he'll hand over to macKay right when Trudeau is telling Canadians how stale the conservatives are.

:2c:

Regards
G2G

 

[Edward Campbell]

Back to Bob Rae in this fascinating vignette from Susan Delacourt which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from TheStar.com:

http://read.thestar.com/?origref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalnewswatch.com%2F?origref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalnewswatch.com%2F#!/article/523da6b4ec0691abfe1957a4-michael-ignatieff-writes-of-hard-lessons-learned-in-politics
My emphasis added

Michael Ignatieff writes of hard lessons learned in politics
Michael Ignatieff has sifted through the debris of his failed political career and written Fire and Ashes, a book of lessons learned.

By: Susan Delacourt, Parliament Hill

Published on Sat Sep 21 2013

OTTAWA—Though his own political career went down in flames, former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff still believes that young people should be going into politics.

“It is for these young men and women that this book is written,” Ignatieff says in the final line of Fire and Ashes, his new book on his political rise and fall.

The 183-page book starts in Cambridge, Mass., in October 2004, when Ignatieff was wooed by three long-time Liberals (“men in black,” he calls them) to come back to Canada and enter elected politics.

It then winds through hard lessons learned over the subsequent seven years, culminating in the spectacular defeat for Ignatieff and the Liberals on May 2, 2011, when the party was reduced to third place for the first time in Canadian history and Ignatieff lost his own seat in Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

Ignatieff doesn’t dwell on regrets in the tale and, in fact, calls the 2011 campaign “the happiest time in my political life” despite the way it ended.

Fire and Ashes focuses more instead on what he, as a newcomer to the business, learned about politics in the trenches and on an unforgiving public stage.

“Politics is intensely physical: your hands touch, clasp and hold, and your eyes are always reaching for contact. None of this came naturally to me,” he writes. “I’d always put my trust in words and let the words do the work, but in politics, the real message is physical.”

At times in the book, Ignatieff also puts on his old hat as journalist to comment or take the measure of politicians who were his rivals. He writes of Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a formidable adversary, not for his convictions but for a ruthless political style he describes as “total opportunism.” He acknowledges that he failed to appreciate the political appeal of the late NDP leader Jack Layton, especially during the TV debates of the 2011 election.

While the book is highly personal, Ignatieff doesn’t burn many bridges or reveal much of the behind-the-scenes intrigue.

He does, however, offer a few glimpses of how politics fatally damaged his relationship with Bob Rae, his old university friend, who ended up being his leadership rival in 2006 and Ignatieff’s successor, on an interim basis, after the 2011 defeat.

Ignatieff writes about a dinner with Rae in Toronto’s Chinatown in 2005, when he announced he was leaving Harvard University to move back to Canada and make a “gradual entry” into Canadian politics.

“When I told him I was going into politics, he exploded. I hadn’t earned the right. He had put in the years and who did I think I was? I was taken aback. He wasn’t in our party, so what gave him the right to tell me I couldn’t fight for a seat as a Liberal? I didn’t say any of this, but I should have had it out with him.”

Ignatieff also describes an angry scene at the 2006 Liberal leadership with Rae’s brother, John. It came when Ignatieff tried to approach Rae’s team, seeking his support on the final ballots at the convention. He found John Rae blocking his way.

“He bared his teeth with the ferocity of an animal defending a lair, extended his arms, went into a crouch to ward me off and screamed, ‘Back!’ I’d never seen a face so twisted with rage and anger and a strange and touching desire to protect.”

Ignatieff wonders in the book whether he and Rae should have reached some kind of agreement, as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did in the British Labour Party, to take turns supporting each other for the leadership.
But he makes clear that his old friendship with Rae is over.

“Frankly, I don’t believe competing ambitions can ever be reconciled, even between friends,” he writes.

The final chapter in the book is a collection of advice and insights for anyone entering politics: knowing the difference between seeking approval and seeking respect, for instance, and avoiding cynicism or seeing politics as “show business for ugly people.”

“Everything I’ve written is for the young man or woman who believed in me and saw me fail. I’m writing this to help them succeed when their time comes,” he writes.

 

[Kirkhill]

John Rae's tale is a fascinating one that deserves to be explored some day.    Has anyone written his biography?

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Not surprised,.......Rae had no love for the working man or Canadians in general, he just needed power, any power.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Re:  "he wasn't in our party", uh, neither was Bob at the start.

 

[a_majoor]

And also interesting is how politics is a "family affair", Bob Rae and his brother, the McGuinty clan, the Young Dauphin's presumption of heir apparent (and Peter Mackay inheriting the family "business", or even Preston Manning following his father on the conservative side. insert your own example <here>).

One thing novice candidates learn quickly (if they want to graduate into verteran politicans) is having good ideas and a silver tounge is never enough; the power of money and good connections to build your team far outweighs almost any other consideration...