What the Hell is Going On?
The internal gamesmanship within the Liberal Party could not be more ridiculous or inappropriate. I can appreciate that Mr. Ignatieff has had some bad experiences since returning to Canada and running to lead the Liberal Party. I would reference his first race, but by all accounts they never really stopped and it is really just a continuation. He was the front runner with caucus support last time. He didn’t win. He is the front runner with caucus support this time, so he is now trying to steal it before anything can go wrong. The Liberal Party has rules that allow people like me, who have been a member of this party considerably longer than guys like Mr. Ignatieff, to have a say in who leads us.
I know from the scathing emails I’ve received and the venom flowing from Liberals in Mr. Ignatieff’s direction that grassroots Liberals will not accept a ‘smash and grab’ approach to the Party’s leadership. His actions are dividing the party, and the real grassroots, who always have to contend with ‘instant liberals’ during Leadership races will leave over this. I’m hearing that in the emails I’m being sent as a Riding President. While I appreciate receiving these notes, the Council of Presidents who is meeting tomorrow night will not even get a voice in this completely undemocratic charade.
Michael Ignatieff should not be running to be the interim Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. His people should have supported the last leader delegates elected when they rejected him, perhaps if they had, this last election would not have gone so badly. Whomever becomes our party’s next leader will have real issues to contend with. The Liberal Party is broke, the grassroots have been stomped on, and there will be internal division in whatever is left once this process is over. We need someone who can unite the party, raise money and give us a hope in hell of winning back some of the ridings we’ve bled over the last four elections.
The process needs to be fair and democratic. We need to have an opportunity to allow for all Liberals to have a say in who our next leader is. We cannot afford a divisive power grab. We cannot afford for caucus to screw over the individual members that make up this party. They will do so at their own peril. Who will hammer in your signs, raise your money or pull your vote if you disenfranchise the grassroots?
I backed Dominic LeBlanc because I thought he would be the best person to lead the Liberal Party moving forward. I was upset today when he withdrew from the race, and equally upset that Dion is going to step out of the Leadership and allow this process to happen. Bob Rae will now need to hold firm, and give members of the party the right to voice their opinions. If the Ignatieff camp push him out of the race too, I fear this may be it for the Liberal Party of Canada as we know it. It is simply too weak for anyone to drive away supporters of other leadership campaigns. From all my conversations with Ignatieff people, that is the game. It is ok for them to not support our current leader, but any difference of opinion over the future of the party is enough to see you shut out. – I won’t expand on this point just yet, but do want to register my displeasure with what the Liberal Caucus in Ottawa is undertaking this week.
Should Ignatieff take the Leadership this Wednesday, the coalition is dead on arrival. He has made it clear through his waffling (my single largest issue past and present with supporting his candidacy) that he will not support working with the NDP to form a progressive government. The Liberal Party will be back to sitting on their hands, red faced and embarrassed or into an election we can’t win because we won’t have had the time to rebuild.
6 Comments »
Closed Door Caucus Decision? – An Affront to Democracy and the Grassroots
UPDATE – This was originally posted at 12:03am on Monday December 8th 2008. I received another email with similar points and have included it’s text at the bottom. An original of that is available too.
Caucus is a pretty unrepresentative body. Take a look at it. Geographically it does not represent Canada, demographically it’s even worse. While I respect our 77 member team, they are not constitutionally empowered to make this decision and would be completely out of their minds to think the grassroots will not go nuts if their rights are taken away because the party wants a quick fix. Caucus support did not decide who won the last leadership race, and it will not this time. They cannot and must not try to force their decision on the rest of us.
Below is an email I just received that was sent to a number of other Riding Presidents, Stephane Dion and some other senior party officials. It is an open email based on it’s distribution and therefore, I think sharing it is appropriate. An original is available.
It reads:
“Subject: Liberals should not act like Conservatives and Mr. Iggnatieff should not act like Harper
Mr. Dion,
“Liberal MPs should very carefully before they proceed with Iggnatieff’s CORONATION. By having a vote in Caucus only and affirming him later will be seen as Hi-Jacking Democracy. Taking away the right to elect by the grassgroots the leader is morally and ethically wrong. It sends the wrong message to the Liberal Party faithfuls and Canadians. It will signal that the Liberal Party under Michael Iggnatieff are willing to abandon Democratic Principals and seize power at any cost as Stephen Harper did. This must not be allowed to happen!!!
If this action is taken Canadians will not be able to differentiate the Liberals from the Conservatives.
This action will also deny members of the Liberal Party participation in a very important exercise of choosing their Leader.
Mr. Iggnatieff’s CORONATION MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN. Bob Rae and Michael Iggnatieff must fight a fair and open election.
one third of ridings in Ontario will have even a Caucus member vote.
This means:
No votes for the aboriginal community.
No votes for students.
No votes for Womens’ Clubs.
1 vote for francophones.
1 vote in the Guelph-Windsor corridor.
1 vote for Northern Ontario.
This is anti-democratic, and does not represent the many voices and values of our party!”
On Misleading Polls and Liberal Leadership
I like to think I have some understanding of how polling works and what some of the challenges a pollster needs to address to tell a story as someone who has been a National Field Manager and worked on survey design and sample selection. Whenever I see a poll that doesn’t make sense, I look for ‘why’.
In the case of the Angus Reid polls, it is easy. Online samples are not representative of the population because they are self selecting and not random. It is unclear exactly what the profile of an internet vs. non interest user is. Therefore an online poll with a sample of 1200 people – is really just the opinion of those people and is not in any way representative of the Canadian population as a whole.
Now this poll that came out comparing Liberal support in a general election with Dion, Ignatieff, Rae and LeBlanc as leaders – it might as well have asked name recognition. It is far far too early to tell the impact any of these guys would have as leader because none of them have a national profile to even rival Dion’s yet.
Anyone who honestly believe Canadian’s want another go with Dion over any of the other guys should really think back to October 14th when Canadians sided with the bully.
I have no idea what impact any of the candidates would have as leader of our party, except that two may need an extra bus for their baggage – and one needs to become better known before we can win. That being said, if name recognition is your only problem, with the kind of issues LeBlanc is focusing on I suspect we could find ourselves looking at a majority government once that is solved.
I resent bad polling – and especially when it relates to voting intention because these decisions are too important to be toyed with by a bad poll.
3 Comments »
