Liberal Leadership (The Long Long Melodrama)

[Prairie_Ally]

Well, so far the following persons have joined the Liberal leadership race:

Stéphane Dion (Montreal)
Martha Hall Findlay (Toronto)
John Godfrey (Toronto)
Michael Ignatieff (Toronto)
Gerard Kennedy (Toronto)
Clifford Blais (Montreal)

These other people have been hinted to be possible runners by various media but they still haven't announced anything yet:

Scott Brison (Nova Scotia)
Hedy Fry (Vancouver)
Bob Rae (Toronto)
Tony Ianno (Toronto)
Anne McLellan (Edmonton)
Martin Cauchon (Montreal)
Joe Volpe (Toronto)
Maurizio Bevilacqua (Toronto)
Ken Dryden (Toronto)
Carolyn Bennett (Toronto)
Denis Coderre (Montreal)
David McGuinty (Ottawa)
Sheila Copps (Hamilton)
Roy Romanow (Saskatoon)

Well who do you think would be the best for the job and the worst for the job? Even though I myself would never vote Liberal in a million years, I's say Stephane Dion, Roy Romanow and Sheila Copps would probably make the best leaders (they would at least be tolerated as a prime-minister by non-Liberals). Michael Ignatieff, on the other hand, though seeming to have good leader qualities, hasn't lived in Canada for decades (he's basically a traitor, abandoning his own country for things he deemed "better and brighter"). Alot of those other names I've never even heard of, so I hope one of them get picked because they probably have no memorable qualities whatsover and maybe Harper or Layton or Duceppe could eat them for breakfast.

 

[FiveParadox]

Best / Worst Pick for Prime Minister

I would have to say that of the candidates who would run, my favourite to become the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and, one day, the Prime Minister of Canada, would be the Honourable Stéphane Dion, P.C., M.P., the Member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville and Foreign Affairs Critic for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

In terms of the worst possible person to be elected as leader, this honour would have to go to the Honourable Hedy Fry, P.C., M.P., the Member for Vancouver Centre and Sport and Vancouver Olympics Critic for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

 

[Hank C]

If I were a Liberal I would probably go with Dion as the smartest choice......but again he is not going to have much appeal in the west. Ignatieff scares me as he claims he would like to move the party more to the left......It was bad enough under Martin, I couldent fathom any more.

Personally I was hoping Rae would be in the race

 

[bluealberta]

Personally, this falls under the category of "Who the hell cares".

There is no one on that list I could vote for, literally. Ignatieff, or however you spell his name, reminds me way too much of Trudeau, and we are STILL recovering from that abortionistic social experiment.

 

[cortezzz]

liberals are the lesser of 2 evils
lets hope the CONcervatives are booted out in...2 yaers max---
looking forward to it

vive le quebec

 

[Lotuslander]

Dion is certainly the strongest candidate. Untainted by scandal with a social and environmental conscience, modest, honest, well qualified with almost 10 years of ministerial experience. However, his biggest drawback is that he is a Montrealais. 3 of the last five Quebcois PMs have been from Montreal which I think is a strike agianst him. More importantly I think the country desperately needs a Liberal leader not from Quebec. Liberal history has been dominated by the national unity struggle over the past 40 years with Quebecois leaders being the antidote, but, with a new century, a dynamic economy and an emerging West the Grits would do well to look beyond their traditional power base when picking a leader. After all it has been with Quebecois leaders when Canada has faced its toughest challenges in the form of 2 referendas along with the election and re-election of the dreaded PQ. Attempts to solve the situation, once again with Quebckers at the helm have been in my opinion, less than successful. The constitution of 1982 only exacerbated the situation, Meech and Charlottetown only stirred the pot up more.

It is my opinion therefore that the Grits would be best to go with John Godfrey as their next leader. A well respected MP and for a shortime a minister Godfrey, a Torontonian, also has an extensive background in the Maritimes. I think he has a pan-Canadian perspective which sadly is often lacking in politics.

Bob Rae could also be a strong candidate for those who are neo-communists. I think him and dion bring an intellectual dynamism which could excite people if merged with a focussed and well thought out mesage. However, his past transgressions as premier of Ontario have tainted more than a few minds and so I think his electability is somewhat circumspect.

Ignatieff is pretty weak on the whole. Here is a man who wants Canada to burst forth in the world, to step up shall we say. However, is he electable? Sure he is smart has a good pedigree in human rights has some interesting ideas but, also comes with considerable baggage. His comments about Ukrainians, of which there are many in this country will win him no support in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, support for W. and the Iraq war and his less than stellar residency status would make him an easy target in any rough and tumble election campaign. Can you imagine a PM Ignatieff trying to fight a referendum? The question would be asked; "well PM Ignatieff, if Canada is such a marvellous palce to live why then did you spend half your life in the States?"

As for the worst candidate: Since it is unlikely that either Fry or MacLellan will enter the race the worst likely candidate is Guiseppe Volpe. One, for his arrogance. Two, for his partisanship during the Chretien-Martin fued. Three, for the skeletons in his closet, expensive lunches and his less than frugal management of his ministerial expense account. Four, for his sheer lack of affability. Other than having some support in Toronto this guy has absolutely no pull in Quebec (other than the MontreaL Italian community) or anywhere else in Canada. five, his lack of ideas.

 

[Semperfi_dani]

RE: Liberal Leadership (T

Of the declared candidates Stéphane Dion (Montreal) would be my choice. In fact as a card carrying Liberal, he is my choice of the declared candidates. I don't know much about the other declared members..but i've heard good things about John Godfrey (Toronto) and Gerard Kennedy (Toronto)

Of the rumoured candidates, i would choose Scott Brison (Nova Scotia) as my first choice...and umm..only choice. LOL.

Between Brison and Dion, i would still choose Dion. I could care less where a leader comes from. Montreal, the west..its what ideas they have that matter.

I wish Manley had run though as well....

 

[damngrumpy]

At the top among the list of names, is Roy Romanow and it was suggested that Layton, and Harper would have them for breakfast.
Well, I hope Roy would stay with the NDP, but if he did go for the Liberal leadership, he would be hard to beat. After all he was a very successful Premier, and he is won of Canada's most brightest constitutional experts from a polictical standpoint, as witnessed when the constitution was brought home to this country in l982.
The Liberals have time, and they will rebound quickly, unfortunately, so Harper should not get too comfortable.

 

[Finder]

Bob Rae will most likely be joining the race as he is a card carrying member of the Liberal party right now and he was at the last leadership debate and at an event in Manitoba the NDP Premere didn't introduce him as the former NDP PM of Ontario, only as the former PM of Ontario.

If the left wing of the Liberal party really wants someone from the left to win the race, they should really think about not backing Bob Rae at all.

 

[Triple_R]

Dion would be the best pic for the Liberals.

Ignatieff would quite possible be the best if not for his position on Iraq, which would serve to push a lot of soft Liberal/NDP swing voters to the NDP, I think. Indeed, I dare say that Layton is secretly hoping that Ignatieff wins.

 

[Colpy]

I actually like Stephane Dion, despite his Liberal connections.

Bob Rae would try to unite the NDP and Liberals, which would be interesting, and perhaps success would have a stabilizing influence on Canadian politics.

Brison, Fry, McLellan, Cauchon, Coderre and Copps are human garbage. I wouldn't give you a cow patty for the lot of them.

Ignatieff "I've come down from the upper class to mend your rotten ways" makes me VERY nervous. Another damned Trudeau clone.

Romanow might be interesting.....sort of a successful Bob Rae.....with, I imagine, the same sort of agenda.

Then there are the also rans.....

Believe me, there is not one of these people that would inspire me to vote Liberal..........unless of course, the Conservatives went insane.

 

[Jo Canadian]

 

[#juan]

Rae - I'm sure the Conservatives would like the Liberals to elect Bob Rae aqs the leader because he would probably be shut out in Ontario.

Ignatieff - Is not a Canadian as far as I'm concerned. I don't think you can be a tenured professor at Harvard for a couple decades and still be a Canadian in anything but name.

Stephane Dion- would probably make a good PM.

Dion is the only serious candidate so far. I would like to see Hedy Fry as the leader of the NDP...

 

[FiveParadox]

A good idea, #juan!

 

[#juan]

I thought you would like that Five,,,

 

[FiveParadox]

Anything to get rid of her. :evil:

 

[#juan]

That would serve twofold Five. It would also get rid of the NDP.

Now, if we could only get Ernst Zundel into a prominent position in the Conservative party... :wink:

 

[Jo Canadian]

 

[vishliberal]

Right now, the front runners are Ignatieff and Dion. They both have a good chance. However, I must say, Ignatieff would be the best bet for the party right now. Dion is also good, he is not a rookie mp like Ignatieff, but he ultimately, has those ties with Chretien and those people. The Liberal party, right now, is in a stage where they need to look past the Chretien-Martin people, so it can be reconstructed. As one of you mentioned, he has his connections there, being a former Chretien cabinet minister. This will just lead to more internal politics with him leading, between the chretien liberals and the other liberals. The same old tune will be played out by the Chretien people. The main crooks of the Liberal party are the old ones, the good ol' Chretien liberals. Unfortunately, some of them are still in the party and choose not to give others a chance, for the betterment of the party.

Ignatieff can send the party back in the right direction. Paul Martin was more of a corporate liberal, as was John Turner. We havent had a proper non-corporate left liberal leader since Trudeau, and look at what has happened to the liberal party. Ignatieff can do the job successfully, even though he is a rookie mp, and reconstruct the party and look forward from the martin-chretien era. He does have the intellectual ability.

Ignatieff is pretty weak on the whole. Here is a man who wants Canada to burst forth in the world, to step up shall we say. However, is he electable? Sure he is smart has a good pedigree in human rights has some interesting ideas but, also comes with considerable baggage. His comments about Ukrainians, of which there are many in this country will win him no support in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, support for W. and the Iraq war and his less than stellar residency status would make him an easy target in any rough and tumble election campaign. Can you imagine a PM Ignatieff trying to fight a referendum? The question would be asked; "well PM Ignatieff, if Canada is such a marvellous palce to live why then did you spend half your life in the States?"

Well, firstly, Stephane Dion would NOT do well in the west either so I dont see the point. Ignatieff wants to take the Liberal party out of its current state, and bring it to the definition and run it according to the political theory of liberalism. He will do a good job with that, because he is smart. The fact that he was smart, and went to study abroad in ivy league universities like Harvard and Oxford, doesnt make him hate Canada any less. Look at our last conservative prime minister, Kim Campbell, she was teaching at the same Harvard faculty for a while too. He attended Upper Canada college, and went to University of Toronto also...? The point is, he would do a great job leading the liberals out of this political mess and Stephane Dion, although very good, will just make the image worse because of his Chretien ties. Its time to end the Chretien-Martin era, its time for the liberals to rejuvinate. Ignatieff can do that.

 

[Semperfi_dani]

RE: Liberal Leadership (T

The thing is Vish, there are two things going on here.

1) Because Ignatieff is "new", people don't know him. More exposure and i could totally see a run up to him winning.
2) Carrying on that train of thought...Trudeau had that same "who the hell is he" thing going on when he ran first started running.....and look what ended up. So that might work for Ignatieff...

I do agree that the Liberals are strongest when they are more of a Trudeau/Chretien Liberal (centre left) than when they are a Martin/Turner Liberal (centre right). So maybe the way to save the Liberal Party is to get someone like Ignatieff.

But i don't know if he will be any more successful in the the west than Dion would be...particularly Alberta where the name Trudeau is like a swear word. But on the other hand, the biggest threat to the Liberals is NOT the Conservative party..rather its the NDP and Green Party.

So perhaps a socialist type Liberal leader would help reclaim areas that the NDP had....

And again..don't discount Scot Brison who is looking more leaderly than he ever has..but i still don't think this is his time...