By Joan Bryden
OTTAWA (CP) - Federal Liberals head into 2007 with a slight edge in the polls, a new leader and a virtually clean slate.
It's a dramatic turnaround from the drubbing the fractured, scandal-plagued party took in the election at the start of the year. Yet it's hardly cause for euphoria. While some cautious optimism is certainly in order, Michael Marzolini, former party pollster during the Chretien era, warns that Liberals still have a steep hill to climb if they're to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the next election.
The party has enjoyed a modest bounce in the polls following Stephane Dion's stunning come-from-behind victory on Dec. 2.
But 'Dionmania' hasn't exactly broken out; the Liberals are still well short of the 40 per cent mark generally needed to win a majority.
In any event, Marzolini contends that opinion surveys conducted during a leadership contest - or immediately after it - are meaningless. The only relevant polls will be those taken after voters begin seriously taking Dion's measure, which may not occur until an election is actually called.
In the meantime, Marzolini says the only polling results worth noting over the past year are those suggesting that Canadians, outside of Quebec at least, are relatively satisfied with the performance of Harper's government.
"They created a lot of goodwill," he says, suggesting the Tories may be harder to knock off than many Liberals would like to believe.
Still, by choosing Dion - somewhat of an outsider despite serving 10 years in the cabinets of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin - over two contenders more favoured by the party establishment, historian John English believes Liberals have finally made a clean break with years of internecine leadership feuding.
"He wasn't tied in with any of the factions in that fight," says English, a former Liberal MP. "This is a leader who doesn't have much baggage."
That should make it easier for Dion to heal wounds and finally meld the Liberals into a unified fighting force. On that score he's off to a good start, English says, by giving influential roles to all of his former leadership rivals, his "dream team" as he refers to them.
The Tories have already tried to tar Dion with failures from the Chretien and Martin eras over sponsorship corruption and rising greenhouse gas emissions.
But Marzolini says it's hard to credibly question Dion's integrity and he doubts many voters will fault his brief record as environment minister for the failure to meet the daunting Kyoto climate change targets.
More likely, he predicts Dion, who made environmental sustainability the cornerstone of his leadership campaign, will benefit from the recent surge in public concern about global warming and pollution.
And the earnest former political scientist may also benefit from his anti-politician image.
Dion is "a man who is more substance than glitz and glitter and glamour, who is passionate about issues and more interested in getting the job done right than petty partisan bickering," says Marzolini.
"I think the public is quite ready for that."
That said, Liberal chronicler Stephen Clarkson observes that Dion also has a reputation for being aloof, humourless, prickly and impatient, although he's already softened some of those rough edges and become more adept at retail politics than many Liberals would ever have believed possible when he was first lured from academe by Chretien.
"Dion has a chance . . . to become a good leader but maybe he won't," says Clarkson. "Some people grow into the jobs they acquire, others don't."
But Dion may not get much time to grow into the job.
Harper could choose to engineer the defeat of his minority government shortly after introducing a voter-friendly, tax-cutting budget in February or March.
Such a move would rush Dion into an election while he's still trying to unite his party, define himself, stock a war chest, develop a comprehensive platform, recruit candidates, and organize an effective campaign team.
An election over the next budget could also play to Dion's perceived weakness on economic issues, an area Marzolini says the new leader must start emphasizing to re-establish the Liberals' credentials as sound fiscal managers.
Throwing together a cohesive organization on short notice could prove to be the biggest challenge. Despite the "tremendous start" Dion has made at accommodating his former rivals, Clarkson sees a few "ominous" signs that not all Liberals are yet ready to let bygones be bygones.
He predicts that Dion will have trouble recruiting organizers in Quebec, where supporters of chief rival Michael Ignatieff have only grudgingly accepted the new leader, believing that his hard line against separatism will kill the party's electoral hopes in the province - notwithstanding polls which suggest the contrary.
Moreover, Clarkson says Dion may wind up in conflict with riding associations if he's forced to appoint a lot of candidates in order to fulfill his vow that women will make up 33 per cent of the Liberal standard-bearers in the next election.
English, on the other hand, suggests it would be best for Dion himself to force an early election, capitalizing on the post-convention bounce in the polls. Continually propping up the Tories to stave off an election would be more damaging, in his view, than launching into a campaign before the party is completely ready.
"You can't say you're against all the central principles of Conservative policy and keep voting for them. That creates more difficulties than not," he argues.
Whenever the election is held, Dion will face a number of other formidable challenges, including a potential backlash to being the third consecutive Liberal leader from Quebec and expanding the party's shrunken base beyond the country's three largest cities.
Still, given the way Liberals started the year, fearing they were doomed to a decade in the opposition wilderness, the challenges no longer look insurmountable.
"It's been a roller-coaster," observes English. "It's ended better than anyone could have hoped."
Copyright © 2006 Canadian Press
