Musings —05.21.2011 08:35 AM
—Liberal letter in Post
It’s worth a read. I disagree that the interim leader should be permitted to use that advantage (staff, money, profile) to turn around and run for the full-time post. But, otherwise, not a bad read:
There are some interesting points made in the article but I don’t see any sign the LPC has moved one millimetre since the election. Despite all the lip service paid to reforming the party by everyone concerned they all want to do it on terms favorable to the side they support. It’s all lets start from scratch and forget the past, but first lets fire this person or that leader.
The Chretien/Martin feud is still going strong and until that’s settled nothing will change. The only way I see for that happening is for one side to lose and be deposed and the other to take over and rule. That is what happened to the PC’s when the Reformers took them over in the 90’s and it’s what needs to happen to the Liberals. If the Martin crowd wins the losers join the NDP and if the Chretien side is victorious then the Martinites either join the Tories and try and pull them to the centre or they form a new centrist party with the more ‘liberal’ of the Red Tories.
The one thing I don’t see happening is the two wings of the Liberal Party putting aside their differences for the ‘good of the party’. It just ain’t goin’ happen. The two sides are just incapable of working together anymore.
Letter sounds great, but the nagging question that needs to be answered is whether or not there is a marketplace for a “a modern political party in Canada that can determines its social policy from the centre-left, and its fiscal policy from the centre-right.”
I’m not sure that political party is a majority party in modern Canada given the rise of the NDP and Greens and the fact that there is now a united right. The LPC will not gain many votes from the centre-right and there is more to be gained electorally by reaching out to voters on the centre-left of the spectrum. And outreach beyond the typical left/right political spectrum should be considered. The CPC, Greens, and NDP have addressed the needs of specific demographic voting blocs through policy development that win ridings.
Where I think they have it right is that renewal needs to happen at a grassroots level and that party will need to be rebuilt from the ground up, not top down.
Give the ridings the relative autonomy they deserve. No HQ interference with riding decisions, let the ridings sort out their relationship with the community and MO parachuting in “favoured” candidates that party HQ wants to promote and thus punting out the local candidate. I don’t care if Jesus himself was deemed by party HQ to be running in my riding. Let him move here, work in the community and duke it out with other candidates. WE will decide.
We have gotten to the point where people are no longer voting for the local candidate running to be their MP. They are now voting for the party leader to be the prime minister.
Couple that with the concentratio of power in the hands of the PMO and the party leaders, we have evolved to an American style system, without any of the checks and balances of the American system.
We have gotten the worst of both worlds.
Thanks Warren. This article is indeed a worthwhile read. While the authors would have given a predictable thumbs down to any sort of merger with the NDP, my sense is that merger is indeed what has to happen, under a very wide tent. Such a merger would answer Carter’s question. And sadly, I am afraid Fritz is right, if I can graft his analogy on to the merger issue. ‘It just ain’t gonna happen’. As for your concerns re leadership, I can’t be so decisive. These are going to be a grim 4 years. At some point center and left voters will have to take our lumps and defend Stalingrad to the death. The alternative will not be pretty.