— Musings —09.18.2012 12:18 PM
Newman on Trudeau(s): if you read anything today, read this
Quote:
My God, that man can write. What a giant he is. Newman leaves everyone else behind in the dust.
(Oh, but my counsel to the candidates I’ve advised always remains the same: Peter C. Newman is a journalist, first and foremost. You enter into a room with him and his tape recorder at your peril.)
The article notes one important thing: Pierre Elliott Trudeau came to a Liberal party that was reluctant, even resistant, to him. He was an outsider. A reformer. He had every intent of shaking things up, and not everyone was comfortable with that.
You guys are looking for the wrong qualities in the “next Trudeau”. Right now, the Liberal party needs the furthest thing from an insider. The furthest thing from “business as usual”. Trudeau represented a bold departure from business as usual, and that’s what made the Liberal party great, for a time.
Mark Carney.
Seriously Tim? Why would Carney want the abuse and give up his cushy day job? And, for three leeaderhips now all ive heard is he’s “the next Trudeau”. Why don’t we just go get the next Trudeau?
Ya know what? I’m reading this and belting out passages of the article to my wife (a writer in her own right), trying to be heard over the frying polenta and then, that last line by Newman….POW!
Boy Howdy, he can write! Dinner time…
GRAMMAR ALERT: The pluralized name should be Trudeaux, not Trudeaus !!
Well written to be sure, but accurate? PET certainly excited youth with his personal iconoclasm (it was the sixties!), but he came to the job after impressing many with his “look ma no hands” shepherding of sensitive divorce reform through Parliament and then wowing everybody by going eyeball tp eyeball with Quebec nationalism on national TV at a time when everyone else seemed to be fumbling and cowering in musings about two-nations, special status, etc. His non-too-specific calls for “a just society” resonated widely in an era of optimism and belief in the transformative power of government. Justin is facing a cautious, worried electorate with much less patience with Quebec and little faith in government, and he has no record of accomplishment. Plus while there were concerns about PET’s lack of experience, he never faced this kind of fisking on the CBC or was the butt of great lines from wags quipping that when they imagined him wrestling with issues like the F-35, they saw him playing with a toy airplane in his bath.
I might have to support this Trudeau guy.
It seems to come down to the Liberals who think the priority should be finding a qualified and smart leader and the Liberals who want to win.
At the end of the day winning is what matters in politics. Polticians and their assorted hangers-on need to feel the rush of power.
Trudeau is the guy who can win.
Amen brother
One can hardly be surprised that winnng is important to Liberal activists, but what I don’t understand is win against whom. Unless he does a fast makeover and presents himself as the essence of caution and fiscal rectitude, is Justin really likely to steal soft Con votes in the small cities and suburbs of Ontario? One can at least imagine Garneau doing so, but would Justin not represent a declaration of war against the Dippers for the votes of the beautiful people and urbanites in seats the other already holds, at least in the ROC? Harper has almost three years to rein in his cowboys and fruitloops, and if he does, wouldn’t the space cadet squaring off against the angry shitkicker be his dream scenario?
OTOH, I suppose I can see why patient Libs would see how slapping down the Dippers is a necessary first step.
Harper and Mulcair will chew Trudeau up and spit him out in the debate scenario. He may have pulled it off in the boxing ring but in the political ring he is a Lightweight.