Liberals In Trouble

[takeanumber]

Nothing short of a complete purge of the Liberal party is needed.

Martin and company can be summed up by one word: tainted.

[August1991]

Senior Liberals say Senator David Smith, who helped Jean Chretien win three consecutive majority governments, should be asked to take over the campaign from Mr. Herle, who is one of Mr. Martin's most trusted advisors.

"They should remove Herle today. He should be gone," said one senior Liberal who played a key election role during the Chretien years but asked not to be named.

Several senior Liberals also told CanWest News that Mr. Herle should be eased aside in favour of Mr. Smith, who is now a senior advisor to Mr. Martin.

Was unnamed source Kinsella? Doubt it.

Quote at the end of National Post article

It seems early to talk of changing managers. But if this campaign continues the same way for the Liberals, at some point, it will happen. Keith Davey was brought back in 1984.

There was a famous incident where Nixon on camera shoved his press secretary back at the press. And in 1984, Turner on camera hesitated to talk to journalists on a boat. What event will make PM PM on camera go over the edge? (The pressure must be horrific, and everything is happening too fast.)

[August1991]

Dhaliwal I can sort of understand. But Tobin? (BTW, Tobin and Michael Harris are both with Magna. Makes you wonder what the pay back is for.)

Sort of understand? The Liberal Party is going to have alot of internal issues to resolve when this is all over. Whichever way it goes, there will be some groups angry with others. This has never happened inside the Liberal Party before.

Former natural resources minister Herb Dhaliwal on Sunday urged Martin to clean out the Liberal election team, which he blames for running a bad campaign.

Canwest in Vancouver Sun

[August1991]

What's this all about?

Stephen Owen, Paul Martin's Minister of Public Works, has accused Jean Chrétien's government of "political involvement at the highest levels" in the sponsorship scandal, and warned that civil actions that could involve former government officials would be launched "very soon."

G&M Cabinet Member criticizes Chretien

There are so many loose cannons in this election that the ships will all sink without firing a shot.

[falling leaf]

takeanumber

Martin and company can be summed up by one word: tainted

Yes I agree with you takeanumber! Martin has proven he and his party are tainted! Yesteday at his visit to a day care he was talking about legalizing marijana while sitting with the children . Not a subject to bring up while visiting a day care!

That was bad thinking on his part ( he has lost his mind) or it means he will go to any length to be reelected.

Shame on Paul Martin :angry: .

[August1991]

The Liberals are in disarray.

Thomas Walkom in the Toronto Star

A long, long time ago MS started this thread. Now even a columnist in the Toronto Star is saying the same.

While reading the article, remember there are still three weeks before the election. The Liberals rely almost entirely on their ability to win. Without that, their vote collapses.

I suspect too that it will not be easy to heal the divisions inside the Liberal Party. There will remain a nagging question of loyalty.

[Kliege]

It seems we are at a point in the campaign where the ultimate winner will be in plain view by the end of this week. It’s conventional wisdom to place a lot of stock in the debates, but realistically, if the Liberals have not turned their ship around before then, Paul Martin will not likely be able to score the kind of win he would need. Here’s a brief commentary about the revised debate format here.

In the Liberal corner...

We have reports today that Paul Martin’s ability to keep the job of leader of the Liberal Party is already in jeopardy as three former Cabinet Ministers are beginning to organize a putsch. While the report is unconfirmed, it does not take a rocket scientist to know that anything but a Liberal majority government will put Martin’s hold on the party in jeopardy. The smackdown-style of politicking employed by David Herle & co. has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and the Chrétienites may be tempted to seek some sweet revenge. Truth be told, if Martin loses, he likely will have little difficulty taking off to pursue a job on the international stage, likely in development. Martin has always seemed more like a Minister of Foreign Affairs than a Prime Minister, and his performance has matched that sentiment.

Beneficiaries of a Martin resignation? Brian Tobin, John Manley, Ken Dryden and Martin Cauchon in self-interested ways, Stéphane Dion in terms of his party position, and don’t count Frank McKenna out, he who regretted not running in this election (but probably thinking better of it now). All of which is to say that with these kinds of reports going around, the Grits can’t be the most focused bunch in the country...

It is surely surprising to see that Stéphane Dion has gained such a prominent place on the campaign trail. In a bid to win over soft Québec nationalists—who despise Dion with the heat of a thousand suns—Martin and his crew sidelined the intellectual and installed Jean Lapierre in his place, hoping to clean the Bloc’s clock and usher in a new era of uber-Martinism. Instead, we now see Dion offering campaign advice.

[August1991]

It’s conventional wisdom to place a lot of stock in the debates, but realistically, if the Liberals have not turned their ship around before then, Paul Martin will not likely be able to score the kind of win he would need.

I agree with you, Kliege. The debate will be good fun for political junkies but both sides know how to prepare the rejoinders.

As long as Harper seems reasonable, he wins. The only thing we might see is the Reagan to Carter "There you go again" or the Mulroney to Turner "You had a choice".

CSL, sponsorship, abortion - both will be prepared with lines. (BTW, I like this North American TV debate tradition. And I prefer its Canadian variant. In 1988, Dukakis should have hauled off Bush and said, "Let's you and I argue without these moderators". If he had done that (Canadian rules) I think Dukakis would have won...

It is surely surprising to see that Stéphane Dion has gained such a prominent place on the campaign trail.

Surprised? Duh. For Quebec federal Liberals, this is a fight for Canada. Trudeau gave them the faith like missionaries and socialists. Lapierre? He's more dangerous than a Parizeau or Landry.

-----

If you are new to this, click on the first page [1] of this thread and go through each page. You wil see modern Canadian political history, as it happens, and the recent decline of the Liberal Party. It is an object lesson in politics.

Note the last (third) analysis of Kliege, page [5], 27 May, on polls. IMHO, really good, check it out.

[August1991]

It appears that Chretien and Martin are still arguing in public by using interposed agents. Given the stakes, this has got to be the weirdest thing going. Or are they just two old stags fighting it out?

Jean Pelletier, a former chief of staff to former prime minister Jean Chrétien, blasted Public Works Minister Stephen Owen yesterday for linking Pelletier with political involvement in the sponsorship scandal.

Toronto Star on Pelletier

From the same article:

The clash happened as Prime Minister Paul Martin turned to loyal Chrétien cabinet ministers to help revive Liberal election fortunes. Martin is relying on Chrétien warhorses such as Sheila Copps, Stephane Dion and John Manley to help.

La Presse gave good coverage to Copps today campaigning witha Liberal candidate in Quebec. Copps made it plain that she was just helping some friends in their ridings.

[August1991]

David Olive is a die-hard, partisan Liberal. Want to know what the Liberal take (or defense) is on any issue? Read Olive's blog.

So, for Olive to take a strip off Herle means this Liberal gang war is very, very ugly. Herle is hardly the sole guilty party here.

So it was another grim news day for the Grits, all because of Liberal campaign manager David Herle’s Wednesday afternoon conference call with some fretful Grit MPs, in which he attempted to justify rolling out new attack ads. Herle had to know the conclave’s deliberations would leak, and couldn’t be surprised to see in the next-day’s papers his panic-stricken observation that “We are in a spiral right now that we have to arrest…We have to blunt [Harper’s] momentum before it’s too late…We are desperate.”

This is not a case of the Peter Principle. Herle crossed that threshold long ago. Before assisting in Martin’s Liberal leadership coronation last year, Herle himself confessed his role in thwarting a 1986 putsch against John Turner “was my only [leadership] victory.” It was Herle, of course, who figured prominently in the infamous March 2000 get-together of Martinite MPs at Toronto’s Regal Constellation Hotel, seen by Jean Chrétien’s PMO as a plot to oust the PM, that ignited the open warfare between the Martin and Chrétien camps that has so debilitated this campaign.

The master blunderer clings to power in the absence of the 2000 coterie of Chrétien, Jean Pelletier and John Rae, whose sentimental streak was a centimeter wide. Saskatchewan native Herle has powerful patrons. He was bag-carrier to Martin favourite Ralph Goodale when the latter was lonely leader of the Liberal party in Saskatchewan. And Herle’s longtime partner is Terrie O’Leary, Martin’s indispensable flak-catcher from their Finance days.

More important than the smell of defeat, the Martin press entourage has long been overwhelmed by the stink of ineptitude at party central. No surprise the scribes magnify each Martin stumble as mounting proof of his unfathomable trust in a gang of head-office bumblers.

David Olive in the Toronto Star

[August1991]

The game is not over until the fat lady sings.

PM PM and Minority Government

[August1991]

Here's Wells on this issue:

If the rule is, you wait until the leader steps down and then you start your campaign, well, the only person who did that in 2003 was John Manley, and fat lot of good it did him. On the matter of leadership-race morality as on very few others, Paul Martin's influence has proved considerable. Isn't it ironic? Dontcha think?

26 Sep 2004

I don't think that's the issue. There is no heir apparent and there is no apparent first-move advantage.

The question rather is whether the Chretien, Kinsella, federalists have buried the hatchet.

[Newfie Canadian]

The question rather is whether the Chretien, Kinsella, federalists have buried the hatchet.

Never.

[August1991]

The saga continues.

Politician-turned-author Sheila Copps accused Prime Minister Paul Martin of lying to Canadians about his past plans to scrap the Canada Health Act yesterday

Winnipeg Sun

[Guest eureka]

August!

This is the address of the link on total public sector employment I promised you. I am posting it here because I don't remember just which discussion we talked of this in.

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/030313...13/d030313d.htm

[Bro]

lol,in regards to this topic,they should have had less votes than the green party,lol.Canadians,those who bother to vote,still have their heads up their ass.

The problem is,they won't have serious problems until Canada has serious problems and people with some common sense get off their asses and vote them out.

[caesar]

people with common sense and decency voted to ensure Harper and company did not rule this country, That would have been disastrous.

[Bro]

lol.So your decency level allows you to vote in a party that

lies to the Canadian public,and won't provide answers to suggest their was no wrong doing in the ad-scam fiasco.

I applaud you for your high ethical standards.lol

[Bro]

BTW C.,what disaster would have happened to Canadians if Mr. Harper had been elected?I think putting ethics back in politics would have befallen us,and this might register as a disaster to most liberal supporters.

[Kiraly]

BTW C.,what disaster would have happened to Canadians if Mr. Harper had been elected?I think putting ethics back in politics would have befallen us,and this might register as a disaster to most liberal supporters.

One of the planks in Harper's Hidden Agenda platform was should the Conservatives win, all Canadians unable to produce a Conservative membership card were to be relocated to the U.S. south where they were to be forced into bondage as slave farm labour.

I'm not kidding.

[Big Blue Machine]

Mr. Harper doesn't have a hidden agenda.

[caesar]

BTW C.,what disaster would have happened to Canadians if Mr. Harper had been elected?I think putting ethics back in politics would have befallen us,and this might register as a disaster to most liberal supporters.

We would have joined the Bush followers and laid ourselves open to terrorist attacks as the second most hated nation. We like having self respect not torturing prisoners nor ignoring Geneva conventions.

Harper was all gung ho to destroy our medical more so than has already been done by right leaning premiers with deep pockets for their rich friends.

I could go on.

[caesar]

.So your decency level allows you to vote in a party that

lies to the Canadian public,and won't provide answers to suggest their was no wrong doing in the ad-scam fiasco.

I applaud you for your high ethical standards.lol

I have never met a politician that didn't do a bit of lying. The Liberals; it was only money. Harper it was much more serious and would have us joining in the war crimes committed by our good neighbour. All for the almighty yankee dollar. I will keep my self respect rather than sink that low for money.

[Big Blue Machine]

That's alittle extreme don't you think?

[caesar]

Nope, unfortunately, I don't. I wasn't too crazy about Paul Martin but I despise Harper and his ideas and attitude.