Federal Liberal Leader - 2009

na85 · October 17, 2008

Your last point calls into question the quality of your judgement/analysis offered in the first.
Btw, Rae speaks French more fluently than Iggy. Check it out.

Harper's already proved that only a passable control of the French language is required to win elections.

tango · October 17, 2008

Only Rae, Ignatieff and Kennedy are credible candidates at this point (since they finished in the top 4).
Manley and McKenna have both previously ruled out running. They may in the future change their minds, but until then, neither of them are realistic candidates.

Party people will reject Kennedy because he gave them Dion. However, they will do so in their own interests, not in the interests of Canadians. I think he's the best candidate now. It remains to be seen whether they'll let him run. If not, we'll know where the party loyalties lie and it isn't with us!

Mad_Michael · October 17, 2008

Harper's already proved that only a passable control of the French language is required to win elections.

Only for a Conservative since their power base has traditionally been outside of Quebec.

However, no Liberal can win a majority without some solid support in Quebec. Liberals need to run strong in Quebec, Ontario and the Big-3 cities to win the government. And to do that, you need very good French speaking skills (not just mediocre).

Iggy doesn't have this. Rae does.

Mad_Michael · October 17, 2008

Party people will reject Kennedy because he gave them Dion. However, they will do so in their own interests, not in the interests of Canadians. I think he's the best candidate now. It remains to be seen whether they'll let him run. If not, we'll know where the party loyalties lie and it isn't with us!

Kennedy has the Dion albatross around his neck now. He's the one who is going to pay with his career for the Dion debacle.

Kennedy's term running the DBF turned a volunteer organization that was well respected into a union shop where volunteers are unwelcome for anything but donations. Now the base funding the charity receives goes primarily to pay for union wages and no money left to buy food - that has to be donated.

Indeed, I think the Liberals need to dump Kennedy to the NDP to complete the trade for Rae. Rae has become a centerist liberal. Kennedy is a labour-socialist of the old school who fits far better with the NDP - he could give Jack Layton a run for his money.

Edited October 17, 2008 by Mad_Michael

mikedavid00 · October 17, 2008

I thought Dion would last and I thought this decade would become the Harper/Dion decade.

Lol! Goes to show your track record.

Did you think people really care about the environment and want hire gas prices? That's what happens when you become a political hack. You lose sight of the simple things.

I hold firm what I said about Rae.

mjp · October 17, 2008

I'm putting my money on justin trudeau... for no reason other then I think they will try to go with name recognition....

lukin · October 17, 2008

This is going to sound way out there, but I've been told that Sheila Copps still holds plenty of power in the Liberal Party, and that she will make a strong run in the leadership campaign.

na85 · October 17, 2008

I'm putting my money on justin trudeau... for no reason other then I think they will try to go with name recognition....

Hopefully their strategists will realize that going further out to the left is NOT what the grits need right now. They need a centrist.

madmax · October 17, 2008

I think Dion will stay on as Leader Until Monday....

Federal Liberal Leader in 2009???

Lets see Volpe Back Again... He had those daggers out early.

Revenge is best served cold.

mjp · October 17, 2008

dion was the worst choice and over time in the HoC we saw that if an election was called with dion as leader they would seirously get their butts kicked.

we all knew this since dion got the leader seat in the liberals. lets be real here, the guy can not communicate effectively. He may be smart, but fact remains there are more english speaking canadians then french..

capricorn · October 17, 2008

McKenna also has ties to Bill Clinton. Neither would be much of a factor if he decided to run.

That presents and even worse scenario. All the more reason to attack the Liberals for having a leader with close ties to various US administrations, a leader who want to turn Canada into another US. Plays well to the US hating crowd. Go McKenna!!

ps: I think McKenna will take a pass.

Shakeyhands · October 17, 2008

the way our resident conservatives talk about Bob Rae, they must be worried. I think he would make a terrific leader with his charisma and ability to connect with voters. As far as past transgressions, I don't know anyone who blames him, he tried something, it didn't work as intended, he learned from it and moved on. Besides, we suffered through how many years of Harris/Eves? Much worse...

Slim MacSquinty · October 17, 2008

I don't think McKenna will take a run he's not rabidly partisan enough.

blueblood · October 17, 2008

the way our resident conservatives talk about Bob Rae, they must be worried. I think he would make a terrific leader with his charisma and ability to connect with voters. As far as past transgressions, I don't know anyone who blames him, he tried something, it didn't work as intended, he learned from it and moved on. Besides, we suffered through how many years of Harris/Eves? Much worse...

Your damn right we're worried, we're worried Ontarians are stupid enough to elect someone who left Ontario in a financial mess as his legacy. I'll take Harper and locking up 14 yr. olds who commit violent crime over Bob Rae and ruining the economy and thrusting us into full fledged socialism.

nothinarian · October 17, 2008

I don't think McKenna will take a run he's not rabidly partisan enough.

You have never seen him in action... he can and has been very partisan although he has probably mellowed in his old age

On a very positive note his strong suit is fiscal conservatism which is desperately needed in this country

noahbody · October 18, 2008

Lets see Volpe Back Again...

As long as he can round up enough dead people he should do fine.

Slim MacSquinty · October 18, 2008

He (McKenna) mixes in both camps, when he was premier he could get along with fedreral conservatives. He left politics for personal reasons 10 years ago, and has had little to do with it (that I know of) since.

I've read all Bob Rae's literary masterpieces, he's not up to the job. He's a book smart elitist who never had to balance a budget in his life 'till he was 40 years old and found himself the premier of a province in financial crisis. His epiphany of balancing a budget was so profound he believed he discovered it and had to write a book to "share" his newfound wisdom with the rest of us who learned that lesson by the time we were 19.

Vast sectors of Ontario will never forgive him for "Rae days" and abondoning the union movement. He'd need the army to unite the left.

Iggy's essentially a foreigner, a hawk and has lots of skeletons that could easily be used against him if necessary.

Keep looking.

drewski · October 18, 2008

Nobody expected the leader elected last time would be able to win the next election, which is what kept a lot of the expected front runners out.

With Harper's obvious inability to get a majority, the draw is back form the front runner's who passed last time to join in now. A good charismatic bilingual leader would have a good chance of becoming our next PM.

Given his executive experience in both politics and the business world, his experience as US ambassador & his fiscal conservatism, McKenna could be a great draw to the right wing of the party who stayed away or voted Conservative in the last election. Given that and all the other intangibles he brings, like my personal belief of being able to unite a divided party I think McKenna will run, and win (if you couldn't tell from my sig :lol: )

jdobbin · October 18, 2008

Get a good leader and one that demands Chretien be charged for the scandals he took part in then maybe I would support the party again.

Harper is the boss now. He can get charges against Chretien, right? If he can't or won't, will you stop voting for him?

Mr.Canada · October 18, 2008

Mr. Ignatiaf is a scholar like Dion is. Except he has very very little experience in politics at all, let alone running a campaign or a party.

It makes me wonder how Liberal supporters would hand over the country to a man with under 5 years of political experience and let him run a country. No wonder the Liberals lost so badly, they cannot use common sense.

I hope he does win. The CPC will sail to another landslide victory. It will be glorious.

capricorn · October 18, 2008

With Harper's obvious inability to get a majority, the draw is back form the front runner's who passed last time to join in now.

Is it Harper's inability to win a majority or that Canadians will not give him one?

A good charismatic bilingual leader would have a good chance of becoming our next PM.

It could just as well be a Conservative as a Liberal?

Given his executive experience in both politics and the business world, his experience as US ambassador & his fiscal conservatism, McKenna could be a great draw to the right wing of the party who stayed away or voted Conservative in the last election. Given that and all the other intangibles he brings, like my personal belief of being able to unite a divided party I think McKenna will run, and win (if you couldn't tell from my sig )

By your estimation of McKenna, it sounds like he'd be a better fit in the Conservative camp. As constituted today, the Liberals are anything but right wing.

drewski · October 18, 2008

Is it Harper's inability to win a majority or that Canadians will not give him one?

one is a product of the other. its inability of Harper to win a majority because Canadians don't agree with him

It could just as well be a Conservative as a Liberal?

sure, but irrelevant since this thread is about Liberal leadership

By your estimation of McKenna, it sounds like he'd be a better fit in the Conservative camp. As constituted today, the Liberals are anything but right wing.

Not really, as I believe there are more issues, both social & fiscal, that McKenna & the Conservatives don't agree on then they do

The liberals aren't/shouldn't be right wing, they should be centrist and McKenna can help them get back there

capricorn · October 18, 2008

one is a product of the other. its inability of Harper to win a majority because Canadians don't agree with him
sure, but irrelevant since this thread is about Liberal leadership

Pardon me for going off topic.

Not really, as I believe there are more issues, both social & fiscal, that McKenna & the Conservatives don't agree on then they do

You appear to know more about the man than I do. Do you have one example of where McKenna and the Conservatives don't agree on?

The liberals aren't/shouldn't be right wing, they should be centrist and McKenna can help them get back there

I think so as well.

jdobbin · October 19, 2008

I hope he does win. The CPC will sail to another landslide victory. It will be glorious.

Another landslide?

drewski · October 19, 2008

You appear to know more about the man than I do. Do you have one example of where McKenna and the Conservatives don't agree on?

well Mckenna is fiscally conservative, Harper isn't as evidenced by the last 3 budgets. then there's the anti-choice stance that many conservative's have.