Tuesday, April 25, 2006

The Trojan Horses of the Leadership Race.

Yesterday, whilst speaking to a dear friend, B.S., the topic of the Liberal leadership race came up. To my astonishment and horror, he indicated that he would vote for a certain east coast candidate. When asked what this candidate had done to favour his vote, my dear friend said he could relate to this candidate's kick-off speech.

Argh.

Although confident in the fact that my friend knew (i) candidates don't write their own speeches, and (ii) speeches are written by communications experts whose job it is to know exactly how to "rope people in", I still proceeded to hammer these points home.

Leadership candidates, I continued, must be judged on more than what they say, especially during a campaign--they must be judged by their previous actions, their previous opinions and, most importantly, their previous alliances/allegiances.

There is something grossly inappropriate about former members of other parties seeking the leadership of the Federal Liberals.

And, before all of you nay sayers jump in, let me clarify this statement.

The idea that a person can adequately distance themselves from the ideology of their former party to the point where they can faithfully and without bias lead a national party of a different stripe is questionable at best. The fact there exists the possibility of a former NDP Premier or former PC elite leading a party borne on the backs of true Grits is incomprehensible.

Many will argue that Brison and Rae have more than distanced themselves from their previous parties, Rae more so by his 2002 opinion paper Parting Company with the NDP, but for most Liberals this is simply not enough.

Leadership candidates (those who have announced their candidacy and those who will be announcing their candidacy shortly).

Carolyn Bennett
Maurizio Bevilacqua
Scott Brison
Stephane Dion
Martha Hall Findlay
Michael Ignatieff
Gerard Kennedy
Bob Rae
Joe Volpe

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