Fingers crossed

I admit it: I'm a worrywart. At our last leadership convention in 2006 Conservatives played dirty tricks, circulating fake buttons and posters to try to discourage delegates from voting for Bob Rae. Has Harper dropped another little turd to surprise us with on Sunday? It's probably fine; I haven't heard even a murmur of suspicion; but I can't help worrying.

Tribute to Bob

I'm watching the leadership convention live at liberal.ca/live. It's great - John Turner is giving a very funny speech at the moment - but the tribute to Bob Rae is bittersweet, given that he was denied the chance to run for leader... again. Last time, it was decided we needed unanimity so Bob was pressured to bow out and let Ignatieff run unopposed. This time he was told he couldn't run because he was interim leader.

I will happily vote for Justin Trudeau, but Bob was always my first choice.

Leadership, leadership, leadership

I'm leaning towards Justin Trudeau for federal leader and Sandra Pupatello for Ontario provincial leader. But I don't claim to be engaged enough to make an informed decision this time. I argued for Bob Rae when he lost to Dion and then lost to Ignatieff and then lost to party politics. I think Dalton McGuinty was a great premier but all I ever hear in local media is that he sucks. Apparently my opinion doesn't go very far.

On the federal front, we keep putting someone up there, watch the Harper attack ads undermine their credibility, and then turf them out.

On the provincial front, it's hard to get excited about electing our version of Kim Campbell - someone who, according to reports, will fight an election that results in a drastic reduction in party support. The party's modus operandi is that whoever oversees a poor election will get turfed out (or forced to resign): what's the point of getting excited about that scenario?

If I thought our party would actually get behind a leader and help them succeed in the long term, I'd be more interested. As it is: meh.

Low Expectations are Justin's Friend

The Globe published a rather odd little article today: "Former MP Mulroney: Underestimate Justin Trudeau at Your Peril". Some of the online commenters interpreted Mulroney's statements as support for Trudeau.

As I was reading the article, I took exception to this sentence: "The 40-year-old politician is already a polarizing figure for the party, simultaneously inspiring a rockstar-like idolization and criticism that he lacks the political acumen required to take the party forward." My thought was: What bunk. I know a lot of people who admire Justin Trudeau, but I don't know anyone who idolizes him, and he's not that inexperienced...

Then it hit me.

Mulroney is bang on the money in doing the one thing to thwart Justin.

If people see Justin Trudeau as a pretty boy / charmer / son of a famous man / dilettante, then expectations for his performance will be lowered, which is exactly what he needs to get a good footing as party leader.

With Dion and Ignatieff, our expectations were so high that nobody could meet them. We wanted Instant Success - we wanted them to win in their first election - we suffered agonies when they made missteps. If the Liberal party is going to climb back up, we have to break that habit; give our leader time to grow.

During the 2000 US presidential election campaign, George Bush performed very badly, but he got away with it because he exceeded the very low expectations people had of him. During his debates with Al Gore, the commentators would say that while Gore did much better than Bush, Bush did better than expected - and they'd call the outcome a tie.

Low expectations are a powerful tool. Let's not be quick to dismiss them.

Mark Carney for Liberal Leader

Okay so it's all rumors and his office is denying it, but the idea is so wonderful that I have to try to spread it further.

A leadership race between Trudeau and Carney would be... boffo. Carney on our side would be... world-changing.

Liberal Leaders: Guaranteed Support?

Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing fails like failure. We Liberals have blown through four leaders in recent years (I count Bob Rae among the four because he has been much more than a caretaker). Our leaders have all failed - because we have not supported them. When the Harper attack ads started, we let ourselves be affected. When a new leader had some missteps out of the gate, we called for his head. When the first election the leader presided over didn't go well, we dumped his sorry ass.

It's obvious that what we need to do is give our next leader the time to learn the job. Historically, new party leaders falter in the beginning. Most Prime Ministers didn't get there on their first try. Many didn't look too sharp for the first term or two.

In particular, when we know the leader we've chosen is inexperienced (like Ignatieff), we have to not only give him some slack but be supportive. Any of our last four leaders could have led us to victory, given time and support. What failed is us, the party, not them.

Why does this happen? We have the recent memory of being called Canada's natural ruling party, and there is an impatience to regain our former stature. We blame the leader for not doing it - even though we should all know that it is going to take time for a leader to not just learn, but develop the right team, develop policies, build support in the electorate, make allies, and on and on. I suspect we also have a party loaded up with formerly powerful politicians who are now invested in finding controversial topics to please editors.

We may have to face a situation where our choices for leader are all at the bottom of the barrel. Gerard Kennedy's name is being bandied about - he with a three year college degree, little French, a trumped-up CV and unable to even keep his seat: the definition of an empty pretty boy. He may be what we get. Whoever we get, it is our responsibility to make the most of him: not to whine and complain and demand a replacement.

Why don't we guarantee our next leader that he or she gets the time needed to succeed? Why not say from the outset that they have a two-election term - and we don't expect that they will significantly increase seats in the first of those elections? What about making a pledge (with specifics) to support and help our next leader?

Why would ANYONE agree to take the position without something along those lines? Why would Justin Trudeau want to follow his four predecessors into the pit of humiliating failure?

I have been supporting Bob Rae for leader since he first threw his hat in the ring six years ago. Most of the party divided their support between the four front-runners (in order of support at the convention): Ignatieff, Rae, Dion, Kennedy. Supporters of the first three men have watched the party choose and then pick to death their candidate. It hasn't been a happy experience for any of us. It definitely hasn't helped the party. And it shouldn't happen again.

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A Sad Regret that Rae Said No

Of all our options for permanent leader, Bob Rae is the most competent, experienced, principled, classy, witty, formidable, erudite and knowledgeable. We would have been very lucky to have him as permanent leader.

I was amazed he was willing to continue to stand for the job. It is six years since he first announced he would run for leader. In that time, two other candidates were chosen over him and then the party executive effectively boxed him out. His continuing interest in being permanent leader was a selfless act; the job ahead is to slowly rebuild a crumbling party, or destroy it in a merger with a stronger party, or watch it die. I believe he wanted to stand because he knew he was the best person to save the party.

Unfortunately, the party, or at least some influential parts, made that impossible. For Rae, personally, this has to be the best choice. As for the party, it is definitely a sad day. And let's remember this: it was Harper's attack ads that took down Dion and Ignatieff, but it was the Liberal party itself that brought down Rae.

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Liberal Woes: What We Do Know

There has been a lot of criticism recently of Michael Ignatieff's leadership (eg here, here). I don't know what to suggest to our leadership, but a few things seem clear:

1. Nothing succeeds like success and nothing fails like failure
Ignatieff was doing well in the polls until he threatened to force an election; his current standing seems more to be a reaction to that than to any underlying problems with his image. Consider this: every criticism of Ignatieff would appear very different if our polls were better. For example: I keep hearing the complaint that he takes too much time off, but if the polls were better this would likely be ignored - or maybe even seen as a benefit (he knows how to pace himself, etc).

2. Third up at bat can't afford to strike out
After two failed leaders (Paul Martin and Stephane Dion) who we booted out early in their terms, we got the Number One pick of our party. If we boot him out, we become a national joke. No matter how good Number Four is, he would come in with an impossible legacy. We must stick with Ignatieff.

3. We know who Ignatieff is
We all knew, right from the first day of his first leadership campaign, that Ignatieff has no experience in politics. He was the number one pick of the party in both leadership campaigns. We wanted him and now we can't act surprised that he has a learning curve.

We also knew that Ignatieff is a brilliant thinker with the potential to transform longstanding problems in our country. He has a depth and scope of understanding that we have never had before. In a couple of years, if we can get him elected, he might do magnificent things. I'm thinking about Quebec, first nations, and our role in the world.

4. Responsibility for our current state does not lie solely with the leadership
We Liberals have to look to ourselves for a lot of the responsibility. Many of us seem to be fair weather fans who only support the team when we're winning. The party needs money. You get most of your donation back in a tax credit at tax time. You want the party to be more effective in opposing Harper? Donate here.

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Could We At Least Have a Debate?

The Ignatieff camp has been pushing for the party to anoint him as interim leader via a vote of caucus. The Rae camp objected that we need a more democractic approach, so the party has "compromised" and agreed to let party presidents and a few other people join in the vote.

I don't see how this is a compromise at all, but that's not my main concern. Who wins is no longer my main concern, as it seems to be a foregone conclusion.

What bothers me supremely is that the Liberal party is still running around like a chicken with its head cut off, being reactive rather than proactive, making decisions for the short term rather than the long term, and making poor decisions. It's understandable that Ignatieff wants to sew this thing up as quickly as possible. We are in the middle of a political crisis and he wants to change the direction of approach before parliament resumes.

What gets me is that there is so little leadership from the senior ranks of the party. They should be thinking long term, keeping steady, ensuring that the next leader has the support of the party, and working steadily to rebuild party unity. Instead they seem to be flapping their hands and running around in circles muttering "Oh my!"

Last week the leadership was all gung ho for the coalition; now it's the worst thing that ever happened. Those of us who stood up to support the party and fight for its policy, the coalition, are now left hanging out there like idiots, blamed for supporting a bad policy. No matter that the entire caucus (including Ignatieff) signed off on it.

After the election, the party decided we had to have a full-blown expensive leadership contest; now we can't have any democratic contest at all. Why the abrupt change in plans? The first decision was made out of pig-headed complacency and the reversal of that decision was panic pure and simple. It's not doing Ignatieff any favors to let him win this way. When Bob Rae says that anointments don't work very well, he's not speaking out of self-interest but for the good of the party. Paul Martin got off to a bad start because he was anointed.

Sober heads would do what Rae asks and have a compressed but democractic leadership race, taking a few weeks, involving debates and some sort of membership involvement. This "compromise" to allow a few more in on the decision is no compromise at all. The goal should be to increase party unity, but that whole idea seems to have been forgotten, and consequently it looks like party unity is going to be hammered once again.

What has become crystal clear is that our leader can't do everything. He needs better party management behind him. We blamed Paul Martin for missteps; we blamed Stephane Dion for missteps; at some point we have to look at what else is going on to make our leaders fail.

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The Leadership Race

I don't know what form the leadership race should take, but if a small group in Ottawa tries to force Ignatieff on us without a fair, democratic contest, I am going to be mighty pissed off.

I have tried to keep an open mind about Ignatieff, but the last couple of weeks have made that really difficult. When his party needed him he showed zero leadership and schemed for his own career. In the midst of the coalition kerfuffle I got an email from him saying that "in this time of crisis I need your support..." Yesterday I got another email titled "Winning the Leadership the Right Way" - implying that he'd already won.

I have not seen one single media interview in which he has impressed. He is pompous, pedantic and boring. I have a huge vocabulary and yet when I saw him on CTV recently I had to look up a word in the dictionary. Imagine what people who haven't had seven years of post-secondary education are going to make of him. He has been no better on the floor of the House.

Forget the fact that I'm a Rae supporter. I'm no longer sure that Rae can win. He can't seem to overcome Liberal hatred of the NDP. All the crap about baggage from his time as premier of Ontario is just that - crap. The heart of the matter is that Liberal insiders cannot accept an NDP premier leading their party. Rae has already failed to overcome that prejudice in one leadership race and the two years since. His charisma, political skill and leadership ability are all apparently lost on Liberal insiders, and it seems there is nothing he can do about it. If he had more time he might be able to attract enough NDP voters to the Liberal party to sway a vote, but that opportunity seems to have passed.

So that leaves Ignatieff. But what Ignatieff needs to do is show me that he is ready to be PM. With less than three years in Canada out of the last 33, and with less than three years of political experience, he needs to do something to prove he can lead the party.

If Ignatieff is anointed without proving himself, which is apparently what he is angling for, he will not have my support. The fact that he's trying for that shows how inexperienced he is. We need a leader who can lead. We need a winner. We do not need "Dion: The Sequel." But that's what we're heading towards.

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Tory Trolls

Online articles about the leadership race have interesting comments sections. The first two or three comments tend to be aggressively anti-Rae. A case in point today: The first two comments are "Give it up Bob. Save us the grief." and "Nothing illustrates how out of touch Bob Rae is than his own self image."

These nimble fingered anti-Bobbites who seem always poised to complain about him as soon as an article is published, who are they? There are some common characteristics: they get their comments at the top (the Globe shows earliest comments first), often within a few minutes of publication. They write very brief comments; you might almost call them sound bites. And they generally do not directly relate to the article (for example, nothing in the article had to do with Bob Rae being in touch or having an ego).

I think it's reasonable to assume that they're paid Conservative operatives, working to (1) interfere with our leadership selection process and (2) begin the process of undermining the next leader. It is really unfortunate that the current Conservative party has no scruples and no respect for democracy. They seem to have adopted the Nixon playbook of Dirty Tricks. The MP boasting (below) about keeping Bob Rae from becoming our leader in the last leadership race is now Minister of Canadian Heritage & Official Languages.

Here is what they admitted to doing last time:

Delighted Tories claim victory with Rae loss

ALEXANDER PANETTA

Canadian Press

December 2, 2006 at 4:10 PM EST

MONTREAL — A gaggle of beaming Conservative operatives waited mere minutes after Bob Rae was knocked out of the Liberal leadership race before boasting about the role they played in the former Ontario premier's defeat.

Just seconds after Mr. Rae was knocked out, a prominent Tory MP wandering the convention floor pulled out a handful of buttons mocking Mr. Rae and winked mischievously.

“There's a reason we handed out so many of these,” said B.C. MP James Moore, pointing to buttons that ridiculed Mr. Rae's track record as Ontario premier.

“They (Liberals) don't know how to play poker. . . The NDP is also feeling happy right now.”

In recent months some leading Tories admitted privately that Mr. Rae was the Liberal candidate they feared the most.

Their admissions became public the instant Rae was eliminated from the race.

One Tory operative described how a handful of government supporters proliferated at Liberal parties throughout Montreal on Friday evening and handed out anti-Rae buttons.

“Make Bob the first NDP prime minister,” one button said.

Another button aimed at underlining Mr. Rae's tumultuous time in Ontario said: “Vote Bob. Who needs Ontario?”

The party made similar buttons for all the other candidates — but it was mainly for show. Rae was their main target, said a government official.

“There were hundreds of Liberals wearing those (Rae) buttons when they went to vote today,” he said.

“It was great to watch.”

One Conservative aide took pride in pointing out that his party fabricated an internal party memo suggesting their troops were most afraid of Michael Ignatieff — and most anxious to face Mr. Rae.

The ersatz memo was leaked to a pair of English- and French-language newspapers and ran under headlines that cast it as a behind-the-scenes peek at Tory strategy.

The name of Tory campaign chair Doug Finley, the supposed author of the memo, was stamped on the document as an afterthought.

The Tories then made arrangements to get the memo leaked through a third party to English and French newspapers, Tory sources said.

Democrats Have Something to Learn From the Liberals

In our 2006 Liberal leadership race, Stephane Dion set themself up as the agent of change - the opponent of the status quo - the fresh new breeze that would take Ottawa by storm and revitalize the party. Dion (or his supporters) sold us the line that Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae were the old guard - the same old-same old backroom sleazebags who'd been in power far too long and needed to be unseated.

This became common knowledge even though it was so obviously untrue. Stephane Dion had been a cabinet minister for a decade. Michael Ignatieff hadn't even lived in Canada for 30 years. Bob Rae had only joined the Liberal party the year before. It was Mike and Bob who represented change, and Dion who was old guard. Mike and Bob were supported by the powers of the party, for sure, but they are both completely their own men. Bob, in particular, represented an activism and left orientation that would have been a significant change for the Liberals - it would have meant actually acting on what we say we want to do.

Since electing Dion leader, we have learned to our chagrin that those backroom boys sometimes know what they're doing when they decide who to support. Plus, they know what they're doing when they run an election campaign. Kicking out the experts and using amateurs has not worked particularly well for us Liberals, and now Dion is slowing asking the old guard to come back and help him out of the hole he has dug for the party.

Enter the American Democratic presidential primaries. Barack Obama and John Edwards have set themselves up as the agents of change - the champions of the working man - the opponents of corruption. They have tried to position Hillary Clinton as an old style corrupt politician, insincere in her policy statements, interested in only helping the rich get richer.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Hillary has a far stronger track record than either Obama or Edwards in working to help average Americans.

She started her career on the House Judiciary Committee considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon. Throughout her career she has worked with the Children's Defense Fund, and currently sits on its national board.

While her husband was governor of Arkansas she transformed Arkansas schools, worked for women's rights, and led the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession.

When Bill Clinton was running for President he said he was "two fer" - that is, he and his wife for the price of one. She was a completely different first lady than anyone else. She is the only person to date who has taken on the health industry and tried to create universal health care - and while she failed, she moved the possibility further than anyone else. Besides health care reform, during her White House years she led efforts to make adoption easier, to expand early learning and child care, to increase funding for breast cancer research, and to help veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome; she helped launch a national campaign to prevent teen pregnancy; she helped create the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997; she was instrumental in designing and championing the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which has provided millions of children with health insurance; and she travelled worldwide to champion human rights (among other things).

For the last six years she has been a US senator. During this time she has been a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, working to improve the lives of US military personnel. She has initiated legislation to improve health care for the National Guard and Reserves; to tie Congressional salary increases to an increase in the minimum wage; to improve quality and lower the cost of prescription drugs; to protect the food supply from bioterrorism; to increase America's commitment to fighting the global HIV/AIDS crisis; to ensure the safety of prescription drugs for children; to help schools address environmental hazards; to expand access to child care; to improve the qualifications of teachers and principals; to increase access to family planning; and to improve the way elections are run and votes are counted.

Hillary is and always has been a dynamo of action working to improve the lives of Americans. Her track record is a stark contrast to the lackluster political careers of both Obama and Edwards.

What Democrats should learn from our mistake is: Don't be bamboozled the way we were. Look at the candidates directly, and not through the distorting glass of spin and media.

For example, here's the infamous "crying speech" of a few days ago (which doesn't actually involve crying at all). I think her words are more compelling than anything I could write:



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On elections and by-elections

I recorded the Ontario provincial leader's debate tonight and just finished watching it. The experience was painful.

John Tory is of the old attack dog school, nasty and belligerent. His opening film referred to "Dalton McGuinty's catch-and-release justice system." Later he said that "McGuinty is letting criminals thumb their noses at us." His passion for sending people to jail is the thing that bothers me most about him, of a long list of things that bother me: teaching creationism in schools, shattering our public school system, weakening our public health system.

Howard Hampton was better than I expected. I agree with his values but I'm not always certain of his facts. But I shouldn't quibble: he was in a tough position as the party that's trailing way back and he stood up well.

I thought Dalton McGuinty was fabulous - the hand's down winner, partly because he was clear, fact-based and convincing, partly because he stood up to all the mudslinging with composure (and a good answer to every attck) - but mostly because he stood up for his record, which has been very good. When he came in he discovered a $6 billion deficit left by the Conservatives; he has turned the deficit into a massive surplus. He has made huge inroads on our problematic school system and health system.

McGuinty is not a big-charisma politician, but he's a good man with good values and he is a solid manager who is running our province excellently.

I wish I felt as good about our federal Liberal leader. I don't think Dion should be ousted because of the by-election losses in Quebec, but it's a canary in the coal mine for his leadership.

For whatever reason, Dion has been unable to be an effective, vocal opposition to Harper. He doesn't need inexperienced lieutenants like Hall-Findlay, Ignatieff and Kennedy. He needs to start developing some federal leadership-level political smarts. In the leadership race Dion ran on a platform of being the antiestablishment candidate (pretty laughable since he had been in cabinet and the other top candidates were outsiders). Maybe he needs to eat a little crow and call in the backroom boys who can get us moving again... pure speculation as I have no idea what's going on in his office, but something has to change.

Dion's political voice comes off (in English) as either whiny or angry: he needs to find a better tone. He needs to get on top of some issues that Canadians care about. He needs to start showing Canadians a Liberal leadership team that we can imagine running our country - Ignatieff and Hall-Finlay are getting too much exposure when they're not ready for prime time.

Since many Canadians are still angry about the Liberal adscam scandal (and Dion as leader perpetuates the problem since he was a Quebec cabinet minister at the time of the fraud), maybe it would help if he unveiled new initiatives to reduce government corruption. And he shouldn't just be whining about the environment: he should be out there making concrete things happen and taking credit for improvements.

We knew in the leadership race that Dion was very unpopular in Quebec. Since the by-election he has been announcing that he's going to address that. But he's not going to win the next election unless he addresses his unpopularity in the rest of Canada. He's a non-entity. He needs to improve his English. He needs to get out into the rest of Canada and start doing things. More pandering to Quebec is not going to impress the voters who will decide the next election.

We Liberals have not had the best leadership for a long time. Chretien and Martin both had their strengths, but a gazillion weaknesses too. Dion came in as the reform candidate - the leader who was going to rebuild the party, energize the grass roots, modernize the system. I just don't see anything happening. One thing's for sure: if Dion doesn't figure out how to be leader, Harper is going to get his majority next time.

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Tricky Dick Rides Again

(It dawned on me that I couldn't criticize Liberals, as I may have been seen to be doing recently, without adding the Tory participation to the picture.)

During the Watergate investigation a lot of shady political maneuvers were discovered that were referred to as "dirty tricks". Nixon's campaign team messed with the Democrats any way they could think of: cancelling bookings for halls where rallies were supposed to be held, sending dozens of (unpaid) pizzas to Democrat headquarters, calling printers and changing Democrat campaign signs to have embarrassing typos, and on and on. (That was in addition to the bigger crimes like break-ins.)

It turns out that the Harper Tories have a bit of Tricky Dick in them. And they seem to be proud of it. CTV reports that immediately after the election of Stephane Dion, Tories on the convention floor started boasting that they had defeated Bob Rae. The Tories claimed that they had been handing out buttons saying "Go for Bob/Go for Broke," "Make Bob the first NDP prime minister," and "Vote Bob. Who needs Ontario?" - and that hundreds of delegates were wearing the Tory buttons while they voted. They also claimed that they had fabricated an internal party memo suggesting they were most afraid of facing Ignatieff as leader, but not afraid of a Rae win.

Jamie Elmhirst, president of the Liberal Party of Canada (BC), addressed this issue in a memo to his members, in which he said (in part):

Am I the only one who finds it utterly mind-boggling that the governing party of Canada sent people into the Liberal Party convention to perform these kinds of dirty tricks? Is Karl Rove already on the Conservative Party of Canada pay-roll? I think this really says something about the character of the people running our current government and it isn't positive. I am particularly disappointed with James Moore, a young MP I have a lot of respect for. This kind of garbage is beneath him, or at least I thought it was.

Canadians were not impressed with the negative character of the last federal election campaign. They want politicians of all stripes to set the bar higher. Our new Leader, Stephane Dion, is a man of ideas, vision and integrity. I'm confident that when we next face the electorate, it will be with a strong platform and positive message. Obviously our friends in the Conservative Party have not yet learned the same lesson.

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Moving Towards Improvement

Ideally, a leadership campaign should leave the membership feeling united, energized, and more committed to the cause of the party. In recent posts I have tried to detail why our recent leadership campaign did not meet those goals for me.

I think I detailed some fairly serious criticisms of our process. To sum up:

1. Our system of choosing leaders produced a result that is unfortunate - not because of who became leader but because of the way he became leader.

2. There were apparently problems with the processing of delegate applications by the party returning offices, resulting in too many applications being lost.

3. The overly partisan behavior of local riding associations (in particular, the use of membership email lists to support one candidate) alienated members who supported other candidates.

4. The campaign was marred by nastiness and dirty tricks.

In my previous posts on these issues I focused on how these problems affected me, but I am raising these issues because I know there are other Liberals who are having similar reactions to our leadership campaign.

Stage one is understanding the problem. Stage two is researching alternatives. Stage three is proposing solutions. Sometimes the best solution is to maintain the status quo, and I'm not counting that out. But I would feel so much better if I had the sense that someone in the party gave a damn about these issues and had some motivation to move forward.

Previous:
Why the Liberal leadership Race Sucked Part 1
Why the Liberal leadership Race Sucked Part 2
Why the Liberal leadership Race Sucked Part 3
Why the Liberal leadership Race Sucked Part 4

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Why the Liberal Leadership Campaign Sucked, Part 4

My fourth (and probably last) post in this series involves the multitude of smear campaigns and nasty blogging that occurred during the campaign. I can't document it all here. During most of the campaign I was trying to ignore it, and as horrible comments came into my blog I just deleted them. However there's enough of a record left around to paint a pretty grim picture of the Liberal body politic, especially in the blogosphere.

Of course I want to provide the caveat that most Liberals were not involved in dirty tricks and smears and there is no evidence that any of the candidates endorsed this behavior. But what we should be aiming at is: When you support a candidate, encourage other Liberals to vote for your candidate by arguing that he or she is the best for the job. Argue the weaknesses of other candidates but only in a polite and reasoned way. Respect the choice and perspective of people who support other candidates.

The following flyer was distributed electronically during the election. (Thanks to Stephen Taylor for this photo.)



For more about the anti-semitic attacks on Rae and his wife, see here. Note that the claims some people make in this article about Rae being anti-Palestinian are totally untrue. The article quotes Tarek Fatah as saying that Gerard Kennedy "has "taken us back to the '30s and '40s" when Catholics and Protestants voted in blocs." Fatah provides the background to the incident here.

After the convention, Stephane Dion condemned the attacks on Rae's wife (although he misspelled her name), but the incident should have resulted in an internal investigation or some sort of stronger statement to ensure it won't happen again.

During the convention, anti-Rae books and buttons were distributed all over the convention floor. (Update: It turned out that these were distributed by Conservative MPs who had observer status.)

Here's a post by blogger Vijay Sippani: "Rae bring NDP dirt to the Convention - Rae organisers are bringing in the dirt from nasty NDP type politics to the Liberal convention. They are encouraging Iggy delegates to chant “I was a Michael Ignatieff supporter, and I decline to cast my ballot.” This is the problem we have with cross over dirty old experienced politicians who bring their baggage with them. Worse he has betrayed Ontario and his friend of three decades, what makes you think he will not betray the Grits and Canada? Think about it."

Here's a post by blogger Devon Francis: "Today at the convention Leadership candidates arrived to register. The day began with Bob Rae registering, with his supporters chanting "Bob Rae, Bob Rae." His crowd was a fairly good size. They were clad in the red t-shirts and carried the posters that depicted Rae in a rather not so flattering way. The overall style, and not content, has been remarked as akin to the Nazi party material. Half red and halfblack and white, one cannot help feel the empire-ish sentiment it conveys. Further, the Rae campaign has been passing posters and cards advocating a Rae-volution. I must ask, is this a wise political move? A former NDP (socialist) leader, advocating revolution,... Does anyone else find this troubling?"

During the campaign, the percentage of blogs in Liblogs that smeared other candidates was enormous. And the nastiness of the comments to posts were even worse. Then there was the aftermath... the Nyah-nyah-nuh-nyah-nyah'ing done by supporters of Dion and especially Kennedy that went on and on.

It all just made me sick to my stomach. This isn't politics. At its best it's a frat house brawl; at its worst (the anti-semitic attacks on Rae's wife) it was bordering on hate crimes.

Libnews summed it up during the campaign in a post called The Death of Discourse. Some of the comments on that post sum up how I feel better than I could. Jason Bo Green wrote: "I think I’m probably getting out of blogging — everything is campaign spin, really... it’s all petty bickering, and instead of debate you get posturing." Fadi Amine wrote: "Three weeks into my blogging experience, I was taken aback by some of the personal attacks on candidates that I was reading and took a couple of days off from blogging to think whether I wanted to be part of such a phenomenon. I even considered quitting altogether. I found that the slightest form of criticism of any of the candidates brought upon an avalanche of anonymous and no profile bloggers who make it their business to defile you and your opinion as much as possible, and the candidate you happen to support. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be part of that." Hear, hear.

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Why the Liberal Leadership Campaign Sucked, Part 3

My MP, Andrew Telegdi (Kitchener-Waterloo) supported Gerard Kennedy, and I felt that he supported him a bit too much.

The riding office has a list of the email addresses of local party members, and that list was used to promote Kennedy's candidacy. I received the following emails from the email address andrew@kw.igs.net:

-September 25: an email written by the riding secretary, which said "I have sent in my form 6 and have declared my support for Gerard Kennedy. I would like to take this opportunity to ask for your support at this time."
- October 4: an email asking for donations to help send the delegate for Kennedy to the leadership convention.
- October 11: an email that started with the sentence: "Come cheer on Gerard Kennedy as he participates in the final all-candidates debate of the Liberal Party of Canada Leadership campaign."

(Note: After I received the email asking for the support of the riding secretary to be a delegate for Kennedy, I wrote her and asked that she forward an email from me asking for support. She did this. It didn't help me, because I didn't know that my form 6s had been lost until after the delegate selection meeting. And it didn't help the other people trying to support other candidates, because they didn't know they could ask the riding office to email out their own plugs.)

In addition to the emails, Kitchener-Waterloo had a leadership debate on June 20, but for some reason Ignatieff, Dion and Rae backed out, leaving Kennedy as the highest-ranked candidate there. Was this a coincidence? It doesn't seem plausible that it just so happened that Telegdi's pick was the only contender to show up for the debate.

Does the Liberal Party really think that this is a fair way to conduct a leadership campaign, or that it's fair to members of a riding association who support other candidates? I do not.

And now an abject apology: the K-W riding secretary has been really nice to me, and I am truly sorry if I've embarrassed her in any way here. I am only publicizing this because I think we need to make some changes in the way we operate, and there's no way to argue my case without facts.

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Why the Liberal Leadership Campaign Sucked, Part 2

I submitted two form 6s, one to run as a delegate for my riding association and one to run as a women's delegate. I mailed the riding association one and a week or so later I phoned and was told that it was there. I faxed the other one.

Somehow, though, I did not appear on either ballot and was not able to get any explanation from the Ontario Liberal returning office.

When I mentioned this in a post, I got feedback that this was a widely occurring problem.

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Why the Liberal Leadership Campaign Sucked, Part 1

I'm happy that Stephane Dion won, and I approve of everything I've seen since he became leader. I didn't support him, but I stated repeatedly in this blog that I'd be happy if he won.

But I'm still completely discouraged and unhappy about the campaign. My number one reason is the way Dion won. It was legal but it seems shady and underhanded.

Dion came into the convention in 4th place. As Stephen Harper reminded us this week, 80% of the delegates voted for someone else on the first and second ballots. How did Dion overcome that? It took three things: a secret deal with the guy in 3rd place; a youth demographic supporting the guy in 3rd place who were likely to follow their candidate; and some very precise timing. The timing was this: Kennedy didn't announce that he was throwing his support to Dion until after the third ballot candidate names had been announced - which was when Ignatieff and Rae discovered that Kennedy was not on the ballot, and it was too late for them to react.

Contrast this with some truly noble conventions, like the 1995 NDP convention when Svend Robinson got the most votes on the first ballot, but conceded and threw his support behind Alexa McDonough to ensure party unity. Or the January, 1983 PC convention where Joe Clark resigned his leadership because 33% of delegates voted for a leadership review - even though 67% voted against a leadership review.

There was a mountain of hot air spouted during the campaign about party reform, but what did it mean? A whole lot of steaming nothing. The man who "owned" the reform issue, Gerard Kennedy, is the other part of the secret deal. Delegates voted on moving to a one member-one vote format for future leadership conventions, but they voted down the motion. And what was the main reason not to move to this infinitely fairer format? They thought they'd lose the big cosy convention.

Ick ick ick.

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Afterthoughts

Some people have asked why Bob Rae didn't support Michael Ignatieff after Bob was dropped off the ballot, and have speculated that he couldn't afford to because of his campaign debt or that there was enmity between the two men. I think these speculations are incorrect.

Think of what happened: Dion and Kennedy roamed the hall, arms raised, garnering cheers. Imagine if Bob and Michael had done the same. Talk about dividing the party and starting a bitter war for 15 more years. Furthermore, most of Rae's high-visibility supporters (leadership candidates and MPs) moved to Dion. Rae probably knew who those people would move to, and had a pretty good idea from the polls how the rest of his delegates would vote. Had he supported Ignatieff, Dion probably still would have won, and party unity would be in tatters. Had he supported Dion, he would just be unnecessarily hurting Ignatieff - Dion didn't need his support. Bob's decision to release his delegates and not support anyone was the best move for the party.

In any event, the more pertinent question might be why Ignatieff didn't save Rae when he had the chance (after the second ballot). When news of the weeks-old secret deal between Kennedy and Dion broke, the Rae and Ignatieff camps looked pretty freaked out for a bit. Then Ignatieff's top guys went to Rae's top guys, and Rae walked over and had a chat and photo op with Ignatieff. At that point Ignatiefff was widely regarded to be toast (as he seems to have known that morning, based on the long faces of his advisors), while Rae had momentum. Who knows why Ignatieff didn't back Rae. Partly it may have been that it's not easy to give up when you're in the lead. Partly he may have been snookered by Kennedy, who didn't announce he was dropping out until after it was too late for anyone to react - we only knew it was happening when the third ballot candidates were announced and he wasn't on the ballot. The fact that Ignatieff asked Rae to walk over seems to indicate that he was thinking about it.

I'm sorry that Bob Rae didn't win, but Dion's an excellent choice and I'm happy with the outcome. I have no idea what's going to happen but I'm looking forward to watching it unfold.

As for the convention... it's a real pity that the organizers marred the event and left a bad taste in everyone's mouths by delaying the announcement of results by an hour so that, apparently, they could be broadcast live on the 6 o'clock news. It was disgusting that they forced Ignatieff to sit under the glare of cameras after he knew the results. Even more than that, it meant that instead of ending on a high note, many viewers turned off their TVs in disgust and walked away from it. I certainly did... not because my candidate didn't win, but because it was widely broadcast that the official results were in (there was even a report of Chretien getting a text message at around 5:15, showing it to his wife, and Aline mouthing "Dion") and that the organizers were delaying announcing the results. Shameful.

So, now that it's over, do I feel that Bob Rae was cheated out of the leadership? Yeah, a little bit. Despite what some people are saying, Dion did not win the hearts and minds of the delegates. He came into the convention in fourth place and he won because of a secret deal he made with the guy who was in third place. Eventually other candidates supported Dion, but only when it was clear that he was going to win. Going into the convention, Ignatieff was the leader and Rae was the predicted winner. Dion won fair and square, but he was not most people's first choice, or perhaps even their second choice. He definitely has some reaching out to do to the majority of Liberals who didn't support him.

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