...and either does the anonymous, senior, strategist, organizer, insider, close to the leader, sources...nor do the pundits, journalists, Conservative bloggers...
....many, many, many, many grassroots Liberals would like him to stay. Most don't like when leaders are forced into a corner.
Just saying.
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19 comments:
I say stay too
If Stephane looked at his facebook page to see all the beautiful pleas from supporters, he would know that there are, as you say, many, many, many grassroots Liberals want him to stay.
Stephane, it didn't even occur to me that you should step down. When you said that you love Canada more now than you did before, you brought me to tears although not for the first time.
Do not step down. Canadians needs to step up to what you clearly think of us. Thanks for your beautiful vision for Canada and Canadians. I have been and am inspired by your example.
Dion is a very good man, but too stubborn to take good advice,..... when he was told not to run on the Green Shift which was part of the Liberal's downfall, sorry.
Jane Taber writes: Dion's decision expected Monday
And quotes Stephen LeDrew who says this about Stephane Dion:
“clearly doesn't have any leadership ability.”
The same Stephen Ledrew who when running for 2006 Toronto municipal election for Mayor of Toronto, recieved %1.38 of the total votes.
Lizt,
You are correct, and thank you for speaking the truth.
Dion's fate was sealed long before he came out with the Green Shift. The old guard never wanted him, and the young guns didn't have the clout to protect him. If anything, the Green Shift gave the party something it hadn't had for a very long time - a progressive vision. If the powers that be had seen fit to help Dion sell it, it would have sold.
They did not.
I keep thinking about that scene in Serpico, when Al Pacino walks up to the bad guy's door and suddenly realizes that his fellow officers no longer have his back.
Then he gets shot in the face.
Why not Belinda?
What about her?
The behaviour of the LPC is exactly why the party has been losing clout for the past few elections. I'm not even a Liberal supporter but I have to say I was drawn to Dion and respected him tremendously. I also disrespected the lack of support he had during his entire tenure.
The Liberals I know, including my own partner, had no problem with Dion as leader. Some, if not many, were thankful that Ignatieff was not leader. Dion returned dignity and honesty to the Liberal brand, which had become frankly quite tarnished.
I personally thought that the Liberals might be obliterated in this election. It is a credit to Dion's performance that they weren't reduced to two seats or even second to the NDP as an opposition. The LPC backroom insiders are the poison that is going to destroy the party, whether Dion is at the helm or not.
I wrote in support of Dion and copied it to the LPC. This kind of infighting is exactly what Harper wanted foment. Perhaps he even weighed in this possibility when he called his faux election.
As for those pundits and insiders who think they bled their support into the CPC camp, give your heads a serious shake. Dion did not lose votes because he was too green or too left. He lost support because he didn't benefit from a strong campaign, especially at the grass roots level and at a organizational level (the LPC brain trust that failed to support him). Trying to go with a right wing leader will have as much success as Paul Martin's run as leader. And seriously, did Martin even get an iota of support when he decided to step down. No, if anything, a whole nation sighed relief.
I support Dion in whatever he chooses to do. I appreciate his integrity and courage to propose a carbon tax, the right policy for an urgent problem. He attracted me to the Liberal Party.
However, people knocking on doors and talking to neighbors and coworkers know how widespread the concerns about Dion's leadership and the Green Shift were. Some of this was surely the notaleader and anti-carbon-tax attacks by Harper and reinforced by Layton, some was a lack of will of the LPC, and some was Dion and his lack of appreciation for marketing. Dion himself admits he dismissed the early attack ads as stupid and didn't realize they would work, he approved the LPC ad company and early election ads which were ineffective.
One might think the party should have compensated for Dion's weakness in salesmanship and marketing, but Dion could have insisted on a counterattack to Harper's early ads and on a better ad program overall, had he recognized their significance.
In the end the people spoke. The fact that significantly more people voted for the one man party who mastered attack ads going all the way down to bird shit, attacked critics inside and outside of politics, muzzled candidates, undercut Ontario, called what some thought was an illegal election, was dismissed by all environmentalists, and involved in the in and out scheme, Cadman offer, etc., shows the power of style and marketing.
Canada needs a Liberal party which recognizes this and responds accordingly. Integrity, honesty and a firm commitment to doing the right thing are simply not enough. That Dion seems to have thought (and perhaps even continues to think) they were enough, makes him an admirable human being, but also a politician with a deadly blindspot.
Perhaps it would be possible to re-market Dion to Canadians if the whole party got behind it, but it also would suggest that the voters were wrong and Dion and the LPC knew better. As I said, I will support Dion in whatever he chooses, but I reluctantly think Canada lost its opportunity for a principled, honest leader who understood the significance of climate change and was willing to act now.
I find it amazing Liberals are talking solely about whether they need a new leader or not when it is clear their policies were rejected by almost 3/4 of the population. Would you hire an employee without knowing what the job is? Seems to me policy and direction comes first, then you choose the person to lead.
Um....I am guessing that the Liblog roll is not really a representative sample of the Liberal grassroots. I certiantly know the Blogging Tories are not reflective of the Tory grassroots.
And if you don't believe me just let it go to a leadership review. There's simply no way Dion would survive one.
Dion's problem was stuborrness, timing and strategy. Yup.
Timing: just in the last couple of weeks - Nobel (economic) prize winner Paul Krugman favours carbon tax.
Tom Friedman - 3 time Pulizer prize winner, expert on the Middle East, oil and gas, etc. when promoting his latest book said the Obama and McCain's regarding energy/environment plans said that Obama's was better but neither would get the job done - he favours carbon tax.
Bill Clinton - in Vancouver is praising Gord Campbell on the carbon tax.
Dion should have left his carbon tax shift out of the election campaign.....reach for PM and then introduce it when was was PM and come out a hero.
He has no one to blame but himself for his stubborness - even though he was right. You seen, he's too honest to be a good politician and too naive to know when and when not to introduce a plan.
Think about it - Gord Campbell didn't introduce the carbon tax plan until he was already Premier.
Food for thought....
So let me get this straight. Had the Green Shift not been there, the Liberals would be in government right now?
Probably - at least a better number of elected MP's.
I also blame CTV to some degree - his polling was higher just before that.
And, Harper brainwashing Canadians for a year prior....Liberals have to learn to do what Obama has had to do....Kerry didn't address each attack on him...Obama is doing that.
Here. Let's try this hypothetical out.
You're a lawyer.
I don't like you very much.
Everyday for 2.5 years I run an ad in your local newspaper telling people "you're not a lawyer".
Think you'd have any clientele left at the end of that time period?
I think, James, that this isn't just about Dion. It's about the way that the party is behaving after this election, reconfirming all the worst impressions that Canadians have of Liberals and Liberal insiders. The people who advocated the loudest for the party are definitely going to feel betrayed.
Plus, all this babble about moving to the right is basically the Liberal apparatchiks betraying Canadian progressives, and demonstrating bog-ignorance about the foolishness of 90's style triangulation.
It kept the Dems in the wilderness for a decade, and they expect it to work? When their Turner-Martin conservative wing is notoriously unable to win governments, or doing much with them when they have them?
Please.
So, yes, it's the infighting. The infighting was what kept Chretien from being able to do anything during his second and third governments. It was infighting that helped bring Martin down, and made him think that running against his own party (during the AdScam era) would actually work. It was infighting that crippled Dion, and opened the door to "not a leader".
And now infighting is making the party look like jackals.
No, cutting spending and screwing over poor people in the name of moving yourself on an invisible line is not going to change that.
"...reconfirming all the worst impressions that Canadians have of Liberals and Liberal insiders. The people who advocated the loudest for the party are definitely going to feel betrayed."
Thank you. You hit it on the head right there. I've never worked as hard as I did for those last 5 weeks, and now I do feel quite silly. Dion was worth it, so was my candidate. This party, I'm not so sure.
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