Many have argued about the reasons for the Liberal debacle in the recent general election. But, what is it that specifically caused the total disengagement of the Canadian public from the Liberal Party of Canada?
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Just plain incompetence! Thanks for posting the survey.
Dion had an economic plan. You of all people should know that. It dealt specifically with the current economic crisis.
I know that buddy. The rest of the country was told he didn't.
The interview.
I think it is strange that wasn't an option.
Moderate - not overwhelming - momentum was with Dion and the Libs that last week.
I tried to put the best spin on the event at the time, but knew deep down I was kidding myself.
It wasn't the botched start, it wasn't the language issue, it wasn't that it was played on CTV. It WAS that the question centered on the very focus of the election in the closing weeks.
Dion and the Liberals had owned that issue for a week, with Harper looking unprepared, surprised, and snitty (not his best look as we all know).
No matter how it was spun, it just looked like Dion didn't understand and didn't have an alternative.
If he had nailed that out of the park instead of stumbling around, it would have been fine.
In doubt, he should have answered what he would do NOW (if elected) and what the Liberals would have done had they been in power for the past 2 years (still had a surplus, dedicated to sensible budgets instead of squandering them, etc, etc).
Face it truthfully, it was a softy question that ANY leader should have been able to answer.
Getting stuck in the semantics of a sloppily worded question just brought a crystal moment of Dion being unprepared on a critical issue at a critical time. It represented every "not a leader" impulse the electorate had been trained Pavlovian-style for the past 1.5 years.
And I say that as someone who truly admires Dion.
But we should not let that blind us to the facts.
The next leader has to have good ideas, be able to manage the party, and be able to read the electorate instinctively.
You just can't have a moment like that in the closing days of a campaign, and expect it not to resonate.
Ineffective Communication.
That includes the leader communicating the message, party advertising, the crafting of the message that the leadder communicated, listining to others about the issues.
Fun poll. If the "other" votes tend to cluster under a particular option, it'd be good to know which one it was.
Mr. Dion completely mishandled the Green Shift policy. It was uncovered at least a week before it was unveiled. It was a monumental (and necessary) policy that was beyond the means of a cash-strapped opposition party to float. It takes the resources of government to refine, explain, promote and sell something of that magnitude to a wary public. We were never remotely strong enough to attempt that from the opposition ranks.
We also presented an image of a milquetoast party run by a milquetoast leader. The several no-show votes created an appearance of a party afraid to fight and afraid to stand up for its principles.
Look at the most successful Liberal governments, those of Trudeau and Chretien. That was the party at its best - a party with vision and ready to drop the gloves and scrap with anyone to defend its vision.
You have to be tough to carve out enough room in the political centre to attain a majority. If you're not an intellectual brawler, constantly looking for a fight, they begin to squeeze you from the left and the right. Mr. Dion never understood that and the party suffered because of it.
Two reasons:
20+ MONTHS OF NEGATIVE CONSERVATIVE ADS Because the general public repeatedly heard that "Dion is not a leader" with no one rebutting the Conservative claim. The Conservative claims were based on misrepresenting clips. You knew it, and so did I, but Joe Public and Joan Public did not. And WE together, did very little (most nothing), to counter the CONSERVATIVE claims (lies).
AFGHANISTAN Dion listened to bad advice concerning Afghanistan. As a result, he did not force an election on his own terms and on true Liberal principals.
Too many liberals stayed home because they didn't want Dion as the leader.
Many, if not most, of the leading lights in his own party didn't want him to win. He was fighting a two-front war the entire time, and ended up unwilling to take good advice and help because he couldn't trust it was given freely and fairly.
(And who would?)
Also, he tried to heal wounds by bringing everyone together, instead of excluding opposing loyalists like his predecessors did. Lesson Learned.
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