Monday, May 9, 2011

I Wonder if Bob Rae was Sincere in 2008

It was a shitty day in the history of the Liberal Party. Iggynation had control of the National and Ontario Executives. Leadership was in full gear. The Rae campaign had visible momentum with mass quantities of memberships and money beginning to float in.

But there were those damn new leadership rules. How could we get around them? The Rae campaign asked for an extention on the date for leadership. The Iggy camp lobbied against it. The Iggy camp won. Rae had no choice but to step aside because the 47 day membership cutoff was approaching quickly and there was little time to catch up.

A conference call was called for by Team Rae. On the call were organizers from across the country. Bob was short and sweet, yet mad as hell. Of all the things I remember on that call the one thing that stood out in my memory was the line "I'm not doing this again. This is it." In other words, NO MORE LEADERSHIP RACES for Mr. Rae.

I hope that Mr. Rae remembers this conversation. It is my strong feeling that Mr. Rae should be chosen Interim Leader this week. In my opinion he is the only one in caucus that is bilingual and seasoned enough to do the job. He should also keep in mind the same rules for leadership apply.

We have a constitution in the Liberal Party and it was put in place by its members. To circumvent that constitution to extend a leadership is a contradiction in terms when we begin to rebuild the Liberal Party. Starting the rebuilding does not mean throwing aside our own constitution when it's convenient. I hope the Liberal caucus and National Executive can see that.

4 comments:

A Eliz. said...

I think Marc Garneau would be a good interim leader, not Rae. The upper eschelons should go.. I think Rae is involved with them.

Anonymous said...

Goodale as interim and Garneau as deputy?

Kuba Jewgieniew said...

Admiring the time and effort you put into your blog and detailed information you offer!

Craig Chamberlain said...

James -- what about Brison?