Sure. But can you identify more than five Liberals in the country who were actually hoping the guy would run? He’d have finished behind Denis Coderre and Ruby Dhalla…

Like Mr. Emerson, Mr. Manley chose the Liberal party rather than the Joe Clark-Tories or Reform where he really stands ideologically. They did this because there is a much better chance that he would be in power and has an opportunity to make a positive impact on Canada. Now that the Liberals, through no fault of Mr. Manley or Mr. Emerson seem to be a many years away from wielding power there is a very difficult argument why these talented individuals would give more of their very limited years of public service where they would have minimal impact/appreciation on the Canadian situation.

The Conservatives were rebuilt after the Mulroney “power for powers sake” debacle by ideologues, Preston Manning, Deb Grey, Stockwell Day and to a lesser extent PM Harper. The ideal (ideal for Canada) is for the Liberals to find similar ideological leaders to rebuild the party. The problem with that is these people are already building the Bloc, NDP and Green Parties and the Liberals represent nothing (power for power’s sake) and will be away from the seat of power until they:
1) Find a reason for being
2) The Conservatives get used to power and become “Chretien “corrupt.
3) Disappear from existence with their talented leader going to the Conservatives (for power) or the NDP or Green because they have ideas that they believe in.
Right now Mr. Rae and Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Dosanjh belong in the NDP ; Mr. Ignatieff would be comfortable and make a larger contribution to Canada as a CPC cabinet minister. Mr. Dion belonged in the Green party.

Oh, and Dion isn’t particularly left. Nor does espousing something like the green shift make you a Green. Yes, it is a Green Party policy, but beyond that, it is a good idea. Thus, aside from his allegiances to the Alberta Tarpatch, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Harper propose it. Even the slowing effect on the oilsands would be a good idea. The torrid pace of development doesn’t make economic sense.

“I bet it drives Manley nuts when people tell him he should be a Conservative. I submit that you cannot listen to the speech Wells posted and then maintain, with a straight face, that the man is ideologically conservative.”

boudica <– with a straight face: Manley is a rightwinger.

Alright boudica, I was asking to be baited – or I was baiting – so let’s have at it. Maybe we can start by defining terms: what is it that, in your mind, defines the right wing? And specifically, what is it about Manley – or what policies and/or ideas does Manley subscribe to – that would classify him as right wing?

Andrew: Do you really believe that Mr. Ignatieff is whole-heartedly behind a carbon tax or equivalent quantum shift any more than Prentice/Harper? I can see Dion and/or May making the Green argument that the Green tax is the way out of the economic crisis. After the Dion leadership stint, I truly believe that he feels the same as May on this. Mr. Dion probably was saying this at the last leadership convention but as we are so used to Chretien and to a lesser extent Martin no one really believed that Dion was doing anything more than grandstanding for votes as he apparently had done with the Kyoto sessions.
I believe that the Green’s do have a monopoly on Green philosophy. The reason they exist is Green philosophy.

The NDP exist to promote large government and abdication of personal responsibility.
The CPC – Family values, Law and order, smaller government.
Liberals… Soft power? Ideas temporarily borrowed from the NDP/Green/Reform/CPC? Power for power’s sake?

My basic argument is that the true core beliefs of Manley / Dion / Rae / Ignatieff/ Emerson / Martin are all ready represented by other potical parties movements.

Why is anyone a Liberal?

“Please put us in power as we will implement ideas we haven’t thought about and don’t really care about, but we will do it better than the ideologues that came up with them because we are better people than them”?????

BC,

Your specifics move us closer to a workable definition of the right/left divide for purposes of this discussion, but I don’t think we’re there yet. Again, I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, but it sounds from your other comments that you’d place more or less the entire Liberal Party on the “right wing,” suggesting that you define the ‘center’ or tipping-point somewhere on the right fringe of the New Democratic Party.

I think that’s a valid position in the abstract – the New Democrats certainly stand for the sort of “progressivism” that seems to dominate political leftism in North America at present, while the Tories are increasingly seen as a model for conservatism post-Obama.

But I think that Manley, in his speech, evokes a more traditional modern liberalism that may not be absolutely socialist in the manner of the new leftism, but is nevertheless more leftist than rightist.

Instead of determining leftism or rightism based on one’s dedication to – and I base these factors on your suggested specfics – nationalism, deficit-spending, non-interventionist diplomacy, and further nationalization of social services, I’d suggest that the center or tipping point turns on one’s conception of the role of government.

The “left,” broadly defined, believes in the power of the state to affect positive social change, and either mistrusts the operation of the free market or believes that the free market is flawed in a way that requires government correction, at least in some instances. Within this broad tent you get both progressive/socialist NDP (and BQ) types who favor nationalization, nationalism, a progressive tax structure and (apparently) deficit spending – and traditional modern liberals who favor the bolstering of core government programs within the government’s means, but oppose or caution against the creation of new government programs or deficit spending to fund the same; and who believe that the government can be a force for good not only domestically but internationally, and who therefore support intervention rather than disengagement.

This tent swallows up an awful lot of Canadians; it leaves those who support a more circumscribed role for government. Generally rightists either fundamentally mistrust government or believe that it ought to be restricted to certain absolutely essential services, most particularly national defense. They oppose government interference in the marketplace; they oppose governmental social engineering; and they generally oppose not only the expansion but the perpetuation of government welfare programs.

And that’s why I say Manley is no rightist – not in the current, Canadian sense. He believes in big government – again, the key refrain from his speech is his repeated exhortation that “it is the government” that can solve the nation’s problems. That places him squarely on the left – both because he shares his conviction regarding the role of government with both traditional modern liberals and progressive socialists, and because his conviction is anathema to a contemporary conservatism that is founded on the Reaganite principle that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

I should add that notwithstanding the ideological differences I’d be happy to see Manley in the Harper cabinet in certain specific portfolios – for instance I think he’d be a great foreign minister, and lord knows it’s been long enough since we’ve had one of those (in fact, excepting Emerson, who was hardly there at all, I think Manley is the only really solid foreign minister we’ve had since the name-change in ’93). But I wouldn’t want him making domestic policy, and I suspect neither would Harper.

Nor is Manley the only one who could ably perform some limited roles in a Harper cabinet despite being ideologically leftist – I think you could make an argument for Ignatieff, certainly. And as the Conservative Party moves away from the social conservatism of the Reform years, I think there are even some Liberals who might become increasingly ideologically sympathetic – Keith Martin being the main one, Scott Brison being another.

But – with the possible exception of Martin and Brison – these would be ideological leftists place-holding in an ideologically conservative government. That’s my claim about Manley.