When polls matter, pigs will fly

By Adam Goldenberg - Friday, June 22, 2012 - 0 Comments

Promising polls, paper leads, then another promising poll

Adam Goldenberg is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. He was chief speechwriter to Michael Ignatieff and a senior aide in the McGuinty government.

The people, it seems, have spoken.

A new national survey gives Parliament’s second-place party “a national lead of 37 per cent to 30 per cent over the Conservatives.” Another puts them at 44 per cent in Ontario. “That’s a 13-point lead over the Conservatives, who now sit at 31,” CTV’s Craig Oliver declares.

This is bad news for the party in third place; most of their rivals’ rise has come at their expense. Half of those surveyed disapprove of their performance, and nearly a quarter of their own supporters say that they would cast their vote for the other left-of-centre option. One pollster declares that “the situation is dire,” as the third party’s partisans begin to doubt their ability to overcome the country’s newfound affinity for the novice Opposition Leader’s distinctive facial hair.

His eyebrows, that is.

Yes, these promising polls were published in March and April 2009, a few months after Michael Ignatieff moved into Stornoway. Those were heady times for Liberals—and dark, desperate ones for the NDP.

So what happened?

In the spring of 2009, so-called “vote suppression” tactics—later made infamous by the Conservative “robocalls” scandal—were already afoot. The first negative ads were already on the air. The new Liberal leader was the target. But it was Jack Layton, not Stephen Harper, who had put them there.

The radio ads urged left-leaning Liberals to abandon their party for refusing to vote against the Harper government’s budget, which would have forced an early election. Having found a gap between Mr. Ignatieff and his supporters, Mr. Layton’s team sought to exploit it, to demoralize would-be Liberal voters and keep them away from the polls—or, better yet, to convince them to consider an orange alternative. It was textbook vote suppression, and it worked. Two years and millions of dollars of attack ads later, NDP strategists told reporters that they planned to profit from Mr. Ignatieff’s declining popularity; they intended to target past Liberal voters who were, by then, warming up to the NDP leader—a voting demographic they described as “Layton Liberals.”

Vote suppression does not have to be illegal to work. Mr. Layton understood that political success means motivating your own supporters, while alienating your opponents from theirs.

His successor makes the job easy.

Thomas Mulcair won his party’s leadership not on a tide of enthusiasm from his fellow partisans, but rather as a concession to “electability.” Mitt Romney can say the same.

He leads a party whose social democratic traditions he does not share—witness his call to delete socialism from the NDP constitution.

He got his start as a lawyer for the Alliance Québec, an Anglophone organization founded in opposition to Bill 101, Quebec’s cherished Charter of the French Language. He became a Quebec Liberal minister, and quit the Charest cabinet only when faced with a demotion. He very nearly took a job working for the Harper Conservatives before he entered federal politics. None of this will inspire NDP supporters in Quebec—many of whom also support sovereignty—to get out and vote.

He is, by the way, still a French citizen. Rightly or wrongly, that remains a liability.

For now, all is calm. The NDP has been pacified by promising polls. Ottawa journalists have yet to find the leaky faucets among Mr. Mulcair’s MPs—and would rather write about who is not running for the Liberal leadership, in any case. On a per-capita basis, this has been the least scrutinized Official Opposition in recent memory.

But three years remain until the next election. The NDP was polling where the Liberals are now three weeks before the last one. A Quebec provincial election could yet split the party, with NDP MPs supporting the sovereigntist side. Or Mr. Mulcair could finally be forced to explain his many mortgages—any, all, or none of which could be a scandal in the making.

Or perhaps both the Conservatives and Liberals will simply self-destruct, and Mr. Mulcair’s team will glide into government. These days, as they lead on paper, one can hardly blame them for expecting to do so. I know we did.

But wait! A new poll, out Monday, suggests that Justin Trudeau would instantly lead the Liberals to first place, 10 points ahead of the Tories, and 19—19!—ahead of the NDP. Does it matter? Let me close, as one does, with Shakespeare:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d.

In the shadow of depravity, Conservatives choose vengeance over justice

By Adam Goldenberg - Sunday, June 17, 2012 at 10:32 AM - 0 Comments

As courts in Cairo, Tripoli, and Freetown may well teach us, even the most righteous impulses to kill or repress deserve almost always to be subdued

Adam Goldenberg is a Kirby-Simon Human Rights Fellow at Yale Law School. He was chief speechwriter to Michael Ignatieff.

Egyptians took to the streets and defeated a dictator. Earlier this month, they returned to Tahrir Square, this time after Hosni Mubarak escaped the gallows.

Libyans, too, tore down a tyrant, Muammar Gadhafi. But as they buried their Caesar, they made it a crime to praise him–a law that may soon be struck down by the infant democracy’s high court.

And on the other side of the Sahara, Charles Taylor of Liberia was sentenced not to hang, but to 50 years in prison. The fallen strongman will die in jail, watching the lone and level sands stretch far away.

To many of their former subjects, Mubarak, Gadhafi, and Taylor are avatars of evil, their names synonymous with autocracy and dictatorship. That they deserve to die–and that those who might yet venerate them ought to be silenced–is, to many, a foregone conclusion. But as courts in Cairo, Tripoli, and Freetown may well teach us, justice demands otherwise; even the most righteous impulses to kill or repress deserve almost always to be subdued.

In Canada, some conservative politicians should heed that lesson.

Yes, Luka Rocca Magnotta is alleged to have filmed himself murdering and dismembering his victim, before mailing pieces of him to schoolchildren. And yes, Christopher Husbands is accused of shooting a gang rival in cold blood, in a crowded downtown shopping mall in downtown Toronto.

But do they deserve to hang?

Toronto Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti seems to think so: “As a city, a province and nation, capital punishment should be something we are talking about,” he declared, after the Eaton’s Centre shooting.

“There are times where capital punishment is appropriate,” mused Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in an interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge last January. His government, meanwhile, continues to defy decades of precedent by sitting on its hands while a Canadian citizen, Ronald Smith, awaits execution in Montana.

Ask for justification, and the answer is gore. “Before I answer my honourable colleague’s question,” then-Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Peter Kent said, during Question Period, in March 2009, “I would like to remind him of the two young aboriginal men whose lives were brutally cut short by Ronald Allen Smith, who marched them into a Montana forest and shot them execution style.”

Conservatives depict depravity, cruelty, and criminality so starkly for good reason: it sells. By appealing to passion, rather than reason, in support of their crime-and-punishment agenda, they seek to cloak vengeance in the guise of justice. They play to the same primal impulses—the same base human instincts—that argue for the swift execution of a dictator, or the abrogation of a tyrant’s stubborn defenders’ freedom of speech.

Of course, to place Magnotta, Husbands, or Smith in the same category as Mubarak, Gadhafi, and Taylor is largely ludicrous. But brutality and barbarism are born of the same darkness, to whatever degree. They provoke the same righteous fury, and they demand the same countervailing virtue in response: forbearance.

There is, after all, no quantum of due process that can alter the equivalence of murderous instincts. To indulge our own in pursuit of vengeance is to indulge the whims of murderers themselves. Neither they nor we are the rightful agents of cosmic justice; there is no place for the state in the karma of the nation.

The phrase “law and order” appears nowhere in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Neither, for that matter, do the words “crime” or “punishment,” except to prohibit cruel and unusual forms of the latter. Our constitutional commitment is, instead, to “fundamental justice.” Such justice requires forbearance–mercy, even–unless we intend to accept the barbarity of madmen as our own.

Hence the raft of national and international legal instruments that outlaw the death penalty, including Pierre Trudeau’s Bill C-84 in 1976, and the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Canada joined in 2005. And while capital punishment falls farthest from the pale, it is not alone; earlier this year, a judge of the Ontario Superior Court found the Conservative government’s throw-away-the-key mandatory minimum sentences to be unconstitutional.

That Mubarak and Taylor were both spared execution speaks to the resilience of what is slowly becoming a global consensus–with some obvious exceptions. Our neighbours to the south are one. Saudi Arabia is another. Yet, as Gadhafi’s fate illustrates, mob justice can prove impossible to subdue. And when we allow our leaders to use our bloodiest impulses against us, for political gain, we join the mob ourselves.

Death, wrote the English poet John Donne, is the slave of kings and desperate men. We can deter or quarantine the desperate—or destroy them, if exigency demands. But, in a democracy, the king answers to us, and so does his slave. In this country, we still choose to set him free.
The problem with partisan punches

By Jordan Owens - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 4:30 PM - 0 Comments

The kerfuffle over Thomas Mulcair’s dual citizenship illustrates one the biggest problems with our political discourse today: too much time taking cheap shots, not enough time focusing on the problems facing Canadians. Or: too much time taking cheap shots, not enough time tending to your own backyard. I’m a partisan hack, so either will do.

You’ll never hear me say that partisan politics is bad. It’s good for people to be reminded of the things that politicians do and say. We should be electing people who represent the best of us, so it’s important that we hold our politicians to a certain standard. Plus, partisan politics has often paid my bills. By all means, keep on keeping on.

Hypocrisy, though, is a different story. Continue…
After the convention: the Liberals’ sweet thereafter

By Adam Goldenberg - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 4:07 PM - 0 Comments

“The country does not need another opposition party; the country needs another government.” For a political party pinning its hopes on redemption, it is a worthy sentiment, one that might have fit nicely into any of Bob Rae’s many speeches at last weekend’s Liberal convention. Too bad Joe Clark got there first.

The words were Clark’s, just before he won the leadership of the once-mighty Progressive Conservatives in 1998. In the end, Clark was right. His party returned to government, albeit as the junior partner in the right-wing coalition that now governs Canada.

Theirs is a cautionary tale, one that should check the surge of self-confidence that follows any successful partisan powwow. Last weekend’s Liberal convention certainly met that standard. This was not the usual nexus of nostalgia that many of us have come to expect from our party’s get-togethers. We did not sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. But it’s what happens from now on that counts the most.

For delegates, that means a drowsy trip home and a morning-after spent scouring the papers, delighting in good news stories and cursing any trace of cynical punditry. For journalists, it means hours of agony, trying to figure out some creative new way to rain on the party’s parade.

For Bob Rae, this week brings a “cross-Canada skills and trades tour.” Continue…
Future anonymous Liberal source-watch

By Jordan Owens - Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 2:56 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Blair Gable

In the upcoming days, watch for criticism in the media—probably by anonymous Liberal sources (not to be confused with Anonymous Liberal Sources)—of the decision to allow the leader to veto policies. You should also expect criticism of the other major constitutional change to take place this weekend: the process to select the next leader has been opened to include non-member “Liberal supporters,” in addition to card-carrying members.

The objection by these folks will be that membership is now twice-devalued. Members don’t get final say over the party leader, and they don’t get final say over party policies. This is easily summarized and easily stated, so it will be easily repeated by those who agree. And when boiled down to that level of simplicity, it sounds dangerous, which makes it even more headline-grabby. Continue…
Rae, party of one?

By Adam Goldenberg - Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 12:27 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Blair Gable

Each morning, the Liberal party’s press office issues a notice to journalists, describing the day’s events. Today’s closing act, it says, is a “Speech by Liberal Leader Bob Rae.”

Among his audience, there are those who think that his job title is missing a word. You won’t find it on the Liberal website, either. “Interim” has been trimmed. But despite his best efforts, when Rae speaks today, those three little syllables will be on every delegate’s mind.

By refusing to confirm or deny his own ambitions, the interim leader has put himself—and his party—in an unenviable position. If he pulls his punches this morning, he’ll disappoint delegates who flew across the country for a partisan pep rally. But if he hits it out of the park, he’ll face renewed calls for clarity about his own intentions: why would he be doing such a good job as interim leader if he didn’t want to keep the job? It’s a ludicrous question, of course, but it’s Rae’s dilemma, distilled: as far as many Liberals are concerned, he’s stuck between a big black block and a leadership race. Continue…
Liberals haven’t ruled out a primary system

By Jordan Owens - Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 8:31 AM - 0 Comments

Update: they have now ruled it out.

After a long floor debate that was slowed by technical difficulties and points of order, Liberals will continue voting this morning on constitutional amendments, including one on establishing staggered regional voting days.

Having voted last night to create a non-member “supporter” category that will be able to participate in the selection of the next leader without becoming a card-carrying Liberal, delegates decided to keep the nomination of local candidates a privilage of leadership.

This morning, keep watch to see whether or not delegates will continue to reform the process by which the next Liberal leader is chosen. Staggered regional voting days—the Canadian equivalent of the US presidential primaries—could be an interesting discussion. Continue…
Leave Peter C. Newman alone!

By Adam Goldenberg - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 11:05 PM - 0 Comments

“There’s a guy out there peddling a book talking about the death of the Liberal Party of Canada,” mused Michael Ignatieff yesterday. “What is he talking about?”

It was another easy standing ovation at Peter C. Newman’s expense. Amid the heady hoopla of this convention, the octogenarian author of When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada has been second only to Stephen Harper as an object of derision and ridicule. Don’t pity the man; scorn sells books.

Listening to some of the speeches this weekend, you’d think that this whole Liberal get-together was all an elaborate attempt to rebut Newman’s argument that the party is on its deathbed. If that’s the case, then it’s a waste of time—not because Newman is right, but because this weekend can’t possibly prove him wrong. Continue…
Ghiz: “It’s important to remember that you don’t always win.”

By Jordan Owens - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 4:07 PM - 0 Comments

Anonymous Liberal Sources stole a moment of PEI Premier Robert Ghiz’s time during his visit to the Liberal biennial convention. Here are some highlights:

JO: What’s it feel like to win? There are a lot of Liberals here who don’t remember what it’s like—or have never known what it’s like. Continue…
Justin Trudeau talks leadership

By Adam Goldenberg - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 2:44 PM - 0 Comments

AG: I imagine you’re being asked pretty frequently this weekend about whether or not you’d consider a run for the party leadership.

JT: Only by media, but yeah.

AG: What do you think it says about the Liberal party or the culture of Canadian politics that you keep getting asked that question? Continue…
Michael Ignatieff’s unfinished business

By Adam Goldenberg - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments

The first thing Michael Ignatieff noticed were my sneakers: black Converse All-Stars. “You’ve got your running shoes on!” he said, ushering us into his Ottawa hotel room. In the dying days of the spring campaign, he had stumped through southwestern Ontario in a bright red pair of the same, sprinting to shore up Liberal votes in ridings the party once took for granted. We lost all but one of them on Election Day.

That was eight months ago. Today, Ignatieff is a recovering politician with unrequited dreams. “I didn’t get there,” he told delegates last night. “God knows I tried. I didn’t leave anything on the table. I gave it everything I had. But I didn’t get there.”

This morning, he spoke with Anonymous Liberal Sources about the journey.

AG: Anyone who watched last night saw you showered with affection and respect. How did that feel? Continue…
A peek behind the curtain

By Jordan Owens - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 2:04 PM - 0 Comments

Liberal party presidential candidate Mike Crawley’s war room is a hub of action; volunteers are assembling swag kits, making stickers, and entering data, all to ensure their candidate becomes the next president of the Liberal party of Canada.

With over 200 volunteers spread out across the country, according campaign spokesperson Nicole DeKort, this is the first opportunity for many to meet in person. Throughout the day, volunteers stop by with information from the floor, so the team can dissect the message and adjust their strategy as needed.

One section of the room is taken up by a screen and projector showing HootSuite, so volunteers can keep track of the conversation on Twitter.

Once voting starts, the purpose of the war room will shift from getting out their message to pulling the vote. The campaign has been collecting contact information for delegates who have pledged their support, and will be making sure every supporter gets to the polls.

Whenever Liberal party politics is at stake, there’s the risk of having temporary battles turn into long-term feuds. According to DeKort, the Crawley campaign is different, because it’s about bringing people together. No matter who wins today’s election—results will be announced tomorrow—Crawley’s team wants to see a united Liberal party turn their focus to the real task at hand: a Federal liberal government in 2015.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to rely on a truly anonymous Liberal source to tell me what goes on in the Sheila Copps campaign war room. At the invitation of friendly volunteers, I waited inside for a communications person, who was then kind enough to remind this former staffer of the First Rule of War Room: no media allowed.

The hallway is just a place for spin.
Ignatieff on Mike Crawley

By Jordan Owens - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

This morning, Anonymous Liberal Sources sat down again with Michael Ignatieff. We talked about his view from the stage at last night’s tribute and his thoughts on what comes next for the Liberals. We’ll have a longer piece later, but will leave you with this snippet where he mentions presidential candidate Mike Crawley:

The party’s got to understand—and Mike Crawley said this last night—the party’s got to see itself as being one public service organization in a very competitive field, all of whom are competing for the allegiance and commitment and brains of the next generation. They’ve got to be big enough to reach out to those groups and say “come on in.” We have no monopoly on public service, we have no monopoly on virtue, and no monopoly on wisdom.
God save the queen

By Jordan Owens - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 7:51 AM - 0 Comments

The Young Liberals of Canada have managed to garner attention with a priority policy resolution calling for the abolition of the monarchy. The reason for doing so? To make the country more democratic. Yet the means by which this resolution will arrive on the convention floor was apparently anything but.

The monarchy resolution had to pass several hurdles before becoming the Young Liberals’ priority resolution. Young Liberal policies originate from clubs, and are then submitted to their local Young Liberals of Canada (YLC) Provincial and Territorial Associations (PTAs). YLC PTAs then vote on the resolutions they receive; those that pass are then to be considered by the YLC’s National Policy Committee, composed of members of the YLC National Executive. The YLC Policy Committee takes the resolutions it is given by the PTAs and decides which one of these is to be given priority status. Continue…
Here come the Ignatieff Scholars

By Adam Goldenberg - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 7:46 PM - 0 Comments

After his speech tonight, Michael Ignatieff will get a nice surprise:

In recognition of his contributions to public life and his vision for a united Canada built on a promise of equality of opportunity, friends and colleagues of Michael Ignatieff have established this fund to help aspiring young Canadians pursue post-secondary education and support their efforts to build a united, progressive Canada for all.

The Michael Ignatieff Scholarships will be open to all Canadian students enrolled in an undergraduate program at a Canadian university, CEGEP or college. Award recipients will be selected taking into account financial need and academic achievement, as well as evidence of involvement with the Liberal Party of Canada or other contributions to the principles of Liberalism, equality of all persons, national unity, and political engagement.
Michael Ignatieff says thank you

By Adam Goldenberg - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 6:47 PM - 0 Comments

The last time Michael Ignatieff addressed a Liberal convention, he had just won the party leadership. I was backstage, watching his speech scroll by on the teleprompter.

“Friends,” he said that day, “I am confident that if we offer our fellow citizens a message of hope, they will ask us to form their next government.”

In the end, our fellow citizens weren’t quite on the same page. But Michael Ignatieff is still hopeful. Continue…
Note to Liberals: please stop talking about marijuana

By Adam Goldenberg - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 6:12 PM - 0 Comments

One says he’s “a proven advocate for members.” Another says he’ll remove “obstacles to grassroots engagement.” A third wants the policy process to be “an effective tool for grassroots members.”

The people running to be the Liberal party’s next National Policy Chair are all preaching to the choir. Their fate is in the hands of Liberal delegates who took a day or two off work to fly to Ottawa to debate Liberal policy resolutions with other Liberals who took a day or two off work to fly to Ottawa to debate Liberal policy resolutions. Continue…
And now, some words from Michael Ignatieff

By Jordan Owens - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 4:27 PM - 0 Comments

Earlier today, Adam and I sat down with our old boss, Michael Ignatieff. We’ll have more for you shortly, but here’s some of what he had to say about the Canadian political landscape.

AG: What is it like to watch the Conservative majority unfold from your vantage point?

MI: Painful. The Prime Minister is saying that we’re now a conservative country. Who does he think he is? What does he think Canada is? It’s as arrogant as when we said it’s a Liberal country. It’s neither a Conservative country nor a Liberal country. It’s just the country, and it’s bigger than all of us. The Canadians that I know are practical, moderate, non-ideological, middle of the road, fiscally conservative, socially progressive, by and large. It doesn’t make them Liberal, doesn’t make them Conservative. I don’t think they’ve moved an iota actually. So when he says the country’s gone conservative, it’s just the kind of arrogance that will ultimately bring these guys down. Just the same way we were brought down by thinking the country was Liberal. There’s a message for us and a message for them.
Keeping it ‘En Famille’?

By Jordan Owens - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 1:45 PM - 0 Comments

Following along with my previous post, the policy process has also taken a digital twist. At previous policy conventions, a floor vote would be held to select resolutions with enough support to be debated at plenary sessions. Instead of holding two in-person votes, the Party has used Liberal.ca to open first round voting to the entire membership. With the first round of voting moved online, priority resolutions will only be voted on by in-person convention-goers once, at a plenary session early Sunday morning.

I’m not sure what this means for En Famille, the Liberal members-only online forum designed for policy discussions—and championed by presidential candidate Ron Hartling. En Famille has largely served as a sandbox where those so inclined could discuss policy amongst themselves—and no one else. If you’re not familiar with En Famille, it’s comparable to the closed Facebook group “Liberals Rebuilding the Liberal Party” in terms of the kinds of issues discussed. Continue…
The ghosts of Liberal backrooms past

By Adam Goldenberg - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:42 PM - 0 Comments

To Canadian political journalists, Liberal fratricide is mother’s milk. Trudeau-Turner begat Turner-Chrétien begat Chrétien-Martin, and Dion-Ignatieff begat Ignatieff-Rae. Liberals only stand behind their leaders, it is said, to stab them in the back.

What rubbish. Sure, there are divisions in the Liberal party. There are divisions in every party. Take an old-time Newfoundland Tory for a pint, and ask him what he thinks of the Reform Party. In the months before the last election, I met at least one New Democrat MP who couldn’t stand Jack Layton—and don’t even get him started on Tom Mulcair.

Political people are, well, political, and that’s both a vice and a virtue. What makes the Liberals different is that internecine warfare is part of the party’s modern mythology, perpetuated by a persistent minority of aging backroom boys who’ve never met a dead horse they don’t want to beat. Continue…
The revolution might be digitized

By Jordan Owens - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:37 PM - 0 Comments

It’s too bad for the Liberals that 2011 wasn’t the year of the social media election. Despite killing it in online metrics, Liberal efforts to cash retweets in at the ballot box were largely unsuccessful. Unfortunately for us humble bloggers, social media remains largely dominated by members of the mainstream media, “web 2.0 experts,” people making slanderous allegations about Julian Fantino, Beliebers, people who aren’t Mike Duffy, and an increasingly large group of folks determined to give me an Ikea gift card.

But do not fear, pyjama-clad fans of weekend-long policy conference webcasts, the Liberal Party of Canada knows the Internet is more than a series of tubes. Continue…
An important party for the weekend

By Adam Goldenberg - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 11:24 PM - 0 Comments

Let’s make one thing clear: the Liberal party is not meeting in Ottawa this weekend.

Yes, there is Liberal convention taking place in our nation’s capital, and yes, many Liberals will be there. But the vast majority of party members—to say nothing of the nearly three million people who voted Liberal in May’s federal election—will be staying home.

Many don’t know it’s happening. Some weren’t interested. Most weren’t invited. But for the next few days, a few thousand delegates will cast votes on their behalf that could change the face of Canadian politics forever. Or so we’re told.

I’m not sold. Continue…
Hey Liberals, where do we go from here?

By Jordan Owens - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 3:48 PM - 0 Comments

When did the wheels fall off the Big Red Machine? Ottawa’s chattering classes are obsessed, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when things went wrong for the Liberal Party of Canada. Do we blame Michael Ignatieff’s leadership, the feuds of the Turner-Chretien-Martin years, or Trudeau’s alienation of the West? Is there some other demon lurking in the shadows; was he waiting for us to be distracted by the Conservative foible of the day before snatching electoral victory from our collective, centrist grasp? Welcome, dear readers, to the Liberal Biennial Convention: Blame Game Edition.

I don’t expect discussion this weekend will stray too far from this narrative. This exercise will be as much about moving forward as it will be about diagnosing our institutional ailments. It will be as much about these two issues combined as it will be about hospitality suites. Such is the futility of Ottawa.

Settling the question of what went wrong matters, if only because it will determine how we rebuild. Continue…
Celebrating anonymous Liberal sources

By Jordan Owens - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 3:24 PM - 0 Comments

Recently, anonymous Liberal sources have commented on the following issues:
As a former communications staffer in Michael Ignatieff’s OLO, I’m as big a fan of the well-placed source as the next gal. But it’s a privilege to influence the national dialogue and that’s the best anonymous Liberals can do?

Allow me: Continue…