A Liberal gets it right...

In his blog post, St. Pierre argues that centrism is an electoral strategy, not a political philosophy, and that the Liberals should now start listening more closely to the current wisdom of — yes — Preston Manning, founder of the old Reform Party.

Manning uses an iceberg metaphor to describe politics — parties in themselves represent the 10 per cent above the surface, while ideas, movements and activism form the 90 per cent you don’t see.

“I fear the Liberals have become ice cubes — a party for a party’s sake, and an accumulation of people interested in being in a party and implementing a party’s vision,” St. Pierre wrote...(link)

My thoughts exactly.

The Trouble with the Liberals is they'll never see things that way.

They will forever be a party "of the center." A party that hugs onto a political position that shifts with the blowing wind. A party without a base.

A party that stands for nothing (except maybe to get elected).

A party of nothing.

Osama: Good Riddens

In a dramatic late-night appearance in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that American military and C.I.A. operatives had finally cornered Bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader who had eluded them for nearly a decade. American officials said Bin Laden resisted and was shot in the head. He was later buried at sea.(link)

The world is a better place this morning.

Count Iggy Needs A Day Off

I'm just speechless at this quotation from the esteemed Count:

“The Liberal party is a democratic institution, it’s a fact. I want to stay. I want to continue. I want to win this election on the second of May but my faith is not just in my hands. Hey folks, it’s in the hands of millions of Canadian voters out there,” he told reporters and supporters outside Liberal candidate Mark Holland’s office in Ajax, Ont.

“After the election, we see where we are,” Ignatieff said.(link)

I'm confused... No I think the Liberal leader is confused... "... my faith is not just in my hands."? Wha...? That sentence makes no sense.

"The Liberal party is a democratic institution, it’s a fact..."

Really? The party of the "friendly dictatorship" that governed in the 1990s?

It gets better:

"We know how to get a deficit under control, we know how to make promises and keep them," Ignatieff said.

(...)

"Mr. Harper hates everything the Liberal party stands for," Ignatieff said. "Mr. Harper has no vision for Canada, but he has a very sharp vision for the Conservative Party of Canada which is to drive a stake through the heart of the Liberal party."(link)

This guy needs some caffeine and pronto.

Does he honestly believe he can use a promise-keeper line ala Mike Harris? He's leader of the party that backtracked on the GST, NAFTA, the "democratic deficit", etc., etc....

And I'm even more confused about Count Iggy's outrage of the "hatred" that Harper shows to the Liberal Party.

I know the Liberal leader was out of the country at the time, but his predecessors made it a priority to destroy the PC's and the Reform Party with an efficiency that would make Karl Rove blush. That's politics. Does the Count really expect us to believe that he wouldn't "drive at stake through the heart" of the Tories if he had the chance?

On top of it all he has failed to realize the blunder he made making that statement. Usually people only talk about "driving a stake through the heart" when they are referring to an unearthly mythological demonic creature. In effect he's saying that the Liberal Party is a member of the undead. Now I realize that the Liberals are down to historic lows in the polls, but I for one do not believe in Vampires or Vampiric Parties and have no intent on supporting them.

Partisanship and joking aside, in all sincerity the Liberal leader needs to take a day off. He's obviously exhausted himself - his entourage should be reading him the riot act at this point because all he's doing by pressing forward is to make more folly for himself and his party.

Why Traditional Media Is Dying

This election is giving plenty of reasons why Canadians are increasingly tuning out the traditional media establishment. (To be frank I wanted to title this post "Gutless Media Jerks" but consider this my good deed of the day).

Most recently we have exhibit one: Heckling reporters.

A reporter asked Harper recently whether he'd hypothetically "accept" a decision of the Governor General to allow an opposition coalition to govern.

To which Harper replied, as any politician with a half brain would, that he wasn't going to answer hypothetical questions.

That should have been good enough. The reporter got his shot at the Tory leader. Time to move on to other attempts to make Harper foul up - after all that reporter needs a juicy story doesn't he?

Instead he pressed Harper further. To which the Conservative crowd booed.

Now, you would think that might be a sign to said reporter that he might have crossed a line there. Instead it has become about how Tory supporters want to silence the press, believe their leader infallible, and are plain simply barbarian hoardes or alien kitten-eating devils.

Exihibit two: Jack's Massage.

Layton had a massage 15 years ago. Only problem is that the massage parlor he went to was suspected of being a bawdy house. The police questioned him. No charges were laid. Nothing's happened since.

To put it simply: who cares?

Certainly not Canadians. Canadians care about putting food on the table and making coffee in the morning. Whatever alleged infidelity Jack Layton may have committed 15 years ago doesn't rank higher up on that list than paying the bills, or getting the newborn feed. Gilles Duccepe and Stephen Harper recognize this and have refused to comment on the story.

Sun TV News was supposed to report the REAL news. Be the voice that the rest of media wasn't. This trash reporting does none of that.

I think the real moral of the story here is don't take massages ... I kid.

Exhibit three: The Liberal Disconnect.

I swear if I read one more article about how the Liberals ran such an amazing campaign but just can't seem to translate it into votes I'm going to puke.

I don't want to kick a guy when he's down, but in all fairness Iggy's campaign was far from flawless.

He had a candidate in Quebec that turned out to be a white supremacist, a gaffe on the coalition question on day one, a lackluster debate performance, and an inability to stay on message just to name a few problems.

I think it was that last point that was the worst. What was the Liberal ballot question again? Oh ya - Are you better off now after 5 years of Stephen Harper?

Whatever happened to that message was lost in Iggy's bizzare "Rise Up" chants that I can only assume that he made up while high on medical marijuana on the Liberal campaign bus.

Maybe Iggy should've had a more scripted message. Maybe he should have focused on trying to control the story just a bit more. Maybe he should have limited what he said and limit the "off-the-cuff" remarks he's so fond of.

Those things are quite frankly more plausible reasons for Iggy's failure then an apparent magical "disconnect" that can't be explained.