I have acquired a huge backlog of things to write about, which ironically is more paralyzing than enabling. All sorts of drafts and re-writes are rolling around in my head, and I hope to have this blog up and running again with semi-regular posts in short order. Thank you for your patience.
In the mean time, I leave you with this quick prediction. With so much environmental, economic, and political uncertainty in the world right now, it’s hard to know where anything is headed. I can, however, confidently foresee the following. Having now endorsed not just one, but two Liberal leaders as prime minister, Jack Layton will oppose his own inclusion in the next televised leaders’ debate. You heard it here first.
Yes, making ill considered pacts and alliances can have devastating long term affects on one’s credibility, and a party’s fortune, as you point out. Even touting potential coalition senate seats can lead to the Gov’t accelerating efforts to fill the vacant 18 seats, and proroguing parliament.
Say, did you happen to catch last night’s “most watched political panel” – At Issue? What did you make of this discussion, transcribed below:
Peter Mansbridge: OK, the reverse question, “the Worst Political Play of the Yearâ€, Chantal.
Chantal Hebert: Oh, there are so many to choose from…
Peter Mansbridge: Yeah, aren’t there?
Rex Murphy : Yeah there are.
Chantal Hebert: …including what triggered this parliamentary crisis, so, but I’ll go for long term and the environment – Stephane Dion’s decision to go into an election on the green tax: a) because he couldn’t carry it off, but b) because he killed the green tax by doing it, and it was a reckless decision. He wasn’t ready to do it, and the Liberals also showed that they were not able to articulate a program on the environment. They used the green tax to go in all kinds of low Liberal pet project directions, and what they leave is a legacy, and with Stephane Dion the legacy is, is that the green tax, to all intents and purposes, its become a dirty word in Canadian politics.
Peter Mansbridge: A party policy that disappeared literally overnight.
Chantal Hebert: It was defensible, it…
Allan Gregg: …it’s a disgrace, it will not come back in the next two years.
Chantal Hebert: well…, no, it’s tarred now, and it’s gone, and it needn’t have happened. There was plenty of advanced warnings. I think, over the long term, that was probably the Worst Political Play.â€
Thank goodness the GPC has, and is well known for other policies, other than the environment and a carbon tax. Unfortunately, many are even more left wing than “low Liberal pet project directions”.
Expect the GPC party marginalization to continue with a new liberal leader, Ignatieff.
That’s what happens when you blindly put all your eggs in one ill considered basket.
I haven’t laughed this hard in ages!