-Adam Radwanski has a good article on cleaning up leadership races. Here’s the crux of it:

To really achieve clean leadership campaigns, along with fair nomination races for local candidates, would require an overhaul of our entire concept of party membership. Rather than sending out recruiters with stacks of membership forms to try to collect (or pretend to collect) $10 fees, we would need to shift to something closer to the American model. In other words, give every voter the option of registering for the party of their choice, and hand every registered Liberal, Conservative or New Democrat a vote in their respective parties’ leaderships or nominations.

It won’t happen, because no party’s MPs will vote for it — not when it means transferring so much power from the elites to the common folk. But it’s the only way that we’ll ever really clean up party politics.

-This has the potential to re-open some old wounds.

–Blue Blogging Soapbox links to an interesting story on the fiscal imbalance:

“The real force behind the fiscal pressures currently faced by provincial governments is competitive tax cutting by provincial governments intent on getting ahead in the race to the bottom,’” concludes the report, compiled by economist Hugh Mackenzie for the left-leaning think tank.

-Speaking of which, Harper’s three priorities for the fall will be:

1. The fiscal (im)balance
2. The environment
3. International competitiveness