Two quick hits for Friday:

-Awww…Harper’s made a new friend. Isn’t that cute? I’ll bet Laureen doesn’t even call him Steve.

–Susan Delacourt has a great article on fixing the big red machine in today’s Star. I’ve been a big advocate of national membership rules for a long time and of trimming the fat on the LPC and it’s really encouraging to see the party heading in that direction. I don’t think I’d want to remove delegated conventions since I’m not convinced “one member, one vote” is any more democratic or produces better leadership choices but the current process can certainly be tweaked a bit.

Cherniak has some good comments about it, as well as a recap of his chat with Steve MacKinnon. I talked to Steve (MacKinnon, not Harper) after I posted about national memberships in March and it sounded like he had a good idea of the problems facing the party and of what needs to be done to improve things. The first step is always admitting you have a problem so I’m hopeful that the necessary changes can be made.