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Vote Out Anders – Part 84
At least when Rob Anders is sleeping, he can’t say anything too offensive: And so, [Anders] has a theory. “I actually think one of the great stories that was missed by journalists was that Mr. Mulcair, with his arm twisted behind the scenes, helped to hasten Jack Layton’s death,” he said. “It was very clear […]
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Liberal Leadership Races Through History (Part 2): An Elected King
Previously: Prologue, The 19th Century In 2009, delegates at the Liberal Party convention in Vancouver voted overwhelmingly to choose the party’s next leader using a one-member-one-vote system. This effectively killed the grand old leadership convention, a system the party had used to select its leaders for 90 years – except, of course, in exceptional circumstances […]
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Meet David Merner
On Sunday, long shot Liberal leadership candidate David Merner sat down for brunch with a few Toronto area bloggers, for an informal chat about the future of the Liberal Party. Merner is best known as one of the “unknown” leadership aspirants, so if you’re looking to better know him, I’ve summarized the highlights of our […]
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The Table Stakes
Now that we know who can run for Liberal leader (namely, anyone with $75,000 and 300 signatures), the question becomes who should run: “We have to be careful not to think that somebody who wants to raise his or her profile or somebody who wants to pursue a particular single issue should see this as […]
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Edgar Peter Lougheed 1928-2012
I’ll leave the extended eulogies for those who knew the man and lived through his heyday as Alberta Premier. What I will say is that Lougheed, despite being in politics long enough to make a lot of enemies, is one of the rare politicians who was respected across the political spectrum, and across the country. […]
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Charest’s Loss May Be Harper’s Gain
Although the federal leaders executed Cirque Du Soleil worthy backflips to stay out of the Quebec election, the repercussions of this vote will be far reaching. Having a separatist attack dog in Quebec City – even one on a minority government leash – undeniably changes the dynamic in Ottawa. So who benefits? The Liberals Traditionally, […]
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“Adorable! Cute as a button. A good left hook, you really gotta love him”
The most Twitter followers AND a theme song? John Ivison is right – this race is over. It’s no “Ted Morton is the Man“, but The Justin Trudeau Song is kind of catchy.
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A Reminder of the Unpredictable Nature of By-Elections
Just 17% of Kitchener-Waterlooians voted NDP provincially last fall – nearly the same number who voted NDP federally last spring, in the midst of the orange wave. They hadn’t won the riding since 1943, when they were known as the CCF. So this isn’t a riding with deep NDP roots. And it’s not like the […]
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The Race Is On
The Liberal Party has released the rules for its leadership race, effectively sounding the starting pistol. The finish line will be April 14th in Ottawa, when the leader is announced. There’s still no word on exactly how that vote will be conducted, though I assume there will be a mail/online/phone option for those who don’t […]
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Jean Charest Exits on Top
The headlines haven’t been kind to the outgoing Premier this morning: Jean Charest’s luck finally runs out, Charest’s Gamble Costs Liberals, Charest Has Only Himself To Blame For Quebec Election Defeat. I suspect many of these post-mortems were written before the votes rolled in last night, because the end result tells a far different tale […]