Dion needed to lay down some semblance of a vision and give some hope to the party faithful. He failed miserably.
He leveled the same tired and worn out criticisms and promised more of the same tepid policies. To date the only thing the Liberals have offered the faithful is the promise of “deep” corporate tax cuts. Harper mocked the political optics of such a move and so shall I. The Liberals are not going to out tax cut the Conservatives. If this the best the party can offer, they are doomed to loose the next election and doomed to loose badly.
It is hard to believe this hopelessly temperamentally conservative party was once lead by Trudeau. I have no trouble, however, believing that it was once lead by Paul Martin and John Turner and neither do other Canadians.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Dion demonstrated today, in his Throne Speech response, that he is well past his best-before date.
Paradoxically, a strong "bring the election on" stance - even if probabaly destined to lead to a defeat - would have improved his standing. Now he's shown a further weakness instead, one too many times.
Dion as the Liberal Party's Kim Campbell? It does look that way...
Really quite too bad. I thought Dion was propelled from the grassroots on a platform of "social justice and sustainability," I thought the daring party of Trudeau was back.
I hope I wasn't wrong.
There no evidence that whatsoever that there is something about Dion’s personality that would lead one to believe that the Liberals are going to win with him by promising more of the same. The Liberals best hope of forming the next government, and there seems to be something of emerging consensus in the media about this, is to roll out new policy. This certainly makes sense to me. After all, you would that a policy wonk, and that is precisely what Dion is, would be natural at developing policy. Moreover, while it does not seem to be evident to the Liberal party brass yet, the Liberal party’s grassroots, what left of it anyway, wants to push the Liberal party in a different direction than what Paul Martin took them. Indeed, that was one of the main reasons why Dion was selected as leader in the first place. The grass roots of the party rejected the status quo. Yet Dion has offered the Liberal party only more of the same. Some of the faces of changed and so has some of the messaging, but the party’s policy focus has not changed. As such it no wonder that the party is starting to unravel.
I think you're absolutley right. He came off as a complete talking head today, and didn't use the opportunity to advance his positions, which isn't something that Harper would have shied away from.
Post a Comment