The swirling tides of politics in Canada appear to have capsized Bob Rae's leadership campaign. Given his apparent willingness yesterday to fight on and the Party rules that hindered the attempt to coronate Michael Ignatieff this contest might have played out in a much more divisive process.
A long fight for the leadership would only have played into HarProrogue's hands. To me, it appears that Mr. Rae was guided, at least in part, by a desire to tackle the greater enemy. For this he deserves a lot of credit and has shown true leadership credentials. As with any democratic office, Mr. Ignatieff's leadership would be stronger were it not based on acclamation. This is especially true when the other candidates have dropped out as is the case in the current circumstances.
The decision by Mr. LeBlanc to drop out yesterday was based on an evaluation of the current political situation, realistic evaluation of his chances and under the expectation that he will be well placed to take another run in the future. Mr. Rae's decision is all the more noble since this was his last opportunity to reach for the brass ring.
The entire episode reinforces the point that the Party must adopt a one member one vote system to elect leaders in the future. This would have provided the flexibility to avoid this
less than fully democratic process.
(I suppose this means I will have to take down my Iggy joke).Recommend this Post
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
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2 comments:
Further to your post here, there is a good article in the Globe From Ignatieff's problem to his biggest asset
Peter Mansbridge did a 1/2 hour live interview with Harper this afternoon. It will be rebroadcast this evening on CBC's The National.
That was a very interesting hint to Ignatieff. If he plays nice he might get some support from Radwanski:).
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