Their Own Worst Enemies

When the Liberal Party of Canada was stomped almost to death in May of last year, the smarter of their partisans started making noises that indicated that they were at least self-aware enough to know what their continued survival would require. At the top of their list were two self-evident items: "stop the civil war" and "no more stunt leaders."

It is my considered opinion that the Grits made a fatal mistake when they essentially browbeat Bob Rae from seeking the permanent leadership. He is easily the most formidable figure in the party today. He has more and more varied political experience than all of the other federal leaders combined.  Not only has he run two political parties, he's been an opposition leader, he's headed a majority government and, most importantly, he negotiated an accord to unseat a minority Conservative government, which is something that could come in handy at some point in the near future.

Most Tory partisans around the country suggested that Rae would be the easiest Liberal to beat. This is because most Tory partisans never think things through and always think that their guy is going to win. This is utterly academic at this point, but I think that if Rae won the permanent leadership (and it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't have,) Stephen Harper would have declined to run for another term. And Harper is the Conservative Party of Canada. There is no groomed or natural successor, just a machine hack, like Jason Kenney.

As I've said before, Rae's perceived greatest weakness - his term as the NDP premier of Ontario - is actually his greatest strength. Yes, Rae ran staggeringly high deficits at Queen's Park, but they barely compare to the deficits that Harper himself created after blowing his way through a $13 billion dollar surplus with political stunts.

Imagine Harper bringing Rae's deficits in a televised debate. All Rae would have to do is turn to Harper and say, "I was a socialist back then, and socialism tends to create deficits. What's your excuse?" I've gamed such an exchange out for years now, and I can't think of a way that Harper could reply to that without looking foolish.

Stephen Harper is not an idiot. If I can envision that exchange, chances are that he can, too. And it would be the most devastating moment in a debate since the "You had an option, sir" debacle in the 1984 debates.

After Rae was effectively forced out of contention, the LPC immediately did what they always do, and what is partially responsible for putting them where they are now, they started looking for a stunt leader-messiah figure. Luckily, they didn't have to look very far. After all, they have Justin Trudeau.

If I were a Conservative strategist (and it's important to remember that Harper was a strategist before he was a candidate,) I'd be licking my chops for the opportunity to run against Trudeau the Younger.

Trudeau has run nothing larger than a classroom, teaching teenagers the one thing they require absolutely no help with, drama. Even though he has served in Parliament longer than his late father did when he won the leadership, Pierre was also a high-level Cabinet minister when he won the prize. So far as I know, young Justin hasn't sponsored or introduced any legislation. His father introduced revolutionary changes to the Criminal Code of Canada before assuming the leadership.

More importantly, Pierre was cool where Justin is hot. The elder Trudeau was unflappable, especially on television, whereas the son is a hothead with a pretty formidable temper. When Justin gets angry, he says and does remarkably stupid things.

Aside from being pretty, his genealogy and his ability to beat the tits off of an Indian senator that smokes more than even I do, Justin is known for exactly two things; an interview where he suggested that Stephen Harper might force him to become a Quebec separatist, and screaming that Environment Minister Peter Kent is a "piece of shit" in the House of Commons.

We're only now learning the depth of the opposition research that the Tories have on Trudeau and their skill in deploying it.

The riding of Calgary Centre is the, well, center of the Conservative universe. There's a surprisingly close by-election there tomorrow. Last week, Trudeau supporter (and the brother of Ontario's disgraced soon-to-be ex-premier) David McGuinty said that Alberta Conservatives should "go back to Alberta," causing an immediate appearance problem in a riding that the Grits might actually win for the first time in nearly 40 years.

The very next day, remarks by Trudeau from a 2010 interview were put out by Sun Media, almost certainly leaked to them by the Tory war room.

“Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda. It doesn’t work,” Trudeau said.

When Lagace asked whether Trudeau believed Canada was better off “when there are more Quebecers in charge than Albertans,” Trudeau replied in the affirmative.

“I’m a Liberal, so of course I think so, yes. Certainly when we look at the great prime ministers of the 20th century, those that really stood the test of time, they were MPs from Quebec ... This country — Canada — it belongs to us.”

Oh. That can't be good for the party's prospects in Alberta, and therefore the country, can it?

Look, I don't know why any right-thinking person would run for the Liberal leadership. The party is broke, demoralized and without their traditional place in Canadian politics. Anyone that has read Peter Newman's When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada knows that rebuilding the party is going to be a near impossible task. The next Liberal leader is very probably going to be the last.

Please don't tell me about polls that show a Trudeau majority government restoration for the Grits. Polling about hypothetical elections with hypothetical leaders are nothing more than, well, hypothetical. And that's doubly true when you're talking about a candidate that the public knows little more about than that's hawt and has a cool last name.

As I mentioned earlier, whenever Justin opens his mouth, there's a really good chance that something crazy and stupid is going to pop out. The odds of it happening grow exponentially when he's pissed off.

Yet even with a party whose wheels have fallen off to the point that they've lost over a 100 seats in three elections, some of their more flamboyant commentators are trying to impose a litmus test. Specifically, contenders are being told that if you've lost a previous election or even your seat in Parliament, you needn't apply for the leadership. Unsurprisingly, that excludes every candidate but Trudeau and the still undeclared Marc Garneau.

That thinking goes beyond stupid and veers into the insane.

I should note that I'm not a Liberal supporter. I'm on the record as saying that the party's physical existence sickens me and that the world will finally be a better place when they're finally buried.

But, as you would assume by his nom de plume, Calgary Grit doesn't share my views. In fact, he's on the record as saying that this "only sitting members need apply" standard is wildly silly.

John Diefenbaker: This guy could put together losing campaigns more consistently than the Toronto Maple Leafs. Before being elected, he lost twice federally, twice provincially, and once for Mayor. Despite being a five-time loser, the Tories went with Dief in ’56, and he rewarded them with the largest majority in Canadian history.

Mackenzie King: Even though he lost his seat in both the 1911 and 1917 elections, the Liberals put their faith in King at Canada’s first leadership convention in 1919. King would go on to become the longest serving PM in Commonwealth history…losing his own seat twice more along the way.

Jack Layton: Jack beat out three candidates with seats at the 2003 NDP leadership convention, even though he’d never been elected to any position higher than Councillor. He’d lost in his bid for Mayor, finished fourth in the 1993 federal election, and lost by over 7,000 votes in the 1997 federal election. Despite this track record of defeat, the Dippers went with Jack and he rewarded them by becoming the NDP’s most successful leader ever.

Brian Mulroney: Brian hadn’t even won a City Council election when he became PC leader, and had lost in his previous leadership bid. In his first ever election, he won over 200 seats.

Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, John Turner: Although they had perfect records in their own ridings, all three lost a leadership race before becoming Liberal leader. Losers.

Stephen Harper: Harper did not hold a seat when he ran for Canadian Alliance leadership in 2002. At that time, he had a rather uninspiring “1 win and 1 loss” record when it came to local elections – and remember, that’s a .500 record from a Calgary conservative. 

If you love history the way I do, you might start to see a pattern developing here.

The fact is that Liberals, being Liberals, haven't asked themselves what happens if Trudeau doesn't win the leadership, which is entirely possible. We're still a long way from April 14, 2013. And who can say what landmine statements are in Trudeau's past and future, waiting to go off? If Justin manages to blow his own legs off, who takes over? If he assumes the leadership mortally wounded, what happens to the party before the 2015 election puts it out of Canada's misery forever?

All things being equal, it would probably be better if the next leader wasn't a sitting MP. The biggest tasks that the next leader is going to have are raising a boatload of money and recruiting candidates that aren't laughingstocks, which often happens to third parties. Just ask the NDP.

The single most devastating attack on Micheal Ignatieff didn't come from Stephen Harper. It was launched by then-NDP leader Jack Layton, who tagged Iggy for almost never being in the House. Do they really want to face that in the next leader's debate?

Moreover, who exactly going to pay attention to the third party leader in Parliament? It's not like the NDP's Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough set the world on fire with their parliamentary performances. Progressive Conservative Joe Clark was a former prime minister who managed to remain "Joe Who?" and Peter MacKay abolished the party entirely without anyone noticing. Ed Broadbent and the aforementioned Mr. Layton were only paid attention when they were significant risks to displace the Liberals.

The LPC is so damaged that the new leader can't be in the House of Commons if he or she wants a halfway credible election machine. But a leader who is also an MP will be savaged for not being there.

Any reasonable analysis suggests that it's better for them to not have a leader sitting in the House, who everyone will ignore, anyway. If nothing else, a sitting Liberal leader will get all kinds of local news coverage when he or she visits, which is the kind that an upstart should want! When exactly was the last time the Parliamentary Press Gallery elected a prime minister, anyway? Oh, right ...

There's an (albeit outside) chance that Teenage Jesus won't win his stunt leadership bid. And if he wins, I don't see a scenario where a murderous cyborg like Stephen Harper doesn't annihilate him in an election. And who builds the party if Trudeau wins and is chained to Parliament Hill?

The LPC's guru-making consultant class is not just wrong, but stunningly so. And that shouldn't surprise anyone. They've been the driving forces behind the Grit's Forty Years Civil War and the party's steadily diminishing electoral returns over the last decade.

Keep listening to them, and you won't exist at all in 2016.