Even good news is bad news for Dion

Travers is wrong about Dion not making a case for not having an election now. Dion has been making the case for delaying the election for a long time saying typically that Canadians do not want an election now and that the Liberals will bring about an election at a time of their choosing. Rae merely adds a neat sound byte of rhetorical claptrap about strategic patience.
The kingmakers in the Liberal party and the press have long been upset that the wrong person won the leadership of the Liberal party. We have the same situation federally with the Liberals as the Conservatives have in Alberta with the difference being that Stelmach has won a recent election hands down so that any internal opposition has been reduced to silence. Dion would be well advised to tell Rae to stuff his strategic patience and demand a takedown of the Conservatives. Things are getting worse for Dion not better.

Even good news is bad news for Dion

Mar 20, 2008 04:30 AM
James Travers

OTTAWA - Bob Rae is just too good to be entirely true to Stéphane Dion. By-election ballots were hardly counted this week before the former Ontario NDP premier and Liberal leadership contender put the party's Montreal Mistake into perspective.

Even as he praised, Rae began burying Dion by capturing in two words a concept that for months tongue-tied the leader. Far from being short of guts or principles, Liberals are staying shrewdly focused on the next election by picking their best moment to defeat Conservatives. Liberals are, as Rae says succinctly, exercising "strategic patience."

Swallow that with a grain of salt. There's an element of Rae making a virtue of the party's necessity of delaying an election it isn't ready to fight or win.

But however imperfect the case, someone had to make it and it's symptomatic of Liberal problems that it took so long.

In Parliament, in editorials and on TV panels the party is being eviscerated by the jagged knife of dismissive humour. Laughingstock is a synonym for loser so Liberals must quickly make the case that what isn't funny is how Conservatives, even limited by a minority, are changing the country.

That's where the by-elections were supposed to help and, up to a point, will. Adding Rae and Martha Hall Findlay to Michael Ignatieff reinforces a team increasingly identified with those who lost the leadership. Each adds real-world experience and, in Rae's case, it gets the priceless knowledge that comes with winning an election and losing a government. Together they should offer an alternative to a vision Conservatives know isn't shared by two of three Canadians.

There are, however, two obstacles. After effectively endorsing Conservative management of the war, the economy and even the environment, Liberals have only flimsy platform planks. The other is that voters are queasy about government by committee and may ultimately opt for a leader firm in his beliefs instead of one leaning on lieutenants, no matter how strong.

That remains to be seen. Obvious now is that the benefits of Rae's return to Parliament after years at Queen's Park and beyond comes with fine print Dion needs to read slowly and understand clearly.

Like Ignatieff, Rae will provide edgy parliamentary pushback in a place where slurs and character assassination are the new norm. And, again like his old chum and leadership rival, Rae is quip-smart and camera-friendly. Liberals hope those vital partisan assets will lead to flattering comparisons with Conservatives. But Dion should worry that the inevitable compare-and-contrast exercise with his performance will be damning.

After some awkward post-leadership moments, Rae and Ignatieff have their ambition mostly in check. Still, just as politicians never say never, the political pecking order is rarely completely free of subtle positioning.

Liberal leadership tensions wouldn't be eased today even if this week's four by-elections handed Dion a triumph. Instead, and in spite of some breathless deadline reporting drawn more heavily from the east than the west, the Saskatchewan loss and the Vancouver nail-biter will now be remembered as disaster narrowly skirted. Worse for the leader, the Toronto contests were no-contests while the others are covered in his fingerprints.

Building a more robust team is in Dion's interest. What's not is being surrounded until the who-knows-when next election by a supporting cast that constantly reminds the party that it had a choice in Montreal and made a mistake.

James Travers' national affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.





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