Heart of Bitterness

The Liberals' Big Day fast approaches!

Who will emerge as the next leader?

The Lurch-like Michael Ignatieff? The elfin Bob Rae? Perhaps even the semi-literate Gerard Kennedy? Or maybe one of the other guys?

Who can say? A Liberal convention is even harder to call than normal elections since more things go on 'behind the scenes'. As far as anyone can tell Ignatieff has the first ballot support of about 30% of the delegates. It could be higher, no one is sure. But this is sure: If Ignatieff doesn't hit well over 30% of votes on the first ballot, he is doomed.

Why is this? Because all the other candidates hate his guts, including his supposed good buddy Bob Rae. So if the first vote doesn't show definite movement towards Ignatieff, he will receive insignificant increases in support in subsequent balloting.

Assuming that Iggy gets little more than 30% on the first ballot, what will happen? It will be a competition amongst the other candidates to become the 'anyone-but-Ignatieff' candidate who will, I believe, end up winning.

In my heart, I hope it is Dion, but judging from what I have read over the last few weeks my head tells me it will be Rae.

Either Dion or Rae (or even Kennedy!) would be infinitely better than Ignatieff, but recent polls appear to indicate that Rae has the best chance of any of the candidates to help the Liberals deny the Conservatives a majority in the next federal election.

It saddens me, because I would like to see the NDP gain a greater voice in the Commons and Rae (or to a lesser extent Dion) would grab votes from border-line NDP supporters like myself.

On the other hand, if Harper's Conservatives form a majority government, it would be a catastrophe. And according to the aforementioned polls, Bob Rae is the best person to prevent that.

Still, I hope for the miraculous victory of Stéphane Dion. Mostly because I really like Frenchies!

Addendum: I should mention that it seems to me that although Martha Hall Findley was the most personable, well-spoken, and non-'full of shit' of all the candidates, she was never given serious attention. Luckily, she is young, so I hope that we will see more of her in Liberal leadership campaigns to come.