Why the Liberal Party of Canada doesn’t get it

If I were asked why the Liberal Party of Canada is in the hole they are in now; I think the best word I could use to explain it would be “pride”.

The Liberal Party of Canada never really adjusted to the new political realities of 2003 when the Conservative Party of Canada was born, and nearly six years after being ousted from power they still seem to be struggling to adjust.

Sheila Copps in an interview with CBC stated that she felt that Bob Rae should be allowed to run for leader of the Federal Liberals.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/07/pol-liberals-sheila-copps.html

Even though Rae’s leadership index scores are lower then Michael Ignatieff’s.

Source: http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/2011-07-LeadershipE.pdf

We all remember Iggy right? You know, the guy who made John Turner look like a political genius in comparison.

Basically we find ourselves in a situation where Legacy Liberals are still pushing for Rae even though this guy is less popular then the guy they just ran out of the party on a rail for not being popular.

There are times where watching the Liberal Party “high ups” talk politics seems more like a Monty Python parody then it does reality. I cannot wrap my head around folks who seem to be so smart, can be so out of touch with any sort of political reality.

However despite all the missteps and mistakes; the Liberals seem to only be surviving on the mistakes of the NDP.

I look at a guy like Thomas Mulcair as a potential NDP leader who could suck the air out of whatever is left of the Liberal base; however I find some New Democrats referring him as a “Grapefruit” basically Orange on the Outside, Red on the Inside.

Let’s set aside the fact that nearly any new support the NDP found themselves with outside of Quebec since 2004 has come almost exclusively from former Liberal supporters, and now those folks who propelled them to respectability are somehow “bad”.

However if the NDP bungles their leadership race; it would open the door for the Liberals to potentially win back at least in part some of their original powerbase in Ontario, yet even though that potential exists there is an internal interest in making Bob Rae the leader of the party; perhaps the most unpopular man in Ontario politics.

I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the conservation that takes place at Liberal HQ that somehow lead themselves to believe that this is a good idea.

Or for that matter why waiting till two years before the next election is a good idea to select a new leader rather then doing it now and giving this party some direction.

This logic that it will give the Liberals more time to fundraise so they can fight off the attack ads defining their leader for the Tories is interesting; however the Tories could stop fundraising today, and I suspect they would still be in better shape then the Liberals in 2013.

My solution would be to elect a leader who already has definition;
However that seems too simple.