Monday, January 30, 2006

The Christy Crunch?

LiberalLeaderRoulette
WarringFactionsVille


It looks that Liberal leadership race is now wide open:

Canada's outgoing ambassador to the United States, Frank McKenna, announced on Monday he won't run for the leadership of the Liberal Party, saying he's not ready to commit the next decade of his life to politics.


But before you can smack any of the hopefuls down down, the spinmeisters first have to set them up:

Warren Kinsella, a Chretien loyalist, told CTV.ca the Liberals might need a candidate who can appeal to centre-left voters, rather than compete with Conservative prime minister-designate Stephen Harper for centre-right voters.

He explained why: "What a lot of Liberals are not considering is that (NDP Leader) Jack Layton doesn't want to just increase his base; Jack Layton wants to wipe out the Liberal Party."

Manley and McKenna are from the right wing of the party.

From the left, Kinsella suggested former cabinet ministers Allan Rock (now the Canadian ambassador to the UN), Martin Cauchon and Jane Stewart might make strong candidates.

Those individuals are Chretien loyalists. The party has been riven by a feud between those loyal to Chretien and those to Martin.


All of which sounds pretty reasonable - until you get to this:

Kinsella (also) said former B.C. deputy premier Christy Clark, a Martin loyalist, could be a strong candidate.


Sure, Mr. K.

Sure.

Next thing you know you'll be telling us that your side in the great Liberal smackdown war is not pining for this to blow up*.

Sheesh.

With operatives like this running around, we can't help but wonder how the heckfire the Liberals still managed to win 103 seats last week.


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*Which it will, when the trial finally begins later this spring.
btw - if you take the time to have a look at the CBC timeline linked above, a little bit of background info that might be useful is the fact that Bruce Clark is Ms. Clark's brother and Mark Marissen is her husband.

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