Haldimand "74% of Canadians voted Against the Liberals in the Federal Election 2008"

It seems the Liberal Party has been given yet another chance to revamp itself, although not long ago we heard the same thing when Dion won the race. How many Liberals does it take to screw in a light bulb anyway? Just a reminder that in the last Federal election 74% of Canadians voted "against" the Liberal Party!

Here is a good read regarding how some Liberals feel in regards to the "race" for yet another leader;

Bitterness lingers for Rae's loyalists

Liberal MP Bob Rae makes his way to a news conference in Ottawa Dec. 9, 2008, where he announced he's withdrawing from the leadership race. "It's just politics. It's not the end of the world here, folks," Rae said.

While Rae looks serene, his seething supporters accuse Ignatieff camp of rumour-mongering

Dec 10, 2008 04:30 AM

Joanna Smith Staff Reporters

OTTAWA–He realized that he just couldn't win.

Toronto MP Bob Rae looked neither dejected nor weary – two of the many adjectives used to describe his demeanour following his loss in the Liberal leadership race two years ago – as he explained why he had changed from defiant to co-operative in less than a day.

But while supporters publicly applauded his decision to withdraw from his second campaign yesterday, privately there was bitterness over a perception of rumour-mongering at Rae's expense by the Michael Ignatieff campaign. Said one Rae backer: "This is all pretty difficult to accept."

Rae acknowledged yesterday some of his supporters had to be convinced the decision was for the best. He said he would still be vying to become Liberal leader if party officials had decided in a late-night conference call to consult with all party members instead of the few hundred elite, who likely favour his old friend and rival Ignatieff.

But they didn't.

"I slept very soundly last night because I went to bed without knowing what the decision was. When I woke up this morning, I read the decision. I said, `Well, that's it,'" Rae, 60, told reporters yesterday after clearing the way for Ignatieff to succeed outgoing Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.

"You have to be realistic about these things. It's just politics."It's not the end of the world here, folks. I mean, a decision had to be made."

If this past week was a long time in the life of Dion, then Rae must have been reeling from a single day.

Rae had been defiant Monday afternoon as he portrayed himself as the champion of grassroots democracy opposing the "coronation" of his rival.

"I don't think coronations are generally very successful in political parties," Rae told reporters in Toronto Monday as he pushed for the party to hold a one-member-one-vote leadership selection in January.

"Most people believe it's better to have a contest, it's better to have a choice."

The national executive instead chose to consult with the 77 MPs and 58 senators of caucus, defeated candidates from the October election and the presidents of riding associations and commission clubs.

Rae, who officially launched his leadership campaign less than three weeks ago with calls to broaden the party base and even make membership free for life, saw the writing on the wall.

"I recognize that my leadership campaign depended on a whole lot of new members – and it depended on a campaign," Rae said yesterday.

His campaign got off to a rocky start. Rae had to rush a press conference in Ottawa to announce he would be running in order to counter a media report he might not.

A Rae source told the Toronto Star it was difficult to combat all the rumours that weakened Rae: he wouldn't run; his brother John, always a powerhouse in his political campaigns, was ill; former prime minister Jean Chrétien was putting pressure on him to drop out; Rae's ideas for choosing the leader were unconstitutional; and Ignatieff had more than 50 of 77 MPs on board as early as Dec. 1.

In fact, yesterday, Ignatieff's website said 46 MPs had endorsed him.

"The steamroller of the Michael Ignatieff campaign – Bob wouldn't run, John was sick ... it just never stopped," said the source.

"The strategy was to show Michael was inevitable. It's been going on since Oct. 14 and now Mr. Ignatieff has won without having to make one speech on policy."

He said it was hard to wake up yesterday to a race that was essentially finished, knowing "we never had a chance to have a vote."

Several MPs came over to Ignatieff's camp in the last couple of days, including Toronto MPs Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt) and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Vaughan).

The Ignatieff team ran a telephone blitz to simultaneously bring people onside and push Rae (and New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc) to drop out.

The message for Rae, according to an Ignatieff strategist, was "to paint a scenario in which it was better to come over to Michael as opposed to being humiliated if he chose to stay."

Last Thursday, after Dion's amateurish videotaped address to the nation about the prospect of a coalition becoming the government, Karygiannis publicly said Dion had to go and was sternly criticized by Ignatieff. But Karygiannis told the Star he had already made the point in caucus earlier that day, saying his riding association favoured the coalition accord – but not with Dion.

Karygiannis had been talking to Rae's people but, by last weekend, a Liberal MP had arranged for him to speak to Ignatieff and Monday he announced his support for his leadership.

"I have a sense that my skills will be appreciated in the new Liberal order," Karygiannis said last night. "I feel (Ignatieff) is appreciative of my courage (in speaking out in caucus) and the skills I can bring to the table."

He said he received congratulations from a lot of people for his bluntness last week, adding some insisted the party could not accept Rae as leader.

Yesterday, Rae said nice things about "Michael" – whose leadership campaign had been so polarized against his own in 2006 that it became a major factor in allowing Dion to come up the middle – although he made it clear he did not speak to Ignatieff before announcing his decision as he did not want anyone to suspect he had been offered a plum in return.

Ontario Liberal MPP Greg Sorbara (Vaughan), who helped engineer Rae's transformation from former New Democrat premier of Ontario to Liberal leadership candidate in 2006, said his friend likely realized there was little point delaying the inevitable when so much was at stake.

"I think it was a huge step for him simply to acknowledge that," Sorbara said. "I mean, we've all been in contests where before the end of the contest the result is clear.

"If we put our personal interest – the interest of being on stage and being in the spotlight – ahead of the interest of the common good of the party, I think that's one thing. I think Bob did the opposite."

Doing the opposite meant giving up on the dream that brought him to the Liberal party in the first place – a dream he yesterday called a "past aspiration" – but Rae stressed yesterday staying on was not a paradox.
Others complimented Rae. Toronto Liberal Michael Levitt, who had strongly supported Rae, said yesterday he feels "we're all singing from the same hymn book now. Bob acted to reunite the party and bring us all together in the interests of everybody."

He added: "There was a lot of rumour and innuendo and I don't know who said what or when or why, but I think the Conservatives also did a lot to stir up trouble."

Richard Clausi, president of the Kitchener-Waterloo Liberal riding association, has been fighting through a national petition for a greater grassroots voice from the membership, particularly in the choice of leader.

"We truly need to evolve our grassroots. If you want grassroots support, you've got to support the grassroots," said Clausi.

However, he said last night he understood Rae's decision, because "we are in a time of crisis and we have to have our ducks lined up.
"What he did had real class."

"We want to win this," Rae's wife Arlene Perly Rae told the Toronto Star in November 2006 during his first bid for the leadership.

"But there is a side of this (leadership race) that says no one is dying ... . This is not the absolute core of life. The core of life, at the very heart of things, is about relationships."

And yesterday Rae suggested he looked forward to one of his relationships being characterized in a new way.

"The last couple of years, of course, there's always been this issue of what might or might not happen if and when and whatever," Rae said.
"That's all gone now and I'm quite happy to work with Michael as a great friend and a great supporter. I think you may all be surprised and you might have to write about something else."

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/551334