Your Sunday reading assignment

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, and what better way to rest then reading though lots of news stories about the Liberal leadership race?

And on a side note, went to see Bobby yesterday. It was pretty good. Not spectacular, but pretty good. I wonder if wannabe Democratic presidential candidates feel the need to compare themselves to Jack and Bobby?

Anyway, on to the news:

*Gerard Kennedy: For my Gerard Kennedy supporting friends that bemoan his supposed lack of media coverage, here’s an article that’s just on him. OK, it’s just a brief profile from Sun Media, but hey, it’s something. I link it though to highlight this passage:

Kennedy has met and spoken with all three of the other top-tier candidates in the race recently, but concedes that any meeting of the minds, so to speak, is most likely with Dion.

“I suppose you could say that if there were any understandings, it might happen there,” he said.

*Dion positions himself as potential kingmaker: I’d quibble with the headline but I know reporters don’t write headlines so I won’t hold it against the author of this interesting, and balanced, profile of Dion in the Montreal Gazette. Here’s an interesting passage:

But Dion's national campaign chairman, Don Boudria, said unlike Ignatieff, Dion arrives at the convention largely unblemished. Dion himself says it's good to be perennially underestimated.

"Exactly how many candidates look better today than three months ago?" Boudria asked. "There are not many in that group."

He said the people who are saying today he can't win Quebec are the same ones who were saying a few months ago that Dion would not get any delegates.

"We have gone from rags to riches, not in money but politically," Boudria said. "The guy has grown and grown by saying, in his Cartesian way, what he thinks about everything."

*Dion sees ‘English’ issue as asset: An interesting spin to put on it, to be sure. But I can see some sense to it. Because with all this spin from the other camps about how bad his English is, when people actually hear him they soon learn it’s not nearly as bad as they’ve been led to believe. Apparently he’s also working with a tutor to improve even further. Funny line here about the tutor:

"In debates, my professor told me, 'When you are agitating yourself too much, you speak too fast, and too high.' To the contrary, she told me, `Speak slow and low' not as much as (candidate) Ken Dryden, but try."

*Who to pick in Liberal race: The Star’s Haroon Siddiqui sizes-up the Liberal field and sees Dion as the best choice, followed by Rae. He likes Kennedy too, but seems to feel he might need a little more seasoning. And Iggy? After summing up why he doesn’t like him, making a few slightly unfair points I think (Haroon is a staunch leftie) he stingingly concludes: “One cannot think of a worse candidate for the Liberal leadership.” Ouch.

Dion is Captain Canada. As the author of the Clarity Act, he showed conviction and courage amid much abuse in his home province. Canadians owe him a deep gratitude for tethering the separatists to the rule of law, Canadian law. It is said that he is not popular in Quebec. Nor was Pierre Elliott Trudeau, at times.

It is said that Dion lacks charisma. So does Harper. And his English is better than the Prime Minister's French.

Once they get past their first-vote commitment to particular candidates, delegates to the Liberal convention should vote for Dion, and if he falls off the ballot, to switch to Rae, one of the most articulate politicians of our age, in either language.

*Sun endorses Dion: Yes, I know, they of the 250 reasons not to vote Liberal, the newspaper chain that makes a mockery of all the right wing whining about a supposedly Liberal media. But as Jason points out, when you’ve got the left (see Siddiqui above), the centre (the Globe yesterday) and now the right gives you the thumbs-up, you must be doing something right. Besides, the Sun sure are pithy writers.

On Iggy

Ignatieff is one of those academics who's "brilliant," but not smart. Plus, he only says what he thinks the audience wants to hear.

On Rae

Rae is the left's Joe Clark. When he has to make a big decision, he makes the wrong one. And usually, it's expensive.

On Kennedy

Gerard Kennedy was a good education minister for Dalton McGuinty in Ontario, if you believe in throwing money at problems to fix them. But with no federal experience and no seat in Parliament, we don't think he's ready. Maybe next time.

On Dion

Which brings us to Stephane Dion, our choice for leader because he was willing to fight for Canadian unity when it counted, despite the fact most of his academic peers in Quebec were separatists, who made his life hell. That took courage. While we think he's out to lunch in his support of the pie-in-the-sky Kyoto accord, we also think he's smart enough and tough enough to be a leader.

*Brison delegates weigh options: Interesting piece from the Halifax Chronicle Herald looking at where Brison and Dryden candidates from Atlantic Canada are likely to go when their candidates drop off. The short version: probably Rae and Dion, but very, very, very few to Ignatieff.

Kirk Cox, Ken Dryden’s Nova Scotia organizer, says it doesn’t look good for Mr. Ignatieff.

"I think the majority will go with Rae or Dion," he says. "I don’t hear a lot of them going to Ignatieff."

Mr. Rae has called Mr. Cox four times looking for his support. He regularly talks to Dryden delegates across the country, and they don’t want Mr. Ignatieff to win.

"I’ve yet to talk to one who will take their vote to him," he said
--
Off the record, several Liberals said Mr. Ignatieff may even have trouble holding all his Nova Scotia delegates after the first or second ballots.

"I’m hearing that a lot of people who signed up for Ignatieff are now second-guessing whether they should have signed up for him or not," said one Liberal who is considering Mr. Rae and Mr. Ignatieff. "He’s very intelligent but he doesn’t seem to be very politically savvy, and that worries people. That’s not what I’m saying. That’s what I’m hearing."

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