A forgettable year later

This time one year ago I'd just left the Liberal leadership convention in Montreal for a work conference in sunny Las Vegas. Unfortunately the luck of the weekend didn’t carry over to the gaming tables, and it seemed like the luck faded quickly for Stephane Dion and the LPC as well. The honeymoon, such as it was, was very short.

It had certainly been a euphoric weekend. I was a very early Dion supporter but I’d never thought we’d actually win, and as I got to Montreal and things began to roll it did almost seem unbelievable, even as it was happening. It was a historic achievement, a weekend I’ll never forget. A year on though how far away that weekend, and those emotions, now seem.

As a Dion supporter I want to be fair in my evaluation of the past year, but I also don’t want to be unfairly harsh. It has certainly been a forgettable year; indeed, it has seemed like a year of one step forward, two steps back. Bottom line is while we remain neck and neck with the Conservatives in most polls, we haven’t gained an inch of ground either.

As the leader, Dion needs to shoulder a great deal of the blame for where we are. That comes with the mantle of leadership and besides, he hasn’t done a good job of leading our party.

There has been little to no progress on party reform; Dion was elected by a grassroots groundswell against the party elites yet nothing has changed. The communications strategy of the OLO has been a mess. We’ve let the Conservatives set the agenda, and get the better of us on most issues. The caucus and party bureaucracy haven’t come together’ leaks and backbiting have been rampant, critics haven’t stayed on message, and those that have gone off the reservation haven’t been smacked-down.

More importantly, we’ve let the Conservatives define us. Their ‘not a leader’ ads have been proven a valuable investment, but their impact was magnified by the lack of any sustained, coherent counter-messaging on our side. We’ve made little to no effort to define Dion, so the Conservatives have been more then happy to do it for us.

That’s the bad, in short form. And while, as I said, Dion needs to take his fair share of blame as he is the leader and, frankly, he hasn’t gotten it done, much of the problems lay much deeper. We’re a party still fractured from the civil war of the Chretien/Martin era, still suffering from post-sponsorshipitis, still needing to find our way. These challenges were going to be there, and were going to be very difficult to overcome, no matter whom we elected a year ago.

To say things would be much different today if we’d elected someone else a year ago would be naive, simplistic, and just plain wrong. I won’t go through and list the negatives of all the other candidates, we all know what they are and they aren’t insubstantial. Suffice to say, the Conservatives had a game plan ready to go and attack ads in the hopper for all of them, with the possible exception of Joe Volpe.

To say it would be different with another leader is to paper over the real issues we were facing, and still face, as a party. It’s the attitude of those who still see our last election loss as a mere aberration, a temporary setback before we return to electoral majority glory and all is once again right in the world.

I say again, as I have before, that it was no mere aberration. What happened to the momentum for party reform, for reclaiming the Liberal Party? It seems we’ve become so tunneled-in on the next election it’s been forgotten. It’s probably too late now, but we really need a policy convention; the needed soul searching still hasn’t happened.

Anyway, despite the negatives of this year, and the missed opportunities, things aren’t really as bad as some would have us believe. While we’ve failed to grow, we’ve held back Conservative growth and we’re in the thick of the fight. We’ve got good issues to tackle the Conservatives on, we’re well positioned on certain key issues, and with the notable exception of Quebec (and Alberta) we’re in very good shape in the polls, with growth potential in B.C., the Prairies, Ontario and the Maritimes.

Mock me if you must but examine the numbers and you’ll see if we run a solid, error-free campaign we have a decent shot at a Liberal minority government. Of course, that’s a helluva big if. Still, it’s a much more plausible scenario then the one I would paint in the spring of 2006 when people asked me how in the heck Stephane Dion could ever ascend to the leadership.

The opportunity is there but only if we, and if Dion, are ready to seize it. We need to come together as a party, as it’s going to need to be all hands on deck. We need to rally behind Dion but, more importantly, he needs to really us behind him. Get back to his core strengths; going to Bali is a good start. Start talking clear and detailed policy alternatives, don’t just be attacking all the time. Chose your spots, and oppose with class. Get the whole team involved but make sure it’s clear who the boss is, and ship-out those that won’t shape-up.

The last two opposition leaders to become PMs had very forgettable first years as well. A success in the next election and this past year will be forgotten. The fact is our destiny is still very much in our own hands. What we do with it is up to us.

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