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Stephane Dion undecided as usual

IN HOC SIGNO said:
I think it's a mantra that they have trouble giving up and there are plenty of folks out there that still believe this....especially here in Atlantic Canada. I think it's hard for them to come up with anything else. The economy is doing well ( a huge surplus just reported), jobs have been created, and they've managed to run a fairly tight ship so far. They've tried the "he's a control freak" tact which isn't really resonating with Canadians (who cares if the Press Gallery doesn't get fed spin every day), they've tried the "he isn't living up to Kyoto" tact which isn't really resonating as most ordinary Canadians have no idea what Kyoto is all about anyway, they've tried the "mini-Bush, anti-american tact" which always goes down well with the left wingers who are mostly in the minority in this country....so now it's a return to the "hidden agenda" tact. It's much easier to dream up stuff that they might have up their sleeve than actually use facts and figures of what's actually happening. I noticed one guy in the CTV site referring to Harper as "scary" again today....obviously that one is still in their talking points playbook too. I'm still not sure what all this scary stuff is about as the man has been power for almost 2 years and he seems refreshingly normal to me.....guy with two kids, a wife and a few cats....likes people around him who are loyal and usually thinks before he answers a question and if he doesn't know the answer doesn't try to fake it (for the most part).

Dion on the other hand seems to open his mouth to shift position of the two feet that are already stuck in there. Undecided seems to be a kind way of putting this guys position on most things I've read or listened to with respect to him. I imagine the Liberals are looking for a way to ease this guy back to his ivory tower in the University world before he completely ruins the Liberal party.

Excellent summary! Only problem I have with PM Harper, is that he doesn't have a dog! Sure cats are great, but a dog, well us dog people are upset that the PM doesn't have one!  >:D
 
It looks like Dion's got another dog...besides Kyoto though (he called his dog Kyoto)
check this out...looks like the knives are coming out......shared with disclaimers and all that stuff from CTV website this morning.

Liberal rift erupts over aide close to Dion


Liberal Leader Stephane Dion speaks to reporters after meeting with his Quebec caucus in Montreal on Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Graham Hughes)

The Canadian Press
 
Updated: Thu. Sep. 27 2007 6:23 PM ET

OTTAWA —

Stephane Dion's palace guard was under seige Thursday by members of his own party calling on the Liberal leader to dismiss one of his closest aides over alleged remarks about Quebec.



Several MPs and senators from the province have been pleading privately for him to fire Jamie Carroll, the Liberals' national director and one of the key players in Dion's leadership victory.


They are now making their demands public.


Witnesses at a closed-door meeting this week say Carroll was dismissive when some Quebec Liberals suggested their leader's entourage needed more people who were bilingual and from the province.


According to witnesses Carroll remarked that if he hired more Quebecers, then he'd have to hire more Chinese.


Carroll says the conversation has been mischaracterized and twisted out of context.


But some of his outraged colleagues still want him gone.


"I called party headquarters to tell them we can't tolerate that in this party,'' Montreal MP Pablo Rodriguez said in an interview.


"I don't see how Mr. Carroll could remain in his role with comments like that.''


If Dion didn't have enough headaches with his party's woeful fundraising, poor recent byelection results, and a possible federal election approaching, he now has to deal with a public war between members of his party and one of his top organizers.


Carroll said in a statement he never meant to insult Quebecers, or Chinese-Canadians.


He said he agrees with increasing the number of francophone Quebecers working in the national office, but also believes the party must reflect Canada's growing diversity.


But the head of the Liberals' Quebec wing also wants Carroll gone.


Robert Fragasso says party members support Dion, but adds that the leader is not a populist and he needs more contact with ground-level organizers from his home province.


Fragasso was at the meeting with Carroll where the exchange on the subject came up. The remarks from the national director, he said, will divide the party and pit francophone Quebecers against anglophones.


"I informed our party president -- (Marie) Poulin -- that very night that I would demand his resignation,'' he said.


"We can't ask a national director who holds such a scornful attitude and who has such retrograde ideas toward Quebec to be the person who unites everyone leading toward the next election. Come on.''


Party president Marie Poulin was also quoted by the Journal de Montreal newspaper saying Carroll made a joke at the meeting and she didn't find it funny.


Another senior Quebec Liberal says party stalwart Denis Coderre was livid and also asked national headquarters to remove Carroll. Coderre refused to be interviewed.


But that senior Liberal says that the one-line crack about hiring Quebecers is only the latest cause for annoyance with Carroll, and that several key Liberals have already tried urging Dion to dump him.


He questioned Carroll's understanding of the Elections Act and bemoaned the party's woeful fundraising record.


Party sources last May said deputy leader Michael Ignatieff tried urging Dion to dump Carroll.


Although displeased with Carroll's public musings, sources said Dion indicated that he would not fire his hand-picked choice for the party's top administrative post.


Ignatieff was incensed by comments from Carroll in a new book, "Against the Current.''


In it, Carroll expressed doubts about Dion's decision to extend an olive branch to his former leadership rivals and said he loses sleep at night worrying about how they might undermine the leader.


The Tories wasted little time in joining the flock criticizing one of Dion's top lieutenants.


"Carroll made some really bizarre, eye-raising remarks. Apparently Liberals themselves find them, at best, distasteful,'' said Conservative cabinet minister Jason Kenney.


"He seems to be insulting two different groups at the same time, showing terribly bad judgment.


"This doesn't reflect well on Stephane Dion, who should hold this guy accountable.''

 
The Conservative party didn't fly with Preston Manning and it didn't with Stockwell Day.

The Liberal party didn't fly too well with Paul Martin and sank like a rock with Stephane Dion.... time to say:

"Check Please" and find someone else.

IMHO
 
Geo,

The liberal spin machine was one of the big reasons the conservatives had
so much trouble early on.
Presto was simply too honest a man for liberal dominated politics and the
liberals had managed to turn "Christian" into a "scary" word.

Now..........All that's over. The liberal machine is decaying and collapsing
onto itself.  The die-nasty is over.

Swapping out Dion as though he were a defective part would only mask
the symptom. - No, the liberals will have to earn a resurgence and I hope it
takes a long time.

I've said it before - Dion is the perfect guy for his job and his roll in history.



 
'Today Canada is politically and socially constipated. Nothing moves, or at least not in a desirable direction. Crooks, frauds, revivalists, the over-empowered under-brained, believers and mouth-breathers and unabashed lunatics—all of these have so firmly gummed up the gears that improvement founders. Someone seems to have poured glue into the political kaleidoscope. Little point exists in curmudgeing at the bastards.'

(With regards to Fred)
 
Flip said:
Geo,

The liberal spin machine was one of the big reasons the conservatives had
so much trouble early on.
Presto was simply too honest a man for liberal dominated politics and the
liberals had managed to turn "Christian" into a "scary" word.

Now..........All that's over. The liberal machine is decaying and collapsing
onto itself.  The die-nasty is over.

Swapping out Dion as though he were a defective part would only mask
the symptom. - No, the liberals will have to earn a resurgence and I hope it
take a long time.

I've said it before - Dion is the perfect guy for his job and his roll in history.

+1 He is very representative of their whole problem.....epitomized by his now famous sound bite..." we have to get back in power." that is their solution...not "we have to fix the problems in our party, win the trust and respect of canadians and then get back in power with a new and revitalized party." just "we need to get back in power (unspoken...because we are the natural governing party and the others are just scary neo-con wingnuts)" Until they realize that their problem runs deep and that they need to cleanse themselves they will continue to have problems.
 
Mr Dion is highly intellectual....
which is not to say intelligent..........
 
Geo,

He might even be intelligent.
Doesn't make him leadership material.

There are all sorts of really bright people who should never
be allowed to lead a bottle drive much less a member country
of the G8.

Regards..........
 
Ayup, I think we are reading from the same playbook
 
TheStar.com - comment - Confidence in Dion reaches crisis level

September 28, 2007
Chantal Hébert

Ottawa

Big parties are like big ships. They are designed to be virtually unsinkable but once they start taking on water they tend to go down quickly.

The listing Liberal Party of Canada is fast approaching the point of no return.

Over a bit more than a week, the cracks caused by a triple by-election hit have expanded into a gaping hole.

Far from being contained, the damage has been allowed to spread, prompting a full-fledged confidence crisis in Stéphane Dion's ability to lead the party.

In Quebec – the ground zero of this disaster – a CROP poll published Wednesday showed the party to be the choice of barely one in 10 francophones.

Dion has now overtaken premier Jean Charest as the least popular political leader in the province.

In large part as a result of wilful negligence on the part of Dion's brain trust, potential star candidates are bowing out.

Earlier this week, former astronaut Marc Garneau stopped waiting for a signal that he was welcome under the Dion tent.

Against such a backdrop, one might think that the last thing on the mind of the Quebec wing of the party would be a fall election but the opposite is true.

Dion, for one, is still convinced that he will have more resonance in a campaign than in the House of Commons.

He told his Quebec caucus as much on Wednesday.

That view is shared by members of the shrinking group of Quebec Liberals who still have faith in their leader.

For the many others who have lost confidence in his leadership abilities – or who never had any – an election can't come a day too soon.

Leaving aside the fact that a campaign is likely a prerequisite to any successful attempt to dump Dion as leader, most Quebec Liberals feel that an immediate fight against the Conservatives would ultimately wreak less damage on the party than six more months of corrosive internal unrest.

For the latter is what awaits the federal Liberals in the absence of a fall trip to the polls.

Between next month's Speech from the Throne and an election-setting Conservative budget in the spring, Dion can realistically expect no improvement in his prospects in Quebec.

On that score, suffice it to say that most Liberal incumbents figure that their chances of holding on to their seats are actually better now than they might be next year.

Because they have so little left to lose in the province, other Liberals may be tempted to whistle past their Quebec graveyard.

But Dion's Quebec-lite inner circle would be deluded to think it can insulate the party's prospects in other parts of the country from its implosion in the leader's home province.

They are more likely to go hand in hand, in particular in Ontario.

Until now the Liberal brand name has kept the party afloat in its Ontario heartland.

But the ongoing Quebec demise goes to the heart of Liberal claims to the status of national institution and to the core issue of Dion's managerial competence.

Dion's prospects are stark indeed.

He can lead his mutinous crew in an uncertain fall campaign over next month's throne speech or else risk becoming the main protagonist of what could become the biggest shipwreck Parliament Hill has witnessed since Stockwell Day almost took the Canadian Alliance down with him in 2001.

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/261488








 
I love the insights of Chantal Hebert and I think she is right on the money.
 
The liberal supporters are so cheap they don't donate money to their Utopian Party or on a personal or professional level.  The left is broke, they are so use to being in power they've forgotten  how to fund raise.  Alas they are use to we the unwashed masses paying to get them elected that they've forgotten that most of  their followers don't work for a living or are in the no-tax bracket.  I love IRONY.

I hate "Socialism" but not social policies.  Opps I just felt a liberal sticking their  hand in me purse for more money again.  Will they never learn.

Note to self: Buy more bug/Liberal spray for said purse.
 
Sassy,
The fundraisers haven't forgotten how to do it... the fundgivers aren't coughing up any cash to finance this bunch of clowns.
 
Heh.... Happy turkey day everyone.
 
IN HOC SIGNO said:
Dion on the other hand seems to open his mouth to shift position of the two feet that are already stuck in there. Undecided seems to be a kind way of putting this guy's position on most things I've read or listened to with respect to him. I imagine the Liberals are looking for a way to ease this guy back to his ivory tower in the University world before he completely ruins the Liberal party.

  You make it sound like ruining the Liberals would be a bad thing.
 
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