Allan Rock not Running
Well it looks like Allan Rock has bowed out, and all I can say is good riddance. If the party wishes to renew itself, the last thing it needs is a Trudeau type Liberal who still believes in big government. We lost votes to both the NDP and Conservatives so we must get someone who is fiscally conservative but socially progressive. We need someone who can appeal to the broad middle in order to bring back centre-right votes we lost to the Conservatives and centre-left votes we lost to the NDP. If we focus too much on one side, we'll lose the next election. Chretien was successful since he was able to draw people from both those groups and the next leader needs to be able to do the same.
posted by Monkey Loves to Fight at 7:15 AM
2 Comments:
I agree pretty much. Chretien won his elections based on platforms which had the fusion of Trudeau Liberalism and fiscal conservatism. Furthermore, the Liberals just need to stand...somewhere. The problem with Martin's government is that they had no real stance. They were centre-right one day, centre-left the next. The lack of a basic political foundation alienated many voters on both flanks. The next leader must pick a stance- centre, centre-left, centre-right- that the party must run on, and it must stick with that, should it want to succeed next election.
P.S. Don't you think your pictures of Martin and Harper are a little "outdated"? Maybe it's me, but shouldn't you at least replace Martin with a pic or Bill Graham or something...eh, eh? ;)
I'll be changing my side captions shortly. I think the next leader can be both centre-left and centre-right provided they are centre-left and centre-right on different issues. I've argued being fiscally conservative but socially progressive is probably the best stance. I think it is when one flip flops on an individual issue. Most people don't blindly follow any ideology, but there should be at least a good reason for supporting any particular policy.
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