Rob Silver asks the tough question

I've been glued to one of the best new political blogs, "Silver-Powers", a dual (duel?) blog on GlobeAndMail.com by two very bright party strategists, Liberal Rob Silver and Conservative Tim Powers.

One of Rob's latest postings asks THE tough question for Liberal MPs...

So either:

(a) The Liberal caucus was UNANIMOUS in supporting both the coalition and Dion as leader until May; or

(b) There are a bunch of MPs in the Liberal caucus who are both cowardly and whose word means little (or whose opinions change with the wind).

Really, this is a binary situation - make your choice.

Rob, a very good question, and I have an answer for you regarding why Liberal MPs do these types of things...

Very few have principle, they go whichever way the wind blows at the moment (or seems to blow), and thus, they have miscalculated the overwhelming view among Canadians that the coalition government isn't what we want, and why the polls show the Liberals at their lowest point in HISTORY.

Friends, that is NOT leadership. And this party wants to form government? That's how they've always been and always will be. If they can't even decide or stand up for anything, you really want them managing the economy at this time?

What drove them ALL to sign the letter for the Governor General? As your blogmate said, "The sniff of power."

Canadians saw that too.

Now that the sniff of power appears to be with Michael Ignatieff, leadership contender, Dominic LeBlanc has ended his bid and joined with Iggy. Too bad. Too bad the Liberal party doesn't respect democracy.

While the other contender, Bob Rae, has embraced the coalition because he's going to need new members joining from the NDP to be delegates at the Liberal convention, perhaps Ignatieff set him a trap and he fell into it.

Ignatieff never publicly said he's for or against the coalition and Bob Rae even had Ignatieff and LeBlanc show their public support for Stephane Dion as leader of the coalition government. I guess that is a wash, now that it appears Dion will step down (read: pushed out) in a few days at the Liberal caucus meeting instead of the originally planned May leadership convention in Vancouver.

Ignatieff's gut instinct was correct though, that the coalition is not a way to build the Liberal party, where it's Bob Rae's way to go.

Now that Dion is gone, and the party needs to accelerate that processes in getting a new leader, and that the coalition is now the so-called the backup plan, the Liberal caucus' new "instinct" is either:

A) the Liberals will support or abstain on the Conservative budget when the House starts up again in January, and resume with its May leadership convention, with Ignatieff having recently shored up caucus support, and Bob Rae will likely retreat from the coalition, but he'll be damaged goods,

or

B) the Liberals will vote against the budget and with new interim/permanent leader, Michael Ignatieff, already in place they will be 'ready' for a new election, and excited that they'll do better.

Ignatieff left the door open for Harper to have a strong budget.

I didn't mention the machinations of how the Liberals are picking their new leader, because frankly, it doesn't really matter. If the Liberal caucus does it this week and names Ignatieff as interim to replace Dion and decides it's not going to have a convention and says Ignatieff is permanent leader, it's going to divide the party for a while, but eventually, Liberals will balk, because "Ignatieff was going to be leader anyway, so get behind him or go hang out with Bob Rae."

So in my opinion, this coalition idea is as good as dead. And you know who's to thank? You. It's the thousands of Canadians who went out to show support for democracy and against the coalition takeover.

So now, it's up to Michael Ignatieff to decide if he wants to fight an election in February/March or if he wants to wait until May and spend cash on a leadership bid that he'll win anyway, raise money for the Liberals and then fight an election next fall.

Because I think he knows the Conservatives would win a majority in February/March, and so he'd will be opposition leader for 4 years.

That would be the smart thing to do, to wait, as it gives voters an opportunity to see who he is as opposition leader while they grow weary of Harper, otherwise, if he fights an election this February/March, people won't know him as well, and will be hesitant, while the Conservatives go neg on his ambition for power with the coalition, exposing his actual view against it and dividing the Liberals, while economic numbers improve, showing the Conservatives as good managers.